Fantasy Strike
PC, PS4, Switch
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and Fantasy Strike’s is woeful. It’s been designed to demystify a famously complex genre while retaining the essence of what makes fighting games so thrilling. The introductory tutorial, however, makes a complete hash of it. “Attack the sparring partners with A,” we’re told. So, naturally, we press the A button, and the tutorial fails to advance. A quick look at the onscreen key tells us that our A attack is actually on the Y button, B is X, C is A and J is B.
To David Sirlin – the designer behind the remade, rebalanced version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and a sequel to chess – this all doubtless makes perfect sense. So too must the art style, which if we were feeling generous we’d call “distinct” but are more inclined to deem “belligerently ugly”. Likewise, he seems content to ignore how characters from his card-based fighting game Yomi being placed into a button-based one has only served to emphasise how beholden they are to Capcom’s. Grave is a less charismatic Ryu with a sword, while Setsuki is Ibuki if her hairdresser found out she’d been sleeping with her husband.
It would be tempting to write it off immediately as yet another misguided attempt at an accessible fighting
game. But Fantasy Strike soon makes clear that it’s much more. At times, it’s positively electric stuff. Normal, special and super attacks are usually done via a single button press; at a push, they may also require a directional input. There’s no crouch or dash to speak of, and we don’t miss either. Move lists and combos are short, meaning it’s easy to quickly get a handle on a character – and Fantasy Strike does, dare we say it, a genre-leading job of explaining their options (see Hands-off approach). Visual effects for frame advantage tell you how safe or unsafe the move you’ve just used is. Then there’s the Yomi counter, which forces you to let go of the controls completely to tech normal throws. For genre diehards, it’s initially confusing, but the benefit is soon clear: it places the emphasis on reading your opponent, instead of merely reacting to them.
It’s a game that lets you focus on swift, informed decision-making rather than execution – we find ourselves mentally exhausted after playing for long stretches. But it’s worth it: we’ve stopped mashing entirely, trained out of it. It’s heartbreaking that this is destined to go the way of Pocket Rumble (we’re already struggling to find matches online). What we’ve got here is one of the most thoughtfully constructed fighters we’ve ever played, but Fantasy Strike initially presents as off-puttingly amateurish, and we fear few are likely to give it the second chance it deserves.