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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Guilty Gear and BlazBlue developers Arc System Works were slow to take to PC, but they are now steadily bringing their games over – a few years behind their console releases, admittedly. I’m jolly excited, then, that Arc have bought up the rights to a load of games that I’d be delighted to see them take on in their technically and visually beautiful way.

River City Ransom, Super Dodge Ball, the rest of the Kunio-kun series, and Double Dragon are among the games Arc now owns after picking up the catalogue of their creators, Technos Japan. Obviously they have plans for them. Hopefully these plans include PC releases.

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Any time Arc System Works announce something about Guilty Gear on PC, I hope it’s them bringing the gorgeous (and ridiculously-named) Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- our way. Xrd sent the fighting game series from gorgeous hand-animated sprites to gorgeous hand-animated 3D, looking a squillion times better than Street Fighter IV. Seriously, watch this GDC talk about its style.

Anyway, no: it’s not that. Arc are still a few years behind on PC, though today they’re another step closer to caught-up with the PC release of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R [official site].

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Cor, what a month for fighting games on PC! Last week brought the announcement of a port for Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, which’ll be the series real PC debut, then yesterday saw the PC release of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend (well, sorta – I’ll explain). Next week will bring The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition too. You might deduce from the lengthy names that these are refined versions of their parent games. Anyway, I’m glad to see that the BlazBlue and KoF series have done well enough on PC to keep coming.

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