Finally got this, sat down, and beat it once through with my brother last night. It really is a great old-school throw-back, and probably one of the most legit fusions of older and newer BEU details, with a heavy skew to the solid old details.
I didn't become a huge master of parry, even though the game is designed to allow you to do this. People don't appreciate how NICE it is to see properly made enemies that telegraph their movements, and have recognizable animations and behaviors. I think this is one of the things that not even many OLD games did well (especially the more Arcadey Konami School of games). Even animating the "GET OFF ME!" anti-grapple from the bosses helps show how well the game understands that CHARACTER ACTION should be the "tutorial" for what's going on in a game, not speech bubbles and needing to look stuff up online. Those are fine, but arcade games were build up pick-up-and-play, not pick-up-and-then-need-a-video-or-book-to-understand-how-to-beat-stage-1, lol.
Combo system feels nice and intuitive. I love being able to cancel my blow-back attacks into jump down + attack, normal jump attack, and then into a free SP meter special, all for a nice, solid juggle chain. Or how dashing attacks leave the enemy floating in the perfect spot for a punch chain after recovery. In this way, the dev seems to understand how I want to move better than many SNES era BEUs, which always ended up feeling needlessly obtuse, and lacking in responsiveness (though I still enjoyed them.)
On to the graphic style... it's aces, and I find it funny anyone is bothered by the "cute" aspect. It... doesn't lean on being "cute" at all. It just looks like this is what the artist is good at, and he developed it well. "SD"-ish style just makes faces big enough to see, limbs pronounced enough to stand out, and it does a good job of helping the wide-screen real-estate feel as if it's being fully used.
I also love the fact that there's a nice amount of sprite variation in the bonus colors, and defaults. Seeing things like hair bows disappear, outfits change, mask being added, and even the characters modified to be normal mooks, is a good way to expand the cast while still making everything nice and beautifully animated.
On the fanservicey nature of Gal and the Girls... MAN, a lot of modern sprite artist can't resist animating breasts really, really smoothly. I mean... it works, but it's so prevalent. It's not as over-blown as some other things out there, and it doesn't really go beyond "look they move a lot!", which I'm thankful for. All the guys are also awesome looking beefcake example of muscle, and there's more of them than there are females, so...
The biggest takeaway for the art is that it's original, not a "Me Too!" or basically anything else out there, and actually seems to understand the basic boundaries that old arcade games sat within. It's not Hyper-Violent, Hyper-Vulgar, or even Hyper-Cute, or cheerful. It's not trying to out-do anything to get cheap attention, it's just doing what it does, and doing it really well. This feels pretty rare in the world now-a-days, so I appreciate it.
Onto the lack of online play... eh. People Begged and BEGGED for online in a lot of old XBLA games, and on many modern console games, and it's amazing how much of a ghost-town titles will STILL be, and how little they'll be discussed, even if the feature is added. It seems more and more evident that having online doesn't just simple guarantee sales of success. You have to make solid lobbies, saved and account sharing and use have to be adjusted for it, and often times gameplay will be changed at the base level, to make the offline experience match up with the online expectation. Getting solid Local to work first should always be a preceding matter, because Online will always be a system-extension of good Co-Op, first. And before that, just making a good game.
Also note that you can buy a mode (with in-game currency, earned by score) to get a CPU partner to fight alongside you. It's not perfect Co-Op, but it's one that's a smart addition, that not many games of this type ever add.
Adding online could do nothing but help the game now, though, so it'd be great to see it added. Like... if SEBA can get it onto consoles, Online should definitely be one of the biggest additions at the time.
Oh, and the music is also great. It is VERY ASW-like, but... I might like it better, due to more instrument variety than some of their games. The style is loud and bombastic, but it never felt predictable. I was refreshingly impressed with the next stages themes.
Last Shout-out, YAY FOR ALTERNATE PATHS! Most branches seem obvious, so it definitely draws me to dive right back in later. I actually would have been OK with less stages per path, and more paths in exchange. But the way it works out seems solid.
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On the downsides? I do slightly wish there was something to help pick your character out of a crowd. Your colors are unique, sure, but with modern-pixel-game use of faux lighting, darker areas can make the image of character-and-flesh meld together. I actually DIDN'T have much personal issue, because the responsive controls gave me a great since of screen awareness. But I can see this being a large hassle for others.
None of the unlockable characters seem to be usable in the Arcade Mode? Doh! I can see why, but I'd have liked to been able to play a "bonus character" path, or a mode without any story, with the mooks. Maybe an extra mode will allow this?
How's the local multiplayer? Fun? Might pick this up for my roommate and I.
It's great. My Brother and I beat a path with Gal and
Guy Norris, and it was great fun all the way through. We also didn't encounter any glitches.