Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!!

It's great! My brother bought it for my birthday um 2 or 3 years ago? I couldn't find the mind to play it with the arcade stick he also bought me same birthday, until now! And I'm impressed with how much fun I'm having, I'm not much of a fighting game know it all, more like the opposite, so I don't know what all the extra super abilities are or much about guarding. It looks like I'll have to learn from the online copy of the ps2 original AH1 Manual, it's in english. The 3rd one doesn't seem to have a manual. Great game though, I'm having a lot of fun with it, I wanted my brother to get it for me because it's an all girl roster and I had fun with the original ps2 game. The animations in this one are noticeably better, and the character I was using is so enjoyable that I think I'll be playing for a long time. I like Marvel vs Capcom 1,2,3,4 and Guilty Gear all of them, and Arcana Heart!!!!! This game is great, I'm having so much fun with it, I think I would be lying if I said it wasn't my totalitarian favorite fighting game, even though I've played other great fighting games, I am having so much fun with this one and the other ones I haven't felt as Jolly while playing. I'm using the character Konoha. I don't expect the other characters to make me feel so entertained and joyous, but if they do then that's much fun x like 28 or however big the roster is... It's 23, that's my birthday, that seems right to me, because this game is a great game.

A solid fighting game full of cool characters. It has issues if you sdn't cap the frame rate. I recommend it but it is a waste of money since Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX SIXSTARS!!!!!! XTEND is available. Buy Xtend!!! it is a better version of the game that doesn't have the same issues

For those interested, I can confirm this game runs perfectly on the Steam Deck. It supports the default controller configuration out of the gate, and i never observed any dropped frames or any other glitches.

This is a short version of the game.
The full version is "Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX SIXSTARS!!!!!! XTEND"

I bought this originally because I did not know that Six Stars was it's own seperate game on steam. Six Stars is the same game with more content and still gets updates. I do not recommend Love Max solely because Six Stars exists.

if you want to:
- ✞ with a gun
- summon satan to give more power
- BUTTON MASH
- take rhythm classes
- perfectly time a slash
- commit Iron Tager's astral blaze
- pro roller skate
- commit Morbid World but anime girl

the command input heaven is for you

For anyone with troubles to to run the game, some possible fixes that you can try:

Change the compatibility mode.
Start direct from the folder with Adm rights.
Disable your second monitor and/or set your resolution to 1280x720 (or change the document at Documents\ARC SYSTEM WORKS\AH3LM\Config) and change the game options after that.

And if everything else fails, the solution that "worked" for me:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/370460/discussions/0/1696040635903348852/

I can't start the game unless it is on Disc C: and it is my SSD disc with the OS.
So... welp, I'm getting a refund.

Small update: Sixstars suffers from the same issue. Rip.

If you like 2d fighters with very good gameplay and do not mind an all female cast, this game is a must for hardcore 2d fighter fans as myself.

Arcana Heart 3 LM is a solid 2D fighter.

24 playable characters each with their own unquie Arcana summon that can be swapped around to fit your fighting style. That's 576 different combinations to work with making every character A tier and above. If you enjoyed Marvel vs Capcom 2 then you'll really feel at home with this fighter.

The combat is fast pace (once you get an understanding of the spacing) and the visuals are vibrant. An easy to learn with challenging to master mechanics Arcana Heart is one of the few extremely balance fighters with a lot of depth. Sure, the cast is all female and for some they question just how good an all female cast fighting game can be. Put that nonsense aside and actually give the game a try. The game is complete with story mode, online verse, time attack, a bunch of unlockables, local verses, arcade mode, training mode, and even online training while waiting within your lobby. Online lobbies can host up to 6 players and everyone can view the current match. There is also a record/save feature for online matches as well as online ranking. Speaking of online, as long as a person is 3 bars the connection is quite playable. Even moreso than on the PS3 version.

PROS:
Huge Cast
A Balance Fighter
Solid Online
Many Playable Modes
Easy to get Into
An All Female Cast
Mad Versatility

CONS:
No rematch feature (for some odd reason)
Silly Story (it's a fighting game not many actually have a good story)
Fighting Kamui in challenge mode (you'll rage a lot)


Overall Arcana Heart is a great fighter that suffers from people giving the gamew shit because of its anime all female cast. Many people haven't even tried it and shit on the game. There is so much depth to AH and outta many "anime" based fighting games is actually fair and is still crazy hype when watching good players play it. 8/10 is my score and if anyone wants to play simply pm me and I'll be down.

First of all, for those of you who were going to get this for two reasons, here you go to save the trouble:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839598
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839632
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839667

As for the rest of you, yes it's a pretty cool fighting game. Recommend an arcade stick since some moves are finicky with a controller.

But this comes with some caveats. First of all the single player modes are completely useless for most normal people. Every single player mode is on the level of a classic coin-operated arcade machine scam where every boss just gets more power than you. You're not going to have any fun playing single player, it's just purely challenge, every single one of them.

Then you hop on Network mode to find someone to play with, and it's empty because no one plays online on a PC version of a fighting game. You need friends to play this with.

So unless you have multiple controllers or friends online who have this game, don't bother. If you're dead set on challenging all the single player modes, you're a masochistic freak.

Lose the approval of your family when they walk in on you and your good buddies cheering at little girls beating each other up.

If you don't have to keep up any appearances, it's a good 2D fighting game with unique mechanics and a diverse character roster.

An extremely unique fighter with characters suited to all playstyles. You can establish your dominance in pretty much any area you want, whether it's a strong neutral game, devastating mixups, a disgusting vortex, or 1000 hit combos, this game allows it.

Arcana Heart 3 Love Max is a 2D Fighting game featuring an all-female cast of 23 fighters. Set in the country of Japan it is up to you to choose one of these fighters and find rare objects known as Celestial Stones that are used to power a giant robot. Each character has very slightly different dialogue so playing through the Story Mode once and skipping everything but the ending results in no real loss as long as you don't skip the unique ending. Story mode is the nonsensical bare-bones set up one would expect from a fighting game with nothing even remotely interesting about it. None of us are likely to buy a Fighting game expecting a well told narrative however, so luckily the combat in this is very enjoyable. It's a one on one fight but you also choose from one of 23 unique Arcanas (support character) for slightly different powers at your disposal.

The difference between Arcanas is very minimal like some poisoning your enemy or boosting your power. Without a doubt the stars of the show here are the characters themselves. It has demon nuns, living paintings and dolls, dead little girls and a wolf riding catgirl to name a few. They are all very unique and memorable minus the main character Heart who is as cliché as can be, strangely enough. It's not just appearances that differ, each one controls and fights in very distinct manners such as some characters needing to reload their guns, some having limited mana to unleash magic and your more traditional 'punch your enemy into submission' type of characters. This huge difference between characters also means it is typically a good idea to train with them a little first before plunging straight into one of the modes as button mashing won't get you very far in this title.

You have three bars at the bottom which allow for three special attacks or one huge one depending if you have them filled up of course. Special attacks always require you to press both your light and heavy attack buttons simultaneously along with a certain combination so you are unlikely to accidentally waste a bar in the heat of the moment. Certain Arcana attacks also require a bar of energy to pull off. What may be even more important than your energy bar is your arcana percentage meter located at the top of the screen right under your characters portrait. Once it is at 100 percent you can activate it for a boost in power with the added benefit of knocking your opponent to the other side of the screen if you activate it while she is near. Another equally important function of that meter is that you can activate an “arcana burst” at any time that allows you to interrupt a combo and giving you enough breathing room to get back into the fight. Bursting out of a combo causes your meter to refill far more slowly than usual so it is more of a one off emergency move than something to be relied on.

Arcana Heart 3 has a rather unique gameplay mechanic that allows you to dash towards wherever your opponent is, at the press of a button. Whether she be at the other side of the screen or mid-air, a single press of the button will put you face to face in no time. It helps keep the pace of the game fast but is also not detrimental to range based characters as it is rather easy to put a stop to someone making a mad dash at you. If both of you are dashing at each other it is a matter of who strikes first that will be at the advantage or if you both strike at the same it will cause a brief moment where you can either attempt another attack, block or just get out of range. All characters have a double jump and having that dash button at hand it can lead to some really cool mid-air fights. Being defensive is just as dangerous as being very aggressive since blocking an attack does little to no damage to you and creates small openings where you can counter-attack. You do have to predict whether it's a low or high attack though and grabs cannot be blocked so it takes skill whichever way you fight.

Stages are really bland to look at unfortunately and often have very little detail in them. Each level does change into something more interesting when someone is using their arcana meter but that is just a very brief time then its back to the bland backgrounds. It is rather cool each stage has two looks to them though the problem is the one you look at most is sub-par. Another problem is that the camera is very zoomed in to focus on the characters so not much of the background is shown. That issue could have been fixed by allowing us to play in 16:9 aspect ratio though sadly it's stuck to 4:3. One thing I do like about the stages is that they all have a ton of vertical space to jump around in.

Since it is stuck at 4:3 only the middle of your screen will be for the game itself the rest will be for the rather cool character animation portraits on each side. While fighting your character will be shown on the corner of your screen in a battle stance, squirming when taking damage and various other movements while performing special attacks. It adds nothing to the gameplay but I really liked that small touch nonetheless. The animations on the side of the screen may distract some players from the fight in which case there is an option to turn them off and have them be static screens. If you have a monitor over 60hz the game will run far too fast in which case you must go into your graphic cards menu be it Nivdia's Control Panel or AMD's Catalyst to turn on Vsync since there is no in game option to do so.

Now onto the game modes, aside from Story Mode you have “Trials” that challenges you with a certain task each day, Survival that has your health carry over between matches with only a bit of it refilled and Training which is exactly what it sounds like. There is also Versus, Time attack, Network and After Story. There are a ton of modes to choose from and strangely enough you may not want to actually start off with the Story Mode. It is the only mode with a Street Fighter 3 like feature where you can choose from a couple of characters on who to fight next match but the sub-boss is a massive difficulty spike that will destroy you if you don't know how to properly play as your character. It's not an insurmountable foe but it is quite a challenge whose difficulty seems to not scale regardless of your difficulty setting. Once you are decent with a certain character it is an exciting battle even if she does love to spam her giant mechanized turtle. The real problem comes afterwards. You will be facing a giant skyscraper tall robot. Sounds cool right? Well the bad news is that it is not a fight at all but a glorified version of the car smashing bonus round of SF2. In here you must attack small portions of the stage which can range from easy to a real pain depending on your characters range, air fighting skills and move set.

All you gain from story mode is a unique ending so I don't even bother with that mode due to that robot. Simply fighting regardless of mode will unlock stuff like that character's mini story and sub-stories which are a cool way to know more of your favorite characters personality and an enjoyable read when they are not being serious. It has very good humor but on occasion it tries to be serious and falls flat on its face. Speaking of story you may remember me mentioning an After Story mode. This is basically a Visual Novel with a few fights thrown which have the characters look for a hot spring. It is exactly as boring as it sounds and after suffering through that I can confirm there is nothing other than an achievement to be unlocked. This being the third game in the series they expect you to be familiar with the lore and don't explain anything like the characters background or factions. This is the first game to be released on PC so you will be totally lost if you didn't happen to play the first two on the PS2. Regardless, if you value gameplay above all else Arcana Heart 3 will not disappoint.

TL;DR - Great game for offline with controllers, bad port and netcode.

Arcana Heart 3 innovates on the fighting game genre with it's flight mechanics, Arcana strikers and constantly refilling Arcana gauge. The homing flight button allows for crazy aerial menuvering and in the right hands can become a deadly weapon. After selecting a character, the player has to select an Arcana, which is similar to Stands in the Jojo universe. Pretty much a beast that the player character summons to cast different spells. Different tactics can be formed by matching different characters with different Arcanas.

The STORY isn't very interesting and is not delivered very well. Either the game doesn't stand well on it's own or it just lacks proper character introduction. I'd often end up skipping all scenes of dialog.

The GRAPHICS aren't all that great. It's a low res pixel art type 2D fighter that came out back when it was acceptable for big companies to make such games. The animated side bars are pretty cool, though and the dialog scenes contain high resolution graphics as well.
There's a "character effect" option in the graphics options menu which blurs the character sprites. I don't know why anyone would ever turn that on.

The NETCODE isn't great either. I've only played one match so far... but it took me quite a while to find and when I did - it ran in slow motion. Full frame sync just isn't the way to go. It was not an enjoyable experiance.

In terms of PORT quality - the game falls flat on it's face. Menu controls can't be rebound at all, meaning that if you press space then you must navigate the menu with WASD and if you press return then you must navigate the menu with the arrow keys. The confirmation button changes too. And it's not something obvious like Enter or Space... it's "I" or Numpad 7 or some other silly option.
Redefined controls are in effect only when in a fight. Even during dialog scenes - you can only press the default controls - better memorize them before changing.
It's impossible to set a high resolution windowed mode in the menu. Windowed and fullscreen have different supported resolutions. I have a 1920 by 1200 pixel monitor and my screen resolution isn't supported at all. I can play fullscreen at 1920x1080px. I can't, however, use Borderless Gaming because I can't crank the resolution that high in windowed mode.

I'd expect such a late release on PC to have some candy like a tutorial mode or some unlockable art gallery or improved netcode... But nada. The game is no better than the console version in any way. It only came out much much later when it's pretty much irrelevant. I realize Aksys are finally giving us PC gamers their wonderful creations following the PC release of Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- but I would have expected tweaking them up a little, considering the immense delay after the original console releases.

Pretty great fighter, although it will take some time to get used to it. If you can put aside the theme (take my word for it, it's tolerable in game), you are in for a treat.

There are three main reasons the game sticks out as a 2D fighter:
- Homing button
You can use it to jet yourself towards the opponent, delay your attack, fly around projectiles, extend your combo, dodge attacks. No other fighter allows you to be this mobile in the air. It's something that you will keep finding ways to exploit, it's pretty great.

- Huge hand drawn stages
The stages are massive, especially vertically, and its incredibly enjoyable as you and your opponent fight it out practically everywhere in the air. It just feels massive.

- Arcanas
An Arcana gives you a bonus to your character and you can summon them to do an attack (like MVC assists). The bonuses are quite different, like allowing you to float in the air to giving your attacks superarmor to making your character fall faster and less vulnerable combos. You can combine any arcana with any character which gives you a lot of options to try out.

Balance wise its pretty good. While there are a couple of really strong characters, they don't feel unbeatable. Everyone has an arcana they can use to keep them in the fight.

The netcode is pretty nice. It starts off quite laggy, but it should smooth out by the time the match starts. Overall, haven't had issues with playing people from completely different regions (EAST/West/Europe). It's still not great as it's not using rollback like GGPO, but overall quite playable.

My main complaint is that the game doesn't have high-res character sprites. This is largely unnoticeable in the match because you are moving around so quickly, but it makes a bad impression in the beginning. Also the single player is quite lackluster although you do have a story mode, time trial etc.

Aside from that, this is a great game. You might need to grab a friend though, the online playerbase is quite small.

You're in for a treat with this game. With 23 fighters and 23 Arcanas to choose from, the latter further customizing and adding depth to your chosen fighter, you will have a lot of fun experimenting and finding your own fighting style.

This game's mechanics share some similarities with those of other air dashers, such as Blazblue or Melty Blood, with a unique twist to it: the homing mechanic, which allows you to home in on your opponent with the press of a button, which in turn allows for extra defensive and offensive options, along with fast-paced mind games.

The game launched with a few bugs, but most of them were quickly addressed with a couple of patches. I won't say it's perfect now, but personally my experience hasn't been negatively impacted since then.

I highly recommend this if you're into fighting games but haven't yet tried Arcana Heart. Veterans of the series will already know this game is awesome :)

Behind a silly title, there’s an innovative and exciting fighting game for enthusiasts of the genre. This is Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! in a nutshell. The game lives up to its hardcore reputation and brings new mechanics and a lot of depth to the table. If you can pass the “cute girls” aesthetic, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here.

“But what makes Arcana Heart so special?”, you might be thinking. Two things: the homing mechanic and arcanas for the characters. The homing mechanic consists in a command to fly directly to your enemy from anywhere in the stage. You can throw your opponent up in the air, press the homing button and start a combo there. Arcanas, on the other hand, offers 23 elementals choices to complement your movelist. Add this to the cast of 23 characters and you have a total of 529 combinations (!!!!!) to try out.

It’s worth mentioning that Arcana Heart is heavily focused on air combat, like a good air-dasher should be. Ground based combos don’t have much impact here. With a screen up to about four times vertically, the matches generally get extreme on the air, flying up and down, with each fighter following each other, performing fast inputs and cancelling combos.

Is Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! worth the price? In my honest opinion, totally, but just for experienced fighting games players or enthusiasts. There’s no tutorial, and even if you’re a veteran of the genre, you’ll need to look some guides and wikis to learn its depth and its unique mechanics. There’s a lot of modes to keep you occupied and having fun.

PROS:

MIXED:

CONS:

Don't tell my friends I play this game.

Edit:
I felt bad, so I'm gonna write a bit about this game.

It's a good fighting game. Very unique, doesn't really play too much like Arcsys fighting games like GG/BB. Very deep, there is a lot to learn about it. The game feels a little clunky at first until you get more used to the homing button, but after that it feels great.

If you can look past the art style and are looking for a breath of fresh air in the fighting game genre, this is it.

-First off, how's the port?
I've experienced no detrimental problems in my time with the game. No slowdowns, crashes, or anything for me. Game natively recognized every controller I threw at it (x360, ps3 stick, even a gamecube controller), and I was able to rebind everything. And I highly reccomend using some kind of controller for this game.

-Okay, so the game runs. What about the gameplay?
So far so good. Game is REALLY fun. REALLY REALLY fun. Especially when you get the hang of the homing system. I've had multiple times when playing something happens, and I just say "You can do that? THAT'S AWESOME!"
All the characters are really unique and feel fresh, and all of the arcanas are really neat. (I can stop time? Yes please)
Music is pretty good.

-Now: The netcode.
From my experience so far, it works very well. Matches have ranged from BUTTERY SMOOTH to slightly rough. Sometimes the worse connections can take a few seconds to get going, but once they do it's completely playable. You can't expect to to have smooth matches with people from out of the country, or if they just have a bad connection. No amount of netcode wizardry will fix that.

Oh yeah it's also got cute girls
You like those, right?

TL;DR
It's good. Buy it and come play with us.

So far so good. The game runs great and is a huge step above ASW's last release with Battle Fantasia. Let's get this minor thing out of the way right off the bat. There is something odd that makes the game backgrounds, menus, text look more pixelated at 1080p. Keeping it at 720 looks crisp on a 1080p monitor. What ever it is that is upscaling the image and making it look that good must be black magic.

I've just hit up training mode and had a few online matches and the game is running without any hitches and the online matches that are of decent distances are played pretty damn good. I don't know if there is a region select in the menus, but that would probably help with people finding smoother matches. That's probably asking for too much since that would fracture the already small player base that this is going to have. Even so, the matches I've found so far have been from tolerable to excellent. The netcode is more than adequate, the problem is finding people who don't live 2,000 miles way from you.

I will update this review later with more gameplay and mode impressions after spending more time with the game. Those worrying about performance and connectivity should purchase this without any worries.

Arc System Works delivers by bringing another God-tier anime fighter to Steam. Uses the netcode they used for Under Night In-Birth and the other Guilty Gear games they published and the added meta from picking arcanas to mix and match with fighters makes it feel like fighting game alchemy with the hype going over the roof everytime your friends find out some new set-up that you guys will have to defeat and the cycle goes on. Grab your buds, some beer, the arcade fightsticks and get ready to throwdown in an airdasher that PC hasn't seen before. Hope this game's fighting game community becomes massive on Steam.