Battle Fantasia Review (PS3)

Battle Fantasia is a fighting game released for the Playstation 3, created by Arc System Works. This is the same company that gave you the incredible Guilty Gear franchise. A new fighting game by Arc System Works? It must be good, right? Let's find out.

Story : Despite the game's name it has nothing to do with the Fantasia you know. Well, sort of. The atmosphere in the game is directly based on a childhood fantasy, but at the same time it's strange and weird and sometimes makes you feel like you're hallucinating. What's the story exactly? I have no idea but I don't think I'm supposed to. To make a long story short, this game is basically a really screwed up kid's story that involves a ton of fighting.

Graphics : The graphics in the game are really good. The characters all look great and have decent actions that are fun to look at with great animation. The backgrounds are usually pretty good, though some are quite barren and boring to look at. Overall the game's graphics are slightly above average. There's a ton of movement in the background and the characters look good, but there's nothing too mind blowing here.

Sound : The music in the game is decent at best, the voice acting is fairly good but generic, the sound effects are also very cookie cutter. When wrapped all together, what's presented to you is a decent but not great game musically. You won't be humming any tunes but you won't have your TV on mute either.

Game play : There's nothing new to speak of here. This game plays like any of the other thousand fighting games on the market. That isn't necessarily bad, except the control in this game sucks. Everything feels slow and lethargic, but not in a tactical way like Street Fighter 3. You'll struggle to get your combos working correctly and most likely be bored with the overall pace of the fights. Marvel VS. Capcom this is not. What's very upsetting is Arc System Works has previously created Guilty Gear, which rivals the Marvel VS. Capcom games in speed and intensity. What happened here?

Re playability : Unfortunately, there isn't any. You'll most likely play this game then immediately want to play a real fighting game afterwords, like the aforementioned Street Fighter 3, Guilty Gear, or Marvel VS. Capcom.

Overall : 4/10. A generic fighting game that shows good effort but overall falls very very flat.