The problem with Dragon Ball is that there are just too many Gokus. Diet Goku, Regular Goku, Blueberry Goku, Goku Black and probably more besides – a little bit silly for one Goku and his immediate family to make up half the dang cast. Not a trend that’ll be ending soon either, at least according to Dragon Ball FighterZ‘s first set of DLC characters.

Gearing up for release on March 28th are Bardock (Goku’s Dad), and Broly, who is technically unrelated but sure as hell looks like a Goku to me. Android 16 has a lot of work ahead of him.
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It’s not just me, right? A brawler (also known a beat-em-up) is a game in the vein of Final Fight or Streets Of Rage, no? A duo or trio of co-op heroes against waves of expendable mooks? Well, the Humble Brawler Bundle doesn’t contain any of those.

What it does contain is a great selection of fighting games to start off the collection of someone looking to get into the genre, mostly focused around the back-catalogue of Arc System Works, who recently shook up the scene with Dragon Ball FighterZ.

It also contains a lot of Anime, with a capital A. You have been warned.

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Sometimes you get a hankering to turn the Anime up to 11, and sometimes you need to go even further. Arc System Works, still sizzling with success after Dragon Ball FighterZ, are gearing up for a PC release of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, a mashup of their long-running Blazblue series, Persona 4 Arena (a spinoff of the excellent JRPG), the indie-developed Under Night In-Birth and American-made pseudo-anime RWBY.

While I had been worried that Arc System Works had lost their way and were planning on pricing the crossover fighting game to death, their recent announcement of the release date and pricing structure makes the planned 20-character season pass sound a little more reasonable than I was expecting.

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My knowledge of Dragon Ball Z comes mostly from Britney Spears posting her son’s fan art and cosplay on her Instagram but dang, even I’m a bit excited by today’s launch of Dragon Ball FighterZ. The fighting game looks anime as heck the best way, with flashy animations and stage-smashing attacks, and it’s made by the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue folks so it should decent biffing and all. Our review isn’t ready yet, as we wanted to see the game in its live state, so for now here’s word that it’s out and a warning that some players are finding their fightsticks don’t work with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Arc System Works, the Japanese face-punchers behind the BlazBlue games and the surprisingly rad-looking Dragon Ball FighterZ, are bringing yet another of their fighting games our way. They’ve confirmed a PC release for BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, a tag-team fighting game which throws together characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena (Arc’s fighting game based on Atlus’s magic teen RPG), French-Bread’s Under Night In-Birth (which Arc publish on PC), and… Rooster Teeth’s web cartoon Rwby? How curious! I’m still left wishing Persona 4 would come to PC but hey, at least we finally have The Man’s approval to make Chie kick faces on PC in some form. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s news for all you Ballheads. The system requirements for 3v3 anime punchathon Dragon Ball FighterZ have been unveiled by Bandai Namco. We also forgot to tell you the release date that was announced last year, so here you go: it’s coming out on January 25. That’s just two weeks from this bright cold day. Anyway, you’ll find the minimum and recommended bits and bobs below. Read the rest of this entry »

Dragon Ball, the anime/manga which launched a thousand AOL screen names, is becoming a new fighting game made by Arc System Works. I’ve not been interested in the many Dragon Ball games Bandai Namco have made before, but their decision to draft Arc to make Dragon Ball FighterZ [official site] has me interested. Arc are the studio behind BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, Persona 4 Arena, and other respectable face-punchers, y’see. The 3v3 fighting game’s announcement trailer includes a great many explosions, including a handblast so powerful it zaps out into space. I’m certainly onboard with colours and lights and shouting. Here, have a look yourself: Read the rest of this entry »

For years, the PC was short of fighting games. The bigguns stayed in arcades and on consoles, our home-grown ones were a bit wonky, and we certainly didn’t have Salty Bet. Now, goodness me, we’ve more fights than a pub car park. Along with (most of) the big-name series, loads of neat smaller games, we get the odd games too, such as Chaos Code -New Sign of Catastrophe- [official site]. FK Digital’s fight ’em up arrived on PC last week, with a cast ranging from a manga artist to a chef. Have a look: Read the rest of this entry »

The old-school biff-bopping of a beloved NES beat ’em up has resumed with the release of River City Ransom: Underground [official site], an official licensed revival. It bleeps! It bloops! It barfs! It is, to refresh your memory, a scrolling beat ’em up with a touch of action-RPG as a group of plucky heroes kick the living heck out of badguys. I’m still delighted seeing how elaborate and acrobatic some of their moves are. Peep this: Read the rest of this entry »

A new Double Dragon arrived this week, looking very much like the old one, and more throwback beatdowns are coming later this month with River City Ransom: Underground [official site]. The crowdfunded revival of ye olde side-scrolling beat ’em up will launch on February 27th, developers Conatus Creative have announced. Watching a new trailer, I am delighted by the combination of acrobatic attacks and enemies pulling goofy slack-jawed faces as they’re biffed about. Have a look: Read the rest of this entry »

“They don’t make ’em like they used to!” croaks some dreadful sketch show character. Perhaps their name is Harold, or Maude. Each episode, they visit a shop – a china shop, a car showroom, an ironmonger, etc. – and forcefully ‘test’ products in ways that ultimately trash the whole place. Shelves fall, cabinets collapse, windows break, and the teapots/cars/hammers lie in pieces. After Maude (or Harold) is shoved out the door, they sigh to the camera and croak: “They don’t make ’em like they used to!” This awful joke dies over eighteen episodes.

The Double Dragon gang very much do make ’em like they used to. Double Dragon 4 [official site] launched yesterday and the beat ’em up looks oh so very 1988. Read the rest of this entry »

Arc System Works are making a new retro-styled Double Dragon beat ’em up, even rounding up some of the original DD gang to chip in. Double Dragon IV [official site] will hit later this month and…. huh! What a curious bit of news. This NES-lookin’ throwdown is certainly the opposite of Double Dragon: Neon, the radtacular cowabungical modern revival by WayForward. Arc were nothing to do with Neon, mind, as they picked up the rights to Double Dragon only in 2015. Seems they fancied making some real old-school Double Dragon. Huh! Weird. Read the rest of this entry »

The next game from Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada, named Birthdays the Beginning [official site], is coming our way next year. Birthdays is a cute little sandbox about carving a teensy Minecraft-y world out of a cube in space to develop and support an ecosystem of everything from plants to dinosaurs. A console released was announced a while back, and now we know it’ll be on PC too. Have a peek at its cubeworlds in this Japanese trailer:

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Following on from the likes of Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign-, Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!!, and BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend, Arc System Works are making good on their promise to bring 2D anime-inspired fighting games with long and absurd names to Steam. The latest arrival, boasting an equally sublime and ridiculous title, is Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code [official site].

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BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend [official site] is the video game equivalent of She Sells Sea-shells on the Seashore. Go on, say it three times out loud as fast as you can without tripping over your tongue – it’s Friday, I’m sure your boss/teacher/lecturer/cat will understand. And while you struggle with that let me tell you that Arc’s revised fighting game is now out on PC, bringing with it a new exclusive mode and a fistful of features previously sold as DLC on its console and handheld editions.

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Street Fighter IV brought the 2D sprite fighting game art style nicely into a world of 3D models and swooshing cameras, but deary me the transition in Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- [official site] is amazing. Developers Arc System Works took a few years longer than Capcom to switch their series to 3D, but ended up with a game looking a whole lot like, well, hand-drawn art. Now it’s coming to PC real soon: tomorrow.

Arc have also announced PC releases for four other games, some they made and some they’re publishing: sports compilation River City Super Sports Challenge -All Stars Special- plus fighting games BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Extend, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, and Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code (what a name!).

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No, Arc System Works still haven’t brought Guilty Gear Xrd to PC. Their cruelty continues, as today they announced they’re instead bringing Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! [official site] our way next and I did not change the punctuation or capitalisation of that name at all because it is amazing.

The all-female fighting game developed by Examu was first released to arcades in 2009, then consoles in 2011, and will finally come to Windows on September 29th. Come observe anime schoolgirls, witches, and goodness knows who else beating the heck out of each other with some pleasingly colourful special moves:

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Those terrible teases at Arc System Works are continuing to tweak my nose by releasing everything but what I want: the gorgeous Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN. Ah well, more fighting games from that lot coming to PC is good all the same.

Overnight they released Battle Fantasia -Revised Edition- [official site], a tarted-up version of their 2.5D fantasy man-puncher from 2007. Unfortunately, it sounds like it has a problem or two.

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