We've known that it was going to be 40 bucks for years actually, that was one of the few things that was clear and consistent from the publisher announcement and initial target release dates. Definitely pricey for an indie fighting game, even if not full price.
@@DrKatz31 All of those games blow Blazing Strike's current offering out of the water without even trying. And for other examples, check out Pocket Bravery or Dojo Masters, both of which are far more complete than Blazing Strike at half the price or less.
I am an avid fighting game player and i have to admit this is indefensible at this price. Look at pocket bravery, which is so much more feature complete and launched at $20 with 2 dlc passes bringing the total to $30. It was worth $30 without that in my opinion and the game goes on sale pretty often. If you want to compre it to a solo developed game, merfight, while less visually impressive is a total package of solid fighting game mechanics, robust arcade, story mode, and trials, and even has pretty innovative mechanics like partial charge attacks. All that and the game is regularly $5. This price point is just insane at this quality.
@@azizkash286 Most indie fighters end up "dead" honestly so I don't get you're point. That's why they should be good packages that you can recommend to other people. The thing about fighting games is that you don't need a lot of people to have a good time if you're dedicated to the game.
@@S-treme How did you get 6 likes. Are people this fucking stupid these days ? THE GAMES YOU MENTIONED ARE OFFLINE,STORY ONLY GAMES THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LAST. AND WHY WOULD YOU CARE IF SOMEONE IS PLAYING OR NOT PLAYING AN OFFLINE FUCKING GAME ??????????????????????????
@azizkash286 yeah I'd only buy pocket bravery buy digital code some storefronts have and buy the dlc separately as they have no timetable after the 1st 2 (Rick and Brandon). Fun game and better than this mess at least. But yeah we got collections like mvc and capcom fighting classics 2 next year (with fatal fury that includes season pass 1 for $60 and lovely mai, to be way better than db sparking zero), let alone many go dirt cheap fast to compete (cfc1, mk11, umvc3, and capcom arcade stadium games has some street fighter stuff, with 2 having Saturday night slam masters wrestling beat em up let alone 30th anny). Only more crowded genre is probably the vampire survivors knockoffs, which knock off is a fighting kickstarter lol. Many beat em ups too, which karate kid and gi joe suck.
I think having footage correlate with the moves and mechanics you are talking about would really help with a game like this that many people won’t have exposure to… I don’t feel like I really got a good understanding of the rush system just by hearing about it and looking for it in unrelated gameplay
I would have used more specific footage if I had gotten my key for the game sooner. But I really only had like 4 days to make this whole video - play it, collect my thoughts, write the script, etc - to have it line up with the release date of the game.
I appreciate you not softballing it. I was just about to buy it in the middle of this video just because I liked some of the designs and then I saw the $40 pricetag and noped out HARD. Also, yeah, I complained about tying dashing to meter with the most recent version of FEXL and I'll do it here too.
really feels like the publisher pushed it out despite things not being done/the dev taking too long. it’s a shame, hopefully they get to make updates to it later but yeah. watching footage it’s like everything lacks inbetween frames, just the key frames are there. it could use another year of dev
Honest question. What is the role of a publisher in game development? Are they only in charge of the marketing? I wonder if Aksys does not even have basic QA to check the products that they publish. Don't they provide any sort of support to the development team? Do they provide a budget?
@@gcavrubio That really depends on the contract. Some publishers foot the development bill and offer QA, some just package and market the game for e.g. console ports. It's a wildly varied landscape and you can get anything from "full development costs and development support, but you are paid royalties only when we recoup everything" to "we just handle the distribution and get a flat %"
@@battlemode I published a game with a publisher and yeah, it's a serious decision. I would advise it mostly for console ports, since the whole certification process is kinda of painful and having a publisher there removes a lot of pressure from your shoulders.
The sad part is I commented on a WIP version of this years ago about the game's potential but many missteps and to think that little was done between then and now is a huge blunder. I'm still going to buy it (on a huge sale), but I hope this serves as a major learning opportunity for the devs and that they take a different approach with their next game (if there is a "next" game... but they probably won't based on comments in this video). Good video.
That is a shame to hear. I wanted to get this game because the character designs were done by one of my favorite artists (AbsolumArt). I guess I'll wait for it to be more complete.
@@beatthebag It's not gonna get more sales if the initial product doesn't justify a $40 dollar purchase, which it doesn't, and I honestly regret pushing such a hopeful angle in the outro of this video.
@@GohLow Yeah but starting from $40 gives them room to come down. If they start at $40, everybody sais it should be $20. If they started at $20 everybody would be saying it should be $10. You factor in the 30% that steam takes and it defeats the purpose to make the game at all. Might as well not bother, too much annoying work and no money.
@@beatthebag Nah, everyone's been saying it should be $20 for a long time. I've been trying to get people to remember this game exists for like 3 years and the entire time, we were all saying it should be $20 because it's a high-end indie fighter and that's what the high-end price of indie fighters is.
Absolutely unacceptable training mode. Literally an instant deal-breaker for me. How do you mess it up that bad in this day and age? I hope they improve on that ASAP.
I was hoping after all the delays it would be in a more finished state. The artstyle is great but there seems to be missing animation frames and the rush system needs an overhaul
Nice video and fair review! 40 bucks is too much. But I guess the publisher puts the price. Also another thing. The developer refuses to take criticism. He seems to be one of those “my way or nothing”. No betas, no play test, no demos. And whenever someone criticizes something, he takes it as “you just want to take me down”, rather than accept the criticism and promise to work harder or change things in the game. And there are a few accounts going around who are just straight up defending the game no matter what. It comes across as the dev defending himself with alt accounts, or his buddies helping him out. But yeah. So many years in development and it still looks rough. I’ll give it a shot when it’s like 5 bucks on a sale.
Actually it wasn't the publisher who set the price. The dev was in the discord talking about this, saying the $40 price was his idea. And yeah, the dev does seem incredibly quick to anger on these sorts of things. I was basically the game's entire publishing arm for 18 months while he was dead silent and he recently accused me of being two-faced when I mused on twitter about how certain fighting games promote themselves. I don't see him going after all the major sites that have reviewed his game terribly, just the people he thinks he can push around.
The 40 bucks was the damper for me as well. I saw rooflemonger playing it, it looked cool, I immediately went to Steam but yeah,...I was expecting maybe a 20 Euro prize tag, this clearly is too high, without knowing a lot of the issues, mind you...
I’m sorry. The blue text box and default white text is so laughably bad. It’s like that badly edited CGI black kid in that marvel movie; it’s so terrible you would think it was made as a joke. And it’s baffling that that’s a real thing in the game. Like the creator forgot to replace it with the actual text box and font. It’s sad that we’ve been waiting over half a decade for this game to come out and it’s half cooked. Makes me wonder what went so wrong…
And would you believe it, holding A only makes the text go the slightest, absolutely slightest of slight bits faster. You either skip it altogether, or take 30 minutes at a time to get to each fight. It's insane!
$40 feels like a passive statement that the game won't sell that many units. Think about it: If I put something up for $20 on a market, and I can sell as many units as people will buy, I'm not that pressed about selling because it'll be here for a decent price. A $30 price means to me that I want you to buy the thing at half the price of a AAA game, and that it's implied that it can be worth about that price to others, with room for DLC. $40 for a game that isn't a AAA title from a household studio in name, to me, that looks like they REALLY want to make money, and that even if they only sell 2,500 units, that's enough money to write home about for a lot of people, though it's not really a lot to split between a team. $40 feels like some kind of admission, a lack of confidence in the product. This game will not sell at that pricepoint, but people have made videos about this already, so this game is permanently in trouble.
Waited in queue for 2 mins, got a game, realized after that game there was no rematch button, went back to the online mode menu, pressed quick play again, ended up waiting 4-5 mins before cutting off my game to call it a night. I feel like I been scammed not going to lie. $40 is way to steep of a price and I ended up paying the price :). There was other things that annoyed mw but I understand its a indie fighting game. Just wish I would've waited a bit before pressing the pay option on my playstation. Feels like I overpaid on an unfinished product.
If you ever build a PC you don’t usually deal with that through Steam. You have up to 2 hrs of playtime to refund. Although there are some exceptions. Sorry you got got. Happens to the best of us.
@@AresGod0fWar I am thinking about going the PC route. I only got a playstation because of the portability of it at cost of dealing with Sony's bullshit refund policy. It will be a lesson learned for future purchases until I decide to buy a PC. I been thinking about the Steam deck as well, but I don't know about that one yet.
40 dollars??? really fkn weird, right now the price tag on steam at least on my country (Chile) it's around 15,75 (14900 chilean pesos), at 13 hours of this video release, idk if they even changed the price, but it's sad to know this can happen to such an inspiring game, hope they can fix the glaring problems it has.
The awful pricing and confusing mechanics are going to be its death. They should cut the cost to like 20$ and label it early access. If they added more and reworked some mechanics it might help, but seeing as the team is just seemingly one person I think it’s dead on arrival. Sad because it looks so cool! 😅
I had following this game for a while and hearing the state this game has come out in has me asking a lot of questions. Like was there any playtests/field tests? Why was the release window and announcements handled so poorly? What happened for the dev to go radio silent for so long? These are things I'm noting for my own team's game since we're slowly working to get back on track.
There were some extremely small playtests, but they were done literal years apart and the last one was a private showing near EVO this year. I have no idea why the marketing for the game was so terrible, but one major thing I made note of was that despite the game's sale pages promoting its story mode, the promotional footage only ever showed raw match footage, now knowing it was to hide the game's poorly-made story mode and training mode. It's been a very weird experience following this game.
The character designs are so cool that i really want to like this game but other things like the background character sprites and the announcer are really off putting. I hate that weird waiter guy crab walking side to side in one of the backgrounds at 2:09, that background is so good and then it just has all these weird distracting characters in it for no reason. Feels like they just needed a few people on the team to polish the game and balance things out.
Not sure about the waiter crab guy, but I know that a good number of the background characters were commissioned designs by backers on Patreon. Unfortunately it is very common for rewards like this to end up being distracting even as a portrait in the background. A fully sized and animated sprite is a whole nother story.
Thank you for the harsh but genuine criticism. TBH, I love fighting games, especially the likes from which Blazing Strike took its inspiration. But those games are more available than ever, and while I appreciate people trying new things, there's no reason to bust this one out when I've got friends over when I can always grab...virtually anything else. I'm reminded of many of the entries in the post-SFII/MK era back in the day that ended up in the dustbin of history. Cool idea, but if you'd rather play something else, 'nuff said.
I'm having a lot of fun with the game, butI think this is fair criticism, and that $20 would have been a much more reasonable asking price. On top of the story mode not letting you save, the text speed is glacial even when speeding it up. There also isn't any apparent way to reset training mode to neutral with a press of a button. I don't find the gauge to be particularly intrusive when it comes to using it for dashes, as it recovers super quickly, and it's easier than double-lressing for dash. But, there have definitely been a few times where I've run out of meter because I've gotten carried away with my offense. I think he racecar analogy is good. As much as braking is an integral part of racing that people need to accept, it does seem like you have to hit the brakes sooner than you'd like, abd having at least something else useful you cna do without meter would be a welcome addition. I don't think there are any link combos. Having to rely on fairly tight links for good meterless damage seems like it would help.
I had interest in this game, but as years go by, I have gotten to play other games and this one just released the same day as Mario Party. Rivals of Aether 2 is also coming in a few more days as well and I'll be getting that one. Shame to see it unfinished and priced so high. Doesn't help that we have been getting re-releases of classic fan favorite fighting games on modern systems, so it seems like there's really nothing about the game that's worth paying for.
I loved Blazing Strike as I am an 2D Fighting fan myself, It kinda baffles me that at launch that it's unfinished... Man, if this game pulls a Street Fighter 5-style redemption arc, I don't know what WILL. Also, It's kinda sad that there aren't no alternate colors, as seen during the Jake mirror match.
There are alternate colors, they just don't appear in the story or arcade modes, which is baffling. I personally really dig Mochizuki's LK alternate color, it's a nice gray and gold that mesh really well.
Tbh I have doubts about patches and updates....just purely because it took this long to get to the state it is....and the fact that the early footage really has not changed much to the release game
This review is much appreciated. Been eyeing this game for a good while so it's a real shame seeing it have such an abysmal release, it reminds me a lot of UNI2 PC on release, but somehow WAAAY worse. I can only hope that they can fix these problems fast, these botched releases are especially bad for indie fighters that are a niche in an already fairly niche PvP genre.
This looks worse than most mugen compilations. Aside from the idle stance, everything looks like its missing animations, get hit effects look wrong and over the place, sound is atrocious, voices are bland, and there's nothing innovative or noteworthy about the gameplay. Stage designs are atrocious as there's often things blocking the characters or characters that aren't faded out, so they blend in with the fighters. Even the UI looks like a cheap version of Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax. I'm sorry, but this is the worst fighing game I think I've ever seen. Everything about it screams rushed, and I have no idea how the publisher allowed it to go gold. I don't think I have a single positive thing to say about it actually... what a shame.
One thing that bothers me is that the in game UI is too busy with all of it being at the top. It feels like I have to divert my attention to look at the super meter bc of how small it is
That also caught me. They've got all three important meters up on top, when the Rush meter really would look better on the bottom ala a traditional super meter placement, since it serves more functions than its super meter.
Oh this will be interesting. I can't wait to watch this. As someone who plays and enjoys fellow "how could you release it in this state" fighting games like the new Yatagarasu or Write n Fight, it's just intriguing. I still feel like it should have forgone the physical releases and been a budget digital only game, it still would have been a hard sell to most people but it's even harder with the current one.
After watching, I think I don't mind the rush meter being a thing because it reminds me of Battle Fantasia which is a very very slow low damage fighting game, unless you give up a resource (in Battle Fantasia it's an entire meter which is gained super slowly) which opens up the combo system momentarily. Despite the fact that people have been finding kusoge level material, the game will be incredibly defensive with the rush parry completely seeming to stop offense because it can be done in hitstun.
I also feel like the story mode could have gotten the Skullgirls treatment where each character has their story but it all connects together but they're short so even though you can't save, it's only like 4 or 5 fights at most. And for the arcade mode not having bosses is surprising because there's THREE of them in the game.
People are using that to justify it being $40 when what the math of it should really mean is you have less people to pay, and therefore less of a need to price it so high. The price, btw, was the dev's idea, which he's talked about in the game's discord.
How much do you think will get improved by the final patch? Because there are things that I'm not liking about this game that seem much more baked in than other issues I have with it?
Honestly, no much. It's hope more than anything, because you're right in that the issues seem more hard baked-in than they are surface-level quick-fixes.
Once I saw the price tag, I was less interested. I was supportive of the dev in the build up, but there are too many things holding it back after listening to this.
I was really looking forward to this. It’s still on my wishlist, for whenever it goes on sale. The odd training mode and not having an auto save on the story is unacceptable in 2024, especially since I’ve been waiting for forever lol. I do hope they can do what SFV did
Then it's paradoxical. The game isn't good enough to earn the support, therefore it won't make enough money to fund it being improved enough to deserve it.
@@GohLowI’m glad you get it lol. Like if it was 15-20. I wouldn’t have mind supporting, it until it got better. I did it with Skullgirls, bought all 3 releases. Starting at 40 without enough content to justify the release is crazy. I agree atleast give me an achievement for each characters arcades give me an incentive being as how there’s no final boss
It's hard to get people to get into Indie fighters a lot of the time I hope they can do something to turn it around. Blazing Strike looked cool to me each time I'd see it.
I also don't get why people say the sprite work / animations are amazing. Other than the background, everything moves weird af and the animation frames are never consistent.
Neither do I. Even by the standards of solo-dev'd indie games, BS's animations are rough. I mean just look at Robo Oh or Arcus Chroma, also solo-dev'd, both looking much more consistent across the whole game. I really think the hype around Blazing Strike came from casual players wanting another 3rd Strike, while the dev himself seems to loath the comparison even though it's carried the interest in his game.
2:41 Just wanted to say that I wish more fighting games didn't have dashing. I've never been able to do 66/44 naturally enough that it feels like a smooth continuation of my movement, dash macros add to button bloat, and not having dashes makes spacing an interesting balancing act. I don't know about tying it to meter but I appreciate it straying from the current standard.
It would be interesting to see more fighting games offer an option for analog sticks to enable different movement speeds and dashing. Smash and many other platform fighters have this as the default but One Strike is the only remotely traditional 2D fighter which does this that I know for many speeds of walking. That's a game without jumps or sideswitching but it is really fun.
Yeah from what I've heard, Aksys was actually really great about regional pricing, which is good to hear. If this was a good game, it'd probably be selling like crazy in other regions.
Between the devs shitty behavior and broken online I can't in good conscious pick up what clearly is a beta test that'll be killed by the publisher before it gets any real opportunity. If it gets a cross play update ill give it a second chance
Can you please take a look at Terrordrome: Reign of Legends? It’s another indie fighting game that I think is pretty good. $20. Not polished since that’s to be expected with indie fighting games, but a damn good game content wise.
There's a lot of devs out there doing it alone that have released games in much better states than how Blazing Strike released. Being a solo dev isn't a cop-out for this game being riddled with unacceptable issues. That's an issue of workflow management.
That "it's just one guy" is a lame cop-out used to avoid the game's actual massive issues and instead just pass it off as a pat on the head to someone handing in D-grade math test because they did it without a calculator.
Not in arcade mode or story mode. There is a palette swap in versus. Still a really bad oversight which I haven't seen in a game since the initial release of NASB1 (it did get real alternative costumes and voices in a later patch).
Looking for the final product i basically have the same opinion... Got a bit worried just when i see the game physics movement when they get juggle etc
Man, I remember seeing this game four or five years ago and thinking it looked very promising for a solo developer. I genuinely had no idea it had released, and I can only imagine the back end is such a nightmare of spaghetti code and code debt (you can't SAVE YOUR GAME?) that it'll take another entire development cycle to get things sorted out. Skullgirls had the luxury of doing this over years at a time when the scene was much more hardcore and people were less poor, but in a post-pandemic, post-inflation world a $40 price tag for this genuinely feels like a joke. Like, I'm not asking for the world from this guy. I've made do with some really bad training modes over the years. But this is so dysfunctional and nonfunctional that it doesn't measure up to games from the PS2 era like Virtua Fighter 4 and Melty Blood.
It also has parrying, which has been seen as a "retro" mechanic from people who only know 3rd Strike clips but really isn't a retro mechanic. There isn't anything about this game that I'd say feels particularly retro. Even sprite-based fighters aren't retro by Indie Fighter standards; Robo Oh, Arcus Chroma, Dojo Masters, all sprite-based indie fighters.
Waiting for an update or a decent sale. I just love fighting games, even when they're a bit jank. I got faith either they'll fix it or I'll be able to get like $20 of fun out of it playing with my less fighting game capable cousins
Your review of the game sums up everything perfectly. I've been looking forward to Blazing Strike for years now, up to when a release date was announced. That day is now here, yet i cant bring myself to support the game simply because of how shoddy, incomplete, and feature-bare the final product is. There needs to be a price drop or a massive content update before i even think about spending on it.
I dont think anyone whos played this game would say its unfair for someone to say its not worth buying for $40. This game is bad and in ONE day people have found so many bugs already.
I've only recently heard about it from another video by chance. I came for the Arcade mode, yeah it has one @ old school but it doesn't have anything that made the Arcade modes exciting back in the 90s. But thats just modern game design for you.
Funny enough, holiday season is where lots of fighting games go on sale. I just got MVC collection physical on amazing for less than 30 bucks, including tax. It hasn’t been out more than 4 months. Barely a month physical. Blazing Strike? Refuses to do a sale and is still 40 bucks haha. I really thought they might wanna get some extra sales during the holidays. But nope. Still stubborn to make it full price. I’m sure there’s a high chance it will end up like those lower budget fighting games on steam that go for sale for 5 bucks. But also….certain fighting games are VERY STUBBORN. Touhou Antimony of Common Flowers is a 35 dollar game that baaaarely goes on sale for 25 bucks at most. I can also see Blazing Strike owners be stubborn and either never put it on sale, or just take 10 dollars off haha.
9:53 I can’t believe there isn’t alternate colors for characters in case of mirror matches. Street fighter 2 had this figured out over 30 years ago ffs.
There are alt colours but for some reason, arcade mode defaults to using the standard colour as well rather than giving an outline, palette swap etc. I did make the same assumption as you some days ago though. It is bad optics to even allow the same colour palette for the same character.
The writing is on the wall and description, but I'm looking forward to your review for the game's initial launch. Just sucks that I can't catch the premiere.
I'm actually surprisingly hopeful for the game's future in the video, even though I'm fully aware it's almost certainly delusional on my part. After this video, I don't plan on talking about the game again unless there is a massive update.
@@GohLow All of that makes sense, I'm there as well since I'm a Yatagarasu enjoyer so I can be pleased by games which get full marks in major criteria. I might even try it out soon if I hear about good Switch performance (mainly loading) or compelling patches that aren't taking too much space.
I remember when they announced this game through pics and constantly kept advertising it as a return of classic fighters a la Street Fighter 3, 2 minutes in just looking at the gameplay and I could see in real time how they got everything so wrong... I can feel the stiffness in the game feel just from looking at it. Looks like a bootleg fake fighting game with a good art direction.
Apparently theres crazy glitches saw a fight between two hanas and when one used a super on one another one disappeared. I was looking forward to this game the characters and art are awesome but if they can patch this game and have drop the price down a bit I'll buy it. Even a broken mess like svc chaos sold at 20bucks and that game is hard to get
Yeah the game's got some notable bugs from what I've seen. There was one grab-related bug in the Aksys stream that caused the team to reset the game. I hope they're not common enough to impact competitive play.
I screwed up and bought the game, then came across this video. When I realized you couldn't dash normally, I knew the game was about to be a waste. $40 lost.
In this day and age, I doubt you'd see an updated version of this game. You just told people the game isnt worth buying, so where is that money going to come from for an update!? Lets hope that rarebreed can find some investors or, hopefully, he signed a good deal with aksys.
Wishful thinking more than anything. Didn't want to end the video on "This game's hopeless and will likely never be worth its asking price." Even false hope counts for something.
a very good and realistic review, i don't remember see any other video of yours .. but i like the way you did this review. My only criticism is maybe.. put some breaks between points you talking with some music transition... feels weird just heard you voice for 10 minutes straight, but that is just my opinion to be fair.
Yeah I do that sorta stuff in my other videos, but I wanted to get the video out on release day and the publisher gave me a key for it really late so I had to sorta rush this video on the production end, just pump all my efforts into the script. This video's a better example of what you can expect on the channel: th-cam.com/video/tWuvmQZsVak/w-d-xo.html
$40 is definitely too much. I might still get it because Aksys was surprisingly aggressive with the regional pricing in Brazil (fuck ArcSys and SNK for what they did to UNI2 and City of the Wolves), but I would not spend more than $20 on it if I lived in NA/EU.
On Switch specifically: - Guilty Gear Strive's gonna land on Switch in January. - Guilty Gear +R's an awesome retro title, and also has a Steam version that can run on basically any computer made in the last 5 years. - Dragon Ball FighterZ is a great tag fighter. - Any of the Capcom Collections (Street Fighter 30th, Marvel Vs Capcom Collection, Capcom Fighting Collection) - SvC Chaos, pretty weird fighting game but it's cool. - Any of the BlazBlue games, all of which are really fun. Don't expect any of these to have active online scenes on Switch except maybe Strive when it comes out, but they're all a lot of fun.
Never heard of this game before today and it looks really good. Its just a shame that it appears to need more time in the oven. I hope it gets the updates it needs to be a must play fighter.
@@thelastgogeta I see. Is the Rush button a toggle? Like you tap it and now youre in rush mode and then tap it again to stop? Is rush mode similar to Alpha 3 or Yun's super in Third Strike were you can string moves together that dont normally go together?
Such a shame this game is a huge letdown. Especially after all those delays and development hell. for 40 bucks it’s a big no for the moment. I’ll wait for a sale.
@@GohLowThere was a demo on Patreon which may be floating around somewhere, but it looks fairly similar to the current stage with the grid and possibly a character or two. I don't have a problem with having that, but a closed beta should have been done at least... If I see the credits mention testers, I may believe it but not that their considerations were accounted for.
Honestly I liked it but the game lacks a "punch factor", no blow collides well beyond the 300 infinites it has giving a Mugen feeling... I really liked the characters, I like this aesthetic but I'm sad about the result, I'm sorry it was done by one person in a gigantic effort
Shame, I kinda digged the character designs. Punch Planet is another game that worries me in regard to release window since sf6 has kinda adopted similiar game mechanics
That's as far as I was ever gonna go with it. I wasn't planning on reviewing it if I didn't get a free copy. I had a different video planned for today up until I got sent a copy from Aksys' PR.
Well, that really stinks to hear. Still, I'm gonna buy it, and hopefully that 40 dollars will lead to the help it needs. Idk what the deal was, if the solo dev just couldn't get all this working in time or if Aksys is really a supreme saboteur, it's hard to say. Still, I truly respect the work that goes into making a fighting game as an indie and I can't let this game make no money for it. Hopefully it does get enough buys, even if they're unfortunately pity buys, to really get where it needs to be. Such is the shame of a world where creativity is not given the needs to be made.
@@GohLow I agree, but at least I’m still interested in trying out the game’s mechanics. Maybe I’ll like them more than you did even though I agree with a lot of your points on them, I don’t know.
>Training Mode settings before character select DUDE.....literally ANY FIGHTING GAME DISCORD could have told you thats a trash idea. I have no excuse for this, thats just ass
The dev actually even accused Capcom of stealing the Rush Mechanic from Blazing Strike recently, only to instantly walk it back once people pointed out the absurdity of it.
Hmm, it feels to me based on what you're saying that the rush meter seems to be aiming for an approach where you have to be incredibly thoughtful about each use with how heavy the punishment for careless use of it is, but you do need to use it if you want to get anywhere. I prefer games that feel more open with what you can do (which is why I like games with universal cancel systems) but I can understand where some people would see an appeal in it, having to hard commit to things. Training mode and lack of saving for story sound atrocious though, and I don't even like arcade in the first place. Does story mode at least have actual gameplay? Or do they do the Guilty Gear thing of 'we don't know how to tell an actual fighting game story so have a tie-in movie instead.' Also I respect that as hyped as you were for the game, you still have standards. I take that more seriously than reviews blindly praising something because it has the right brand name or appeals to the right nostalgia. Though it's sad it let you down.
It's almost a Guilty Gear scenario, because the fights are SO spread-out and the text blocks go so slow that in my 90 minutes of playing the story, I think I only had like 3 matches.
Everything you covered plus the janky look and mediocre at best sound design and voice acting (especially the fuckin squeaky ass announcer-) makes Blazing Strike a very *very* big disappointment for the most part. Three years of waiting for a "promising" looking fighting game, all for every single ounce of expectations to go right down the drain as soon as the game finally came out, following constant radio silence and several setbacks. I am SO glad I didn't even bother to keep up with any news on this game as much.
Even if you tried keeping up with the news of this game, there was none. I was literally the only person talking about it on a public forum for like an 18 month span in the leadup to and after it missed its March 2023 release window.
I want to like this game but I couldn't, the gameplay and animation look pretty jank. I'll give it a try one day though, but damn it looks rough, even some of the characters.
Thank you for the review. Gonna pass. My ultimate objection is that I don't think there are any cool characters. They are all ugly or inferior versions or hybrids of other characters in other fighting-games.
On the characters, what surprised me a ton was learning that the dev had no knowledge of pro wrestling, to the point of dismissing a comparison I made between Blazing Strike and a wrestling company, despite having Alexander whose design is so clearly a rip of King from Tekken, who was a rip of legendary wrestler Tiger Mask. And having been excited for this game specifically for Mochizuki, the game's systems leave her feeling like if Axl Low was put in mechanical prison.
You can still forward or backdash for free in SF6 (though they are a bit weaker than their counterparts in earlier games) and running out of Drive Gauge is punishing but not a death sentence. Rush Meter and Drive Meter are Apples and Oranges.
oh shit its 40 bucks, i thought it was going to be 10-15 just watching trailers, that is unfortunate
We've known that it was going to be 40 bucks for years actually, that was one of the few things that was clear and consistent from the publisher announcement and initial target release dates.
Definitely pricey for an indie fighting game, even if not full price.
It's basically double the price of any other indie fighter on the market, which has continued to baffle me the whole time.
@@GohLowWhat killed it for me
Sadly that is the a breakpoint for me
@@DrKatz31 All of those games blow Blazing Strike's current offering out of the water without even trying. And for other examples, check out Pocket Bravery or Dojo Masters, both of which are far more complete than Blazing Strike at half the price or less.
It's a shame to waste such beautiful art
Easily the most accurate, most honest review of this game this far.
Thank you!
I am an avid fighting game player and i have to admit this is indefensible at this price. Look at pocket bravery, which is so much more feature complete and launched at $20 with 2 dlc passes bringing the total to $30. It was worth $30 without that in my opinion and the game goes on sale pretty often. If you want to compre it to a solo developed game, merfight, while less visually impressive is a total package of solid fighting game mechanics, robust arcade, story mode, and trials, and even has pretty innovative mechanics like partial charge attacks. All that and the game is regularly $5. This price point is just insane at this quality.
both are dead games tho
@@azizkash286 Most indie fighters end up "dead" honestly so I don't get you're point. That's why they should be good packages that you can recommend to other people. The thing about fighting games is that you don't need a lot of people to have a good time if you're dedicated to the game.
@@tamonster3416hell most indie games are dead if they don't have same luck like ultrakill, dead cells and hades.
@@S-treme How did you get 6 likes. Are people this fucking stupid these days ? THE GAMES YOU MENTIONED ARE OFFLINE,STORY ONLY GAMES THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LAST. AND WHY WOULD YOU CARE IF SOMEONE IS PLAYING OR NOT PLAYING AN OFFLINE FUCKING GAME ??????????????????????????
@azizkash286 yeah I'd only buy pocket bravery buy digital code some storefronts have and buy the dlc separately as they have no timetable after the 1st 2 (Rick and Brandon). Fun game and better than this mess at least.
But yeah we got collections like mvc and capcom fighting classics 2 next year (with fatal fury that includes season pass 1 for $60 and lovely mai, to be way better than db sparking zero), let alone many go dirt cheap fast to compete (cfc1, mk11, umvc3, and capcom arcade stadium games has some street fighter stuff, with 2 having Saturday night slam masters wrestling beat em up let alone 30th anny).
Only more crowded genre is probably the vampire survivors knockoffs, which knock off is a fighting kickstarter lol. Many beat em ups too, which karate kid and gi joe suck.
This is such a shame... The chara design is so amazing, I would have buy it with pleasure.
I hope the dev will do something in the future
Is the Dev active on twitter? If he continues to support the game after for balance for bugs then that could be okay.
@@TehStylishone He answered on twitter that there will be some bug fixes soon. There is an active discord server with a feedback section also
I think having footage correlate with the moves and mechanics you are talking about would really help with a game like this that many people won’t have exposure to… I don’t feel like I really got a good understanding of the rush system just by hearing about it and looking for it in unrelated gameplay
I would have used more specific footage if I had gotten my key for the game sooner. But I really only had like 4 days to make this whole video - play it, collect my thoughts, write the script, etc - to have it line up with the release date of the game.
@@GohLow IT CAME OUT??
@@phillipjames7142 Yeah, I was shocked too.
I appreciate you not softballing it. I was just about to buy it in the middle of this video just because I liked some of the designs and then I saw the $40 pricetag and noped out HARD.
Also, yeah, I complained about tying dashing to meter with the most recent version of FEXL and I'll do it here too.
really feels like the publisher pushed it out despite things not being done/the dev taking too long. it’s a shame, hopefully they get to make updates to it later but yeah. watching footage it’s like everything lacks inbetween frames, just the key frames are there. it could use another year of dev
It's looked like this since 2021, to the point where Aksys re-announced the game earlier this year by re-using a trailer from 2021 no less.
Honest question. What is the role of a publisher in game development? Are they only in charge of the marketing? I wonder if Aksys does not even have basic QA to check the products that they publish. Don't they provide any sort of support to the development team? Do they provide a budget?
@@gcavrubio That really depends on the contract. Some publishers foot the development bill and offer QA, some just package and market the game for e.g. console ports. It's a wildly varied landscape and you can get anything from "full development costs and development support, but you are paid royalties only when we recoup everything" to "we just handle the distribution and get a flat %"
@@AndreaJensDemetrio Publishers take a big cut too, so it's a really serious decision for a developer to make
@@battlemode I published a game with a publisher and yeah, it's a serious decision. I would advise it mostly for console ports, since the whole certification process is kinda of painful and having a publisher there removes a lot of pressure from your shoulders.
The sad part is I commented on a WIP version of this years ago about the game's potential but many missteps and to think that little was done between then and now is a huge blunder. I'm still going to buy it (on a huge sale), but I hope this serves as a major learning opportunity for the devs and that they take a different approach with their next game (if there is a "next" game... but they probably won't based on comments in this video). Good video.
Wow man that's a real shame, i was really looking forward to it after i saw your old video on it
Yeah so was I. I was really hoping this would be a stand-out game. Maybe one day it will be, but it isn't yet.
That is a shame to hear. I wanted to get this game because the character designs were done by one of my favorite artists (AbsolumArt). I guess I'll wait for it to be more complete.
Yeah the art's good and I thought some of the music really hit the spot at times. Wish the game it was surrounding was better.
It's not going to get more complete if the initial sales don't justify the dev's sinking more of their lives into the game
@@beatthebag It's not gonna get more sales if the initial product doesn't justify a $40 dollar purchase, which it doesn't, and I honestly regret pushing such a hopeful angle in the outro of this video.
@@GohLow Yeah but starting from $40 gives them room to come down. If they start at $40, everybody sais it should be $20. If they started at $20 everybody would be saying it should be $10. You factor in the 30% that steam takes and it defeats the purpose to make the game at all. Might as well not bother, too much annoying work and no money.
@@beatthebag Nah, everyone's been saying it should be $20 for a long time. I've been trying to get people to remember this game exists for like 3 years and the entire time, we were all saying it should be $20 because it's a high-end indie fighter and that's what the high-end price of indie fighters is.
Absolutely unacceptable training mode. Literally an instant deal-breaker for me. How do you mess it up that bad in this day and age? I hope they improve on that ASAP.
Broke my fucking brain when I first booted it up.
I was hoping after all the delays it would be in a more finished state. The artstyle is great but there seems to be missing animation frames and the rush system needs an overhaul
This isn't a rough draft, it is just a terrible game.
Yeah, you're not wrong... I feel like I was way too forgiving and nice when writing this video.
Nice video and fair review!
40 bucks is too much. But I guess the publisher puts the price.
Also another thing. The developer refuses to take criticism. He seems to be one of those “my way or nothing”. No betas, no play test, no demos. And whenever someone criticizes something, he takes it as “you just want to take me down”, rather than accept the criticism and promise to work harder or change things in the game. And there are a few accounts going around who are just straight up defending the game no matter what. It comes across as the dev defending himself with alt accounts, or his buddies helping him out.
But yeah. So many years in development and it still looks rough. I’ll give it a shot when it’s like 5 bucks on a sale.
Actually it wasn't the publisher who set the price. The dev was in the discord talking about this, saying the $40 price was his idea.
And yeah, the dev does seem incredibly quick to anger on these sorts of things. I was basically the game's entire publishing arm for 18 months while he was dead silent and he recently accused me of being two-faced when I mused on twitter about how certain fighting games promote themselves. I don't see him going after all the major sites that have reviewed his game terribly, just the people he thinks he can push around.
The 40 bucks was the damper for me as well. I saw rooflemonger playing it, it looked cool, I immediately went to Steam but yeah,...I was expecting maybe a 20 Euro prize tag, this clearly is too high, without knowing a lot of the issues, mind you...
I’m sorry. The blue text box and default white text is so laughably bad. It’s like that badly edited CGI black kid in that marvel movie; it’s so terrible you would think it was made as a joke. And it’s baffling that that’s a real thing in the game. Like the creator forgot to replace it with the actual text box and font. It’s sad that we’ve been waiting over half a decade for this game to come out and it’s half cooked. Makes me wonder what went so wrong…
And would you believe it, holding A only makes the text go the slightest, absolutely slightest of slight bits faster. You either skip it altogether, or take 30 minutes at a time to get to each fight. It's insane!
$40 feels like a passive statement that the game won't sell that many units. Think about it: If I put something up for $20 on a market, and I can sell as many units as people will buy, I'm not that pressed about selling because it'll be here for a decent price. A $30 price means to me that I want you to buy the thing at half the price of a AAA game, and that it's implied that it can be worth about that price to others, with room for DLC. $40 for a game that isn't a AAA title from a household studio in name, to me, that looks like they REALLY want to make money, and that even if they only sell 2,500 units, that's enough money to write home about for a lot of people, though it's not really a lot to split between a team. $40 feels like some kind of admission, a lack of confidence in the product. This game will not sell at that pricepoint, but people have made videos about this already, so this game is permanently in trouble.
Waited in queue for 2 mins, got a game, realized after that game there was no rematch button, went back to the online mode menu, pressed quick play again, ended up waiting 4-5 mins before cutting off my game to call it a night. I feel like I been scammed not going to lie. $40 is way to steep of a price and I ended up paying the price :). There was other things that annoyed mw but I understand its a indie fighting game. Just wish I would've waited a bit before pressing the pay option on my playstation. Feels like I overpaid on an unfinished product.
If you ever build a PC you don’t usually deal with that through Steam. You have up to 2 hrs of playtime to refund. Although there are some exceptions. Sorry you got got. Happens to the best of us.
@@AresGod0fWar I am thinking about going the PC route. I only got a playstation because of the portability of it at cost of dealing with Sony's bullshit refund policy. It will be a lesson learned for future purchases until I decide to buy a PC. I been thinking about the Steam deck as well, but I don't know about that one yet.
40 dollars??? really fkn weird, right now the price tag on steam at least on my country (Chile) it's around 15,75 (14900 chilean pesos), at 13 hours of this video release, idk if they even changed the price, but it's sad to know this can happen to such an inspiring game, hope they can fix the glaring problems it has.
The awful pricing and confusing mechanics are going to be its death. They should cut the cost to like 20$ and label it early access. If they added more and reworked some mechanics it might help, but seeing as the team is just seemingly one person I think it’s dead on arrival. Sad because it looks so cool! 😅
I had following this game for a while and hearing the state this game has come out in has me asking a lot of questions. Like was there any playtests/field tests? Why was the release window and announcements handled so poorly? What happened for the dev to go radio silent for so long?
These are things I'm noting for my own team's game since we're slowly working to get back on track.
There were some extremely small playtests, but they were done literal years apart and the last one was a private showing near EVO this year.
I have no idea why the marketing for the game was so terrible, but one major thing I made note of was that despite the game's sale pages promoting its story mode, the promotional footage only ever showed raw match footage, now knowing it was to hide the game's poorly-made story mode and training mode.
It's been a very weird experience following this game.
The character designs are so cool that i really want to like this game but other things like the background character sprites and the announcer are really off putting. I hate that weird waiter guy crab walking side to side in one of the backgrounds at 2:09, that background is so good and then it just has all these weird distracting characters in it for no reason.
Feels like they just needed a few people on the team to polish the game and balance things out.
Not sure about the waiter crab guy, but I know that a good number of the background characters were commissioned designs by backers on Patreon.
Unfortunately it is very common for rewards like this to end up being distracting even as a portrait in the background. A fully sized and animated sprite is a whole nother story.
Thank you for the harsh but genuine criticism. TBH, I love fighting games, especially the likes from which Blazing Strike took its inspiration. But those games are more available than ever, and while I appreciate people trying new things, there's no reason to bust this one out when I've got friends over when I can always grab...virtually anything else. I'm reminded of many of the entries in the post-SFII/MK era back in the day that ended up in the dustbin of history. Cool idea, but if you'd rather play something else, 'nuff said.
I'm having a lot of fun with the game, butI think this is fair criticism, and that $20 would have been a much more reasonable asking price.
On top of the story mode not letting you save, the text speed is glacial even when speeding it up. There also isn't any apparent way to reset training mode to neutral with a press of a button.
I don't find the gauge to be particularly intrusive when it comes to using it for dashes, as it recovers super quickly, and it's easier than double-lressing for dash. But, there have definitely been a few times where I've run out of meter because I've gotten carried away with my offense.
I think he racecar analogy is good. As much as braking is an integral part of racing that people need to accept, it does seem like you have to hit the brakes sooner than you'd like, abd having at least something else useful you cna do without meter would be a welcome addition. I don't think there are any link combos. Having to rely on fairly tight links for good meterless damage seems like it would help.
Thank you for continuing to make videos on these indie fighters!
Cheers!
I had interest in this game, but as years go by, I have gotten to play other games and this one just released the same day as Mario Party. Rivals of Aether 2 is also coming in a few more days as well and I'll be getting that one.
Shame to see it unfinished and priced so high. Doesn't help that we have been getting re-releases of classic fan favorite fighting games on modern systems, so it seems like there's really nothing about the game that's worth paying for.
I loved Blazing Strike as I am an 2D Fighting fan myself, It kinda baffles me that at launch that it's unfinished... Man, if this game pulls a Street Fighter 5-style redemption arc, I don't know what WILL.
Also, It's kinda sad that there aren't no alternate colors, as seen during the Jake mirror match.
There are alternate colors, they just don't appear in the story or arcade modes, which is baffling. I personally really dig Mochizuki's LK alternate color, it's a nice gray and gold that mesh really well.
Tbh I have doubts about patches and updates....just purely because it took this long to get to the state it is....and the fact that the early footage really has not changed much to the release game
This review is much appreciated. Been eyeing this game for a good while so it's a real shame seeing it have such an abysmal release, it reminds me a lot of UNI2 PC on release, but somehow WAAAY worse. I can only hope that they can fix these problems fast, these botched releases are especially bad for indie fighters that are a niche in an already fairly niche PvP genre.
This looks worse than most mugen compilations.
Aside from the idle stance, everything looks like its missing animations, get hit effects look wrong and over the place, sound is atrocious, voices are bland, and there's nothing innovative or noteworthy about the gameplay. Stage designs are atrocious as there's often things blocking the characters or characters that aren't faded out, so they blend in with the fighters. Even the UI looks like a cheap version of Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax.
I'm sorry, but this is the worst fighing game I think I've ever seen. Everything about it screams rushed, and I have no idea how the publisher allowed it to go gold. I don't think I have a single positive thing to say about it actually... what a shame.
One thing that bothers me is that the in game UI is too busy with all of it being at the top. It feels like I have to divert my attention to look at the super meter bc of how small it is
That also caught me. They've got all three important meters up on top, when the Rush meter really would look better on the bottom ala a traditional super meter placement, since it serves more functions than its super meter.
Oh this will be interesting. I can't wait to watch this.
As someone who plays and enjoys fellow "how could you release it in this state" fighting games like the new Yatagarasu or Write n Fight, it's just intriguing.
I still feel like it should have forgone the physical releases and been a budget digital only game, it still would have been a hard sell to most people but it's even harder with the current one.
After watching, I think I don't mind the rush meter being a thing because it reminds me of Battle Fantasia which is a very very slow low damage fighting game, unless you give up a resource (in Battle Fantasia it's an entire meter which is gained super slowly) which opens up the combo system momentarily.
Despite the fact that people have been finding kusoge level material, the game will be incredibly defensive with the rush parry completely seeming to stop offense because it can be done in hitstun.
I also feel like the story mode could have gotten the Skullgirls treatment where each character has their story but it all connects together but they're short so even though you can't save, it's only like 4 or 5 fights at most.
And for the arcade mode not having bosses is surprising because there's THREE of them in the game.
A game allegedly made by one person being 40$ is insanity
People are using that to justify it being $40 when what the math of it should really mean is you have less people to pay, and therefore less of a need to price it so high. The price, btw, was the dev's idea, which he's talked about in the game's discord.
How much do you think will get improved by the final patch? Because there are things that I'm not liking about this game that seem much more baked in than other issues I have with it?
Honestly, no much. It's hope more than anything, because you're right in that the issues seem more hard baked-in than they are surface-level quick-fixes.
Once I saw the price tag, I was less interested. I was supportive of the dev in the build up, but there are too many things holding it back after listening to this.
I was really looking forward to this. It’s still on my wishlist, for whenever it goes on sale. The odd training mode and not having an auto save on the story is unacceptable in 2024, especially since I’ve been waiting for forever lol. I do hope they can do what SFV did
Yeah, that's the hope, turn things around in the long-run and leave the game in a much better state than when it released.
Hope fully so! For $15-20 I would’ve picked it up day 1, but $40. Idts. Everything feels rushed, even the 4 psn trophies 😂. Best wishes to the devs
Yeah that shocked me too, only four steam achievements. Like not even an achievement per character for beating the arcade mode
Then it's paradoxical. The game isn't good enough to earn the support, therefore it won't make enough money to fund it being improved enough to deserve it.
@@GohLowI’m glad you get it lol. Like if it was 15-20. I wouldn’t have mind supporting, it until it got better. I did it with Skullgirls, bought all 3 releases. Starting at 40 without enough content to justify the release is crazy. I agree atleast give me an achievement for each characters arcades give me an incentive being as how there’s no final boss
The developer should release this game as early access and charge much less than 40 bucks. 40 bucks for an unfinished game is just not acceptable.
I completely agree
this feels like the demo of Yatagarasu, way back when it was literally unfinished and was known as such
It's hard to get people to get into Indie fighters a lot of the time
I hope they can do something to turn it around. Blazing Strike looked cool to me each time I'd see it.
What a damn shame, was looking forward to this game since the first trailer.
still receiving updates, better now than at launch
Feels like im playing with unfinished mugen characters
Will wait for a sale and further patching.
Hope you're having a good day
You too
I also don't get why people say the sprite work / animations are amazing. Other than the background, everything moves weird af and the animation frames are never consistent.
Neither do I. Even by the standards of solo-dev'd indie games, BS's animations are rough. I mean just look at Robo Oh or Arcus Chroma, also solo-dev'd, both looking much more consistent across the whole game. I really think the hype around Blazing Strike came from casual players wanting another 3rd Strike, while the dev himself seems to loath the comparison even though it's carried the interest in his game.
2:41 Just wanted to say that I wish more fighting games didn't have dashing. I've never been able to do 66/44 naturally enough that it feels like a smooth continuation of my movement, dash macros add to button bloat, and not having dashes makes spacing an interesting balancing act. I don't know about tying it to meter but I appreciate it straying from the current standard.
I'll agree with that, yeah. If it was dash button not tied to meter or the game was built without dashing entirely, I'd be fine with that.
It would be interesting to see more fighting games offer an option for analog sticks to enable different movement speeds and dashing.
Smash and many other platform fighters have this as the default but One Strike is the only remotely traditional 2D fighter which does this that I know for many speeds of walking. That's a game without jumps or sideswitching but it is really fun.
I wishlisted it on Steam as it's around $18 in my region (and it's not discounted); kinda surprised that it's $40 anywhere given the quality.
Yeah from what I've heard, Aksys was actually really great about regional pricing, which is good to hear. If this was a good game, it'd probably be selling like crazy in other regions.
Between the devs shitty behavior and broken online I can't in good conscious pick up what clearly is a beta test that'll be killed by the publisher before it gets any real opportunity. If it gets a cross play update ill give it a second chance
What shitty behavior from him have I missed? I know I've posted about some recently, but wanted to know if there's more to it.
Can you please take a look at Terrordrome: Reign of Legends? It’s another indie fighting game that I think is pretty good. $20. Not polished since that’s to be expected with indie fighting games, but a damn good game content wise.
Yeah I'll check it out at some point. Hadn't even heard of it until recently, so it's really neat to have it sorta randomly appear for me.
Rush is a bad SF6 drive gauge. This game doesn't look fun to play at all.
I feel bad for the developers. I wish they had more time to cook.
They had 6 years, and delayed the game like 4 times in that span. I don't think time was the issue here.
There's a lot of devs out there doing it alone that have released games in much better states than how Blazing Strike released. Being a solo dev isn't a cop-out for this game being riddled with unacceptable issues. That's an issue of workflow management.
@@mf_dva I'm sorry. I said they because I didn't know the gender of the developer. I should've been more clear.
That "it's just one guy" is a lame cop-out used to avoid the game's actual massive issues and instead just pass it off as a pat on the head to someone handing in D-grade math test because they did it without a calculator.
"They" can be used as a singular...
Wait, a mirror match doesn't have alternate color scheme for the other player?? Smh
Not in arcade mode or story mode.
There is a palette swap in versus.
Still a really bad oversight which I haven't seen in a game since the initial release of NASB1 (it did get real alternative costumes and voices in a later patch).
Looking for the final product i basically have the same opinion...
Got a bit worried just when i see the game physics movement when they get juggle etc
Man, I remember seeing this game four or five years ago and thinking it looked very promising for a solo developer. I genuinely had no idea it had released, and I can only imagine the back end is such a nightmare of spaghetti code and code debt (you can't SAVE YOUR GAME?) that it'll take another entire development cycle to get things sorted out. Skullgirls had the luxury of doing this over years at a time when the scene was much more hardcore and people were less poor, but in a post-pandemic, post-inflation world a $40 price tag for this genuinely feels like a joke.
Like, I'm not asking for the world from this guy. I've made do with some really bad training modes over the years. But this is so dysfunctional and nonfunctional that it doesn't measure up to games from the PS2 era like Virtua Fighter 4 and Melty Blood.
So, from a purely design aspect of the combat, where exactly does it get the "old" from? It seems like just a modern game but with sprites.
It also has parrying, which has been seen as a "retro" mechanic from people who only know 3rd Strike clips but really isn't a retro mechanic. There isn't anything about this game that I'd say feels particularly retro. Even sprite-based fighters aren't retro by Indie Fighter standards; Robo Oh, Arcus Chroma, Dojo Masters, all sprite-based indie fighters.
What were they thinking with that font in story mode?
Honestly I have no idea. I've used more creative fonts on my thumbnails purely from looking around free front websites and the defaults in photoshop
Waiting for an update or a decent sale. I just love fighting games, even when they're a bit jank. I got faith either they'll fix it or I'll be able to get like $20 of fun out of it playing with my less fighting game capable cousins
Your review of the game sums up everything perfectly.
I've been looking forward to Blazing Strike for years now, up to when a release date was announced. That day is now here, yet i cant bring myself to support the game simply because of how shoddy, incomplete, and feature-bare the final product is. There needs to be a price drop or a massive content update before i even think about spending on it.
I dont think anyone whos played this game would say its unfair for someone to say its not worth buying for $40. This game is bad and in ONE day people have found so many bugs already.
I want it so bad but 40$ is a wild price I was prepared for 30 max...
I've only recently heard about it from another video by chance.
I came for the Arcade mode, yeah it has one @ old school but it doesn't have anything that made the Arcade modes exciting back in the 90s.
But thats just modern game design for you.
Funny enough, holiday season is where lots of fighting games go on sale. I just got MVC collection physical on amazing for less than 30 bucks, including tax. It hasn’t been out more than 4 months. Barely a month physical.
Blazing Strike? Refuses to do a sale and is still 40 bucks haha. I really thought they might wanna get some extra sales during the holidays. But nope. Still stubborn to make it full price. I’m sure there’s a high chance it will end up like those lower budget fighting games on steam that go for sale for 5 bucks.
But also….certain fighting games are VERY STUBBORN. Touhou Antimony of Common Flowers is a 35 dollar game that baaaarely goes on sale for 25 bucks at most. I can also see Blazing Strike owners be stubborn and either never put it on sale, or just take 10 dollars off haha.
9:53 I can’t believe there isn’t alternate colors for characters in case of mirror matches. Street fighter 2 had this figured out over 30 years ago ffs.
There are alt colours but for some reason, arcade mode defaults to using the standard colour as well rather than giving an outline, palette swap etc.
I did make the same assumption as you some days ago though. It is bad optics to even allow the same colour palette for the same character.
The writing is on the wall and description, but I'm looking forward to your review for the game's initial launch. Just sucks that I can't catch the premiere.
I'm actually surprisingly hopeful for the game's future in the video, even though I'm fully aware it's almost certainly delusional on my part. After this video, I don't plan on talking about the game again unless there is a massive update.
@@GohLow All of that makes sense, I'm there as well since I'm a Yatagarasu enjoyer so I can be pleased by games which get full marks in major criteria.
I might even try it out soon if I hear about good Switch performance (mainly loading) or compelling patches that aren't taking too much space.
I remember when they announced this game through pics and constantly kept advertising it as a return of classic fighters a la Street Fighter 3, 2 minutes in just looking at the gameplay and I could see in real time how they got everything so wrong...
I can feel the stiffness in the game feel just from looking at it.
Looks like a bootleg fake fighting game with a good art direction.
Apparently theres crazy glitches saw a fight between two hanas and when one used a super on one another one disappeared. I was looking forward to this game the characters and art are awesome but if they can patch this game and have drop the price down a bit I'll buy it. Even a broken mess like svc chaos sold at 20bucks and that game is hard to get
Yeah the game's got some notable bugs from what I've seen. There was one grab-related bug in the Aksys stream that caused the team to reset the game. I hope they're not common enough to impact competitive play.
I screwed up and bought the game, then came across this video. When I realized you couldn't dash normally, I knew the game was about to be a waste. $40 lost.
Being generous by saying it should have been at the very most $25. Again being very generous
I think it could have gotten a way better reception at that price listed while being labeled as Early Access.
@@GohLow yeah because I was one of those who were unfortunate to buy it for $40. Hopefully it'll get improvements
In this day and age, I doubt you'd see an updated version of this game. You just told people the game isnt worth buying, so where is that money going to come from for an update!?
Lets hope that rarebreed can find some investors or, hopefully, he signed a good deal with aksys.
Wishful thinking more than anything. Didn't want to end the video on "This game's hopeless and will likely never be worth its asking price." Even false hope counts for something.
@GohLow That's true.
by the way great vid!
a very good and realistic review, i don't remember see any other video of yours .. but i like the way you did this review. My only criticism is maybe.. put some breaks between points you talking with some music transition... feels weird just heard you voice for 10 minutes straight, but that is just my opinion to be fair.
Yeah I do that sorta stuff in my other videos, but I wanted to get the video out on release day and the publisher gave me a key for it really late so I had to sorta rush this video on the production end, just pump all my efforts into the script.
This video's a better example of what you can expect on the channel: th-cam.com/video/tWuvmQZsVak/w-d-xo.html
$40 is definitely too much. I might still get it because Aksys was surprisingly aggressive with the regional pricing in Brazil (fuck ArcSys and SNK for what they did to UNI2 and City of the Wolves), but I would not spend more than $20 on it if I lived in NA/EU.
I was really interested in this game until I saw this review. Do you have any recommendations for 2D fighters on Switch instead of this one?
On Switch specifically:
- Guilty Gear Strive's gonna land on Switch in January.
- Guilty Gear +R's an awesome retro title, and also has a Steam version that can run on basically any computer made in the last 5 years.
- Dragon Ball FighterZ is a great tag fighter.
- Any of the Capcom Collections (Street Fighter 30th, Marvel Vs Capcom Collection, Capcom Fighting Collection)
- SvC Chaos, pretty weird fighting game but it's cool.
- Any of the BlazBlue games, all of which are really fun.
Don't expect any of these to have active online scenes on Switch except maybe Strive when it comes out, but they're all a lot of fun.
Also Dual Souls The Last Bearer that you can buy on the E shop. Its a Indie game made by a small Turkish team. Its also for free in mobile devices
@@MegafanX123 Holy shit, I forgot that game was on Switch! It's such a complete package, and its GBA prequel is so good!
Never heard of this game before today and it looks really good. Its just a shame that it appears to need more time in the oven. I hope it gets the updates it needs to be a must play fighter.
$40 is about $10-15 too much. Even before knowing its faults
I am curious what the actual buttons are. Is there four or six? And What are are they?
Five buttons I believe. 4 normals (punches and kicks) and the Rush button.
@@thelastgogeta I see. Is the Rush button a toggle? Like you tap it and now youre in rush mode and then tap it again to stop? Is rush mode similar to Alpha 3 or Yun's super in Third Strike were you can string moves together that dont normally go together?
Nah, you gotta hold it to stay in rush mode
Jumbo-Jump, Jumbo-Jump, Jumbo-Jump !
Blazing Sun, Blazing Sun, Blazing Sun !
MON-AMII, MON-AMII, MON-AMII !
Such a shame this game is a huge letdown. Especially after all those delays and development hell. for 40 bucks it’s a big no for the moment. I’ll wait for a sale.
They did not playtested what a shame
Yeah no public beta or demo when there really should have been
@@GohLowThere was a demo on Patreon which may be floating around somewhere, but it looks fairly similar to the current stage with the grid and possibly a character or two.
I don't have a problem with having that, but a closed beta should have been done at least... If I see the credits mention testers, I may believe it but not that their considerations were accounted for.
I love the critique cuz the game looks unfinished
Honestly I liked it but the game lacks a "punch factor", no blow collides well beyond the 300 infinites it has giving a Mugen feeling... I really liked the characters, I like this aesthetic but I'm sad about the result, I'm sorry it was done by one person in a gigantic effort
Not going to lie that sounds like a great idea I don't know why I just like it the rush system sounds good 👍
I'd like it a lot more of the game had a more expansive meterless combo system.
Shame, I kinda digged the character designs.
Punch Planet is another game that worries me in regard to release window since sf6 has kinda adopted similiar game mechanics
Honestly, I think punch planet is better looking and playing than blazing strike. Punch planet I have a lot of respect for even in it's early state.
Maybe in a few months you could do a sequel video?
“Changed my mind; Blazing Strike is garbage.”
iirc KOF XII doesn't have a boss at all, and that's a big name retail game
an oddity for sure, but such things do exist
Of course it'd be KOF 12 of all games, the game that nearly killed SNK and gets widely regarded as the worst KOF
A game which also released in a beta state. And right during bankruptcy.
Dang wouldn’t pay $40 when rivals 2 is more polished and it’s only $30 with free content
WTF is that box of text. And why blue? Lol I feel like I’m looking at BSOD.
And it's also moving slower than death.
I had a feeling about this one good thing I held off
Really feels like anything that gets delayed as many times as BS did doesn't end up turning out good.
review copies is as far as its going to get
That's as far as I was ever gonna go with it. I wasn't planning on reviewing it if I didn't get a free copy. I had a different video planned for today up until I got sent a copy from Aksys' PR.
Well, that really stinks to hear. Still, I'm gonna buy it, and hopefully that 40 dollars will lead to the help it needs. Idk what the deal was, if the solo dev just couldn't get all this working in time or if Aksys is really a supreme saboteur, it's hard to say. Still, I truly respect the work that goes into making a fighting game as an indie and I can't let this game make no money for it. Hopefully it does get enough buys, even if they're unfortunately pity buys, to really get where it needs to be. Such is the shame of a world where creativity is not given the needs to be made.
I respect where you're coming from but I personally don't think that buying a game out of pity does anyone any good.
@@GohLow I agree, but at least I’m still interested in trying out the game’s mechanics. Maybe I’ll like them more than you did even though I agree with a lot of your points on them, I don’t know.
>Training Mode settings before character select
DUDE.....literally ANY FIGHTING GAME DISCORD could have told you thats a trash idea. I have no excuse for this, thats just ass
Every fighting game discord except his own, that's just gonna tell him it's the greatest game in the world
So basically its a way worse Sf6. A drive rush mechanic that punishes you way too hard when using it. What were they smoking.
The dev actually even accused Capcom of stealing the Rush Mechanic from Blazing Strike recently, only to instantly walk it back once people pointed out the absurdity of it.
Hmm, it feels to me based on what you're saying that the rush meter seems to be aiming for an approach where you have to be incredibly thoughtful about each use with how heavy the punishment for careless use of it is, but you do need to use it if you want to get anywhere. I prefer games that feel more open with what you can do (which is why I like games with universal cancel systems) but I can understand where some people would see an appeal in it, having to hard commit to things.
Training mode and lack of saving for story sound atrocious though, and I don't even like arcade in the first place. Does story mode at least have actual gameplay? Or do they do the Guilty Gear thing of 'we don't know how to tell an actual fighting game story so have a tie-in movie instead.'
Also I respect that as hyped as you were for the game, you still have standards. I take that more seriously than reviews blindly praising something because it has the right brand name or appeals to the right nostalgia. Though it's sad it let you down.
It's almost a Guilty Gear scenario, because the fights are SO spread-out and the text blocks go so slow that in my 90 minutes of playing the story, I think I only had like 3 matches.
@@GohLow Well at least there's actual fights. Maybe if saving and text boxes get adjusted in a patch I'll get it on sale.
Everything you covered plus the janky look and mediocre at best sound design and voice acting (especially the fuckin squeaky ass announcer-) makes Blazing Strike a very *very* big disappointment for the most part. Three years of waiting for a "promising" looking fighting game, all for every single ounce of expectations to go right down the drain as soon as the game finally came out, following constant radio silence and several setbacks.
I am SO glad I didn't even bother to keep up with any news on this game as much.
Even if you tried keeping up with the news of this game, there was none. I was literally the only person talking about it on a public forum for like an 18 month span in the leadup to and after it missed its March 2023 release window.
I want to like this game but I couldn't, the gameplay and animation look pretty jank. I'll give it a try one day though, but damn it looks rough, even some of the characters.
Thank you for the review. Gonna pass. My ultimate objection is that I don't think there are any cool characters. They are all ugly or inferior versions or hybrids of other characters in other fighting-games.
On the characters, what surprised me a ton was learning that the dev had no knowledge of pro wrestling, to the point of dismissing a comparison I made between Blazing Strike and a wrestling company, despite having Alexander whose design is so clearly a rip of King from Tekken, who was a rip of legendary wrestler Tiger Mask.
And having been excited for this game specifically for Mochizuki, the game's systems leave her feeling like if Axl Low was put in mechanical prison.
Are you Goh Long?
👀
@@GohLow ahah!
Perhaps DLC can still fix it.
Doesn't SF6 also has a meter for dashing?
You can still forward or backdash for free in SF6 (though they are a bit weaker than their counterparts in earlier games) and running out of Drive Gauge is punishing but not a death sentence.
Rush Meter and Drive Meter are Apples and Oranges.
Does are special dashes
No boss , 70$ , kof XII