Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena

A beautiful, simple and easy to play game with a good learning curve. It was worth it.

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The playability is great, the graphics not so much. Recomend like a fun game to try

One of the easiest achievement lists on Steam (ignoring those cheap achievement farmers)

Also Altina's pretty hot

It's worth playing.
If you are a veteran you either played it yet or you just discarded for it's lack of complexity: in fact the game have all the standard mechanics with no complex exclusive feature, it also lacks on game modes since you only have Story Mode, Training, Local VS and Online VS.
Speaking of Story Mode I swear you may say it's prequel of Dragon Ball if I tell you the plot. It could've be interesting because the characters comes from different Shining series of game (too bad I only played Shining Souls II) but their stories do not enthwine, just a basic "you have something I want, give it to me".
Still it's a game worth of your money and I'm sad nobody never ever talk about this.

I accidentally 100%'d this game after beating story mode with all characters. Fun game with very simplistic movesets and cool characters.

The story is just kinda there, but not a bad fighting game. Rage from Shining Blade is my favorite character to play as. It work very well on Steam Deck too.

Such an incredible gaming mechanics and graphics. loved iT.

Off the top of my head, this is the only game you can play as a wolf man and a sexy pirate guy beating up a bunch of anime trash waifus. Its a team fighting game, but its that funky kind of team fighter like KOF or Capcom Fighting Evolution, its kinda weird. No rollback, i think, so dont expect no quality games online, but it aint bad.

i love this game, so far every lesser known fighting game ive tangled with has been a hoot. super fun. love the double character system. and comboing into supers feels sick. 3 attack buttons, but the special moves and mechanics make for a well rounded game to enjoy mastering. hope to see more from this series or these developers. going to do all of the story for my youtube channel

It's hard for me to recommend this game now. I'm half and half on it.

The fighting system shows promise. With things like being able to dash cancel from most moves to extend combos, shield block and counter, and even utilizing your assists. No silly hype comeback factors here. The game is also fairly pickup and playable while there isn't an Easy Auto-combo mode like many games have today (Thank God). You can still pull some pretty decent combos for quite a bit of damage.

Characters range from boring to fairly interesting in design, story, and playstyle. A few of them feel like typical cookie cutter characters and move sets then as you explore more of the cast you start to find the actual good characters.

I actually like the story mode cause it's not an incredibly long winded story. It's just start the story, witty banter, fight, a little more witty banter, and more fighting. I can understand the character motives easily and it's enough to make me curious for some characters. I'm not too fond of the character designs as many feel rather misleading. Like a samurai dressed as a maid. And some characters are totally generic. The "I'm clearly evil and planned this oh you defeated me I guess I'll run away now." Kind. The worst of the stories I'm debating if it's the one who no longer wished to break plates or the one who wanted the ultimate ice cream. Other character story's were okay or enough to make me wish that I could play whatever game they're from. (I can't cause it's a Japan only.)

What's very detrimental to this game is the lack of game modes. You have Story Mode which may as well be Arcade Mode. Versus, Training, and Online. This is as bare bones as it gets for a fighting game unless you know of a tournament scene or have friends willing to play this with you, this game will quickly lose your interest. At the time I've played this You might as well cross out Online Play cause the online is a ghost town.

The graphics are okay. I can tell that most of the focus was put towards the character portraits rather than the sprite work. The sprite work is okay and works for the game.

The music is decent nothing to complain about. Nothing really stands out to me though as to say this is the theme I always I want to hear. But it's not painful or overused either. I can listen to this game's OST with no problem.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this maybe if you're a Shining Series fan and just want something else to tide you over. Otherwise not worth it. It needs a few more modes and possibly more characters. Or improve some of the more boring characters.

It's okay for what it is, balance is a big issue, and it's very bear bones content wise, but if you like the characters it's fun enough to get on sale.

Like with most fighting games the story mode is ok. The thing that counts most is the gameplay and the OST which this game has. I recommend this game to anyone that loves arcade fighting games!

After playing more, I started to appreciate the game, so I have edited my review.

PROS
+ Visual design of characters is pretty cool.
+ The moves are stylish and smooth.
+ The characters are different enough, and all of them are fun to use.

CONS
- Character balance is not good. Some characters are more powerful.
- For some characters, you end up using the same moves over and over.
- The "very hard" level is somewhat easy (once you get the hang of the game).

+ Good-looking background.
+ Decent roster with no clone characters.
+ Character moveset aren't too deep, but easy and simple to understand.
+ All characters were designed by Tony Kaka. Really like this dude's works of fine art! ;w;

- Seriously lack of contents: no Extras, no Concept Arts, no Character Bio, no Survival Mode, no Time Attack Mode, no rewards after beating Story Mode (which is Arcade Mode), no Side Story. Seriously?
- The game is abysmally easy. I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty setting if you want a real AI challenge.
- The lamest final boss I've ever seen. (I'm sorry, I refuse to spoiler!)
- Online Mode is mostly a ghost town.
- No real graphics setting. Resolution locked at 720p.

I can't recommend this game for anyone, even you're big fan of Shining Tony Kaka series (only 1 main game released oversea. The rest are stayed at Japan) or just his artworks. However, if you ignore all my statements and want to play the game so badly (because you have a crush on those waifus, I bet!), wait for the price to drop like $10 or less.

The game is solid. I don't know much about the story mode nor do I give a fuck, it's a fighting game, to hell with the story.

Solid mechanics, beautiful gameplay, looks like anime, combos like anime, feels more like street fighter. Seems footsie based and you can perform some cool juggle combos once you get your opponent to the corner.

On sale for 50% off at $15 - a fun game for the price. Wouldn't pay more for this, though.

Control is very responsive, it feels like you are always in control. Great for beginners as you can mash buttons and feel like a pro... Not a contender against anything from Arc System, Capcom or Namco and so should be avoided if you want depth and strategy.

I love this game! Visuals are pretty crisp and clean. As a causal gamer who loves fighting games, this one doesn't disappoint. I am new to the "shining" series, so I'm not really up on their universe. But I did find it entertaining, but not deep, just a casual searching for orbs to be granted a wish. Honestly I found the story mode to be very simple and vague. Not a bad thing, only an observation. The nice part is there is a demo if you so desire to try it out before you buy. I find myself getting more of an anime fix from this one than anything. Also at first glance it looks like a tag tournament game, of which honestly I not a fan of tag fighters, but this ones a little different, first time for me. There is an assist, you have a meter on the bottom of the screen, in which you can have your second character jump onto the screen and sort of do a cheap shot, its actually pretty hilarious to me and they can actually get knocked down if your opponents timing is right. I just thought that was a pretty neat original concept to me. Good stuff!

If you're a fan of Shining series or Tony's artworks. Probably you'll have some fun with this game.
But if you just want a highly polished and balanced 2D fighting game and play online, better go somewhere else.

-Easy to learn for beginners. Very easy special moves, and with some characters you may only rely on normal attacks to win.

-Maybe more like Street Fighter rather than combo heavy fighters such as BlazBlue. One heavy hit can suck up 1/5 hp, You have to position and time your attack carefully or you'll die very fast.

-Support system could be interesting. You can exchange main and support every round, and call support attacks when fighting.

-Graphics are OK, characters look a little bit jaggy with 1080p.

-Balance isn't very good, I didn't dig into this game deeply, just had a look on the online ranking list. Good characters can have 10000+ score but bad ones only a few hundreds.

-AI isn't very good, Normal difficulty and below are too easy, you may win with just spamming any attack. And Hard suddenly ramps up a lot, AI can counter your attack most of the time if you're going aggressive.

-Online is almost dead I guess. Tried a couple times, found nobody.

-Story is next to nothing. Collect all orbs and congratulations, something like that. And no it's not dragon ball.

The game is fun, but those top tier characters ruin the fun of the game right away, and many players love to pick them cause of the BS BATTLE STATS(in phuking casual matches!) that ruins the online community.

If you want a serious & fun balanced fighting game from Degica, get KOIHIME ENBU instead don't bother with this one, unless they rebalanced it my opinion won't change.

6/10 "Playable" (Don't get me wrong I do like the game, but I can't recommend to other players that are into competitive fighting games.)

Fighting System: 8/10
Presentation (graphics/visuals, sound/music/voice acting, etc): 8/10
Story/Single Player Offerings: 4/10
Overall: A unique little spinoff fighter with way too much competition in the current market.

It's hard to call this game bad, but saying I don't recommend buying it is different. (Jan 2017 edit: Degica games continues to support this title in North America with bug fixes and "Wednesday Night Fights" events, which is more effort than some developers ever put in after launch, so you might be able to get some worthwhile matches in after all.)

TL;DR:
I gave the game a shot on a whim, because I thought it at least deserved a chance with its flashy visuals, intuitive gameplay, and innovative assist system, but with other games I need to finish/practice and the availability of people I've met in real life who will play other "poverty games" (Melty Blood, DFC, UNIEL, Yatagarasu, previous KOF titles, Persona, etc) but not this one, I was forced to admit that this is a multiplayer-focused game in a fully saturated market and its single player offerings don't make up for the gap in multiplayer opportunities. I do think this game deserved a chance to shine, and feel terrible hurting its overall rating, but the sad reality of fighting games today is that its chance came and went with AnimEvo 2016.

Text Wall:

I actually find the gameplay itself rather enjoyable. It calls Dengeki Fighting Climax to mind, but with less insane assists and no burst, meaning less "setplay," less meter gain, and less approaching "for free." It has the same "Light, Medium, Heavy, Assist" button setup (A/B/C/D) and you block by holding back (hold down+back to avoid walking back, stand on reaction to overheads). A+B executes a throw, you can tech a throw by pressing throw, you can do "EX" special moves by pressing two buttons with an input, any seasoned fighting gamer knows the drill. Each character has a very limited move pool, and from my brief playtime it seems they each possess a single overhead special of some sort, which is typically intuitively recognized as an overhead. Some characters have an airdash, but others don't, making this game surprisingly grounded for an "anime fighter." Some have compared it to Street Fighter with assists. The limited moves (A/B/C, crouching A/B/C, jumping A/B/C, one or two command normals, two or three specials, maybe one works in the air, two supers, maybe one works in the air), tame assists compared to MvC or DFC, and telegraphed standing overheads mean that:

1) You'll have to learn to space yourself properly and be patient; no winning a round without ever retreating or blocking.
2) On the surface, matchups are relatively simple to learn. After a while you should stop losing to things you've never seen before, and start losing because you made a bad decision somewhere.
3) Even the "50/50" type mixups aren't complete guess situations. Blocking low and waiting to stand for the overhead or tech at the green throw flash is easier said than done, but from what I played I didn't see a lot of potential for anything quite as oppressive as Guilty Gear mixups, vanilla Persona setplay, or BlazBlue blockstrings. (The combo damage if you get caught in a bad situation can be as silly as in any other "anime fighter," though, and with a lower execution barrier.)

The one thing the game does that I haven't seen before is allow you to swap your assist with your main between rounds. You can pick a character that covers your main's worst matchups, learn both characters, and tag out if your main is struggling. Alternatively, you can change things up drastically if your opponent learns your habit patterns. The assist system itself is key to the strategy of the game overall - the type of assist varies based on whether you press the button in neutral (1/4 support gauge), while comboing (1/4 gauge), while blocking (escape for 1/2 gauge), while being hit (desperation escape for full support gauge), or while using a super (massive damage for full meter AND support gauge). This is a unique, enjoyable system in which going ham with your assist ends up sacrificing your ability to use the "burst" mechanic typically seen in anime fighters.

All of these are major positives for me. HOWEVER:

I know the prevailing opinion about fighting game stories is "lolstory," "go watch an anime," etc, but even so, this is a game based on an RPG series that also had an anime adaptation/spinoff (The Bread of Happiness, a solid 6/10 from what I hear). With those origins one might expect this game to have, if not a compelling narrative, then at the very least a variety of enjoyable character interactions. Instead, each character gets a few vague allusions to their personality and/or relationships while they "gather orbs" (one infers that each arcade mode opponent you fight drops one) because someone said to, then fights a done to death super original "YOU'VE DONE WELL TO MAKE IT THIS FAR" god and makes a wish. But from what I played the wishes end up being petty and inconsequential. There's really... no point to any of it, and the game seems to be actively avoiding doing anything that the main series might have to address.

And really, that's fine on the surface! It's a fighting game people are playing $20-30 for and Sega probably didn't want to end up angering fans who think FGs are too hard, a la the Persona 4 Arena series. But then you've got training, versus, online versus, and uh.... that's it besides the Manual and Options menu. And this is a niche title in a niche genre featuring characters from a lesser-known franchise, so good luck finding anyone who wants to play against you, especially if you live outside of the East Asia region. (But the Steam version has online play, which is a huuuuge plus! Credit where credit is due!) Without any kind of proper campaign mode, deep story, or bonus modes (think Soul Calibur bomb tag) to play, it's just hard to recommend this game. The nature of fighting games is that their complicated interactions and deep gameplay systems draw you in as you pour hours into mastering them with the goal of overcoming your opponents. But that process is only fun if you have a rival to gauge your progress and a worthy opponent to test yourself against once you've "mastered" the game. Did I mention the computer is completely braindead? Or that you probably won't be able to find many matches? I want to like this game, I really do, but sadly it's impossible for me to genuinely recommend it when you'll probably just mash out the easy story achievements and then shelve it for life. If you have a friend who is good at fighting games and will train with you, then go for it. If you're a Shining series superfan and you simply have to have this item as part of your collection, then go for it. If you're just a casual fighting game fan though, this is a sparse game with a minimal scene and you might do better to research what games are popular in your local area. If you're a competitive fighting game player, then you probably scrolled past this review when you saw the word story, and you probably know full well that you're not going to get much out of the time you invest in this game unless you're going to PovertyFest 2017.

Review was done by a casual fighting game player that uses a Xbox 360 controller to play. Feedback for online play not included have yet to find a match so those who want it for online only get it if you have friends to play with otherwise you might want to pass.

SHORT ANSWER

Blade Arcus I'd say it's reccomended for the more casual fighting game fan as opposed to those that play nothing but fighting games or to anyone that wants to find a good place to start without being overwhelmed by tutorials however this would be more of an introductory to fighting games as opposed to teaching you every aspect about 2D fighters like the footsie game at what not.

LONG ANSWER

-Story Mode (To sum it up it's basically like arcade mode with cutscenes every now and then that can be skipped by pressing start if you wish but theres no score or ranking system HIGHLY RECOMMENDED doing Pairon or Ryuga first to understand the premise of the story. Extended cutscene after ending credits for each character)

-Versus Mode (Does not include a random select for characters, CPU doesn't switch between Main or Support mid game)

-Training Mode (Nothing notable to add yet still messing around with it)

-Online Mode (I can't give feedback on online at the moment but will update it when I can at this point though if online is your main thing I suggest skipping this or at least have a friend to play with as both ranked and casuals are pretty empty)

-Manual (This is basically your tutorial mode which is more text based as opposed to direct action based learning)

Arena and Gallery is NOT INCLUDED as for those that don't know Arena is traditional Arcade mode for some people this is a big no no but I think I rather have Online mode to at least play with my friends for now but it will still be nice to get these modes included in the future I'd pay money for it if it's not too expensive.

Movement:

All characters are able to back dash, short dash/sidestep (Basically it's not a fully blown run) and super jump with the exception of 1 character (Ryouna) is the only one able to double jump as well as air dash distance and speed varies from character to character.

Characters:

All have a degree of difficulty and playstyles such as Beginner friendly, Zoners, Rushers, Charge characters, Slow but Heavy damaging characters. No grab based characters present.
My Reccomended characters for beginners for both Main and Support: Rick, Pairon, Ryuga and Fenrir.

Character Moves:

Lot of quarter circle/half circle movments, DP input forward down down-forward motions, Up and Down Left and Right Charge moves. few rekkas motions (doing same input up to 3 times can be done in succession or stopped at any point) follow up moves which basically do an input then follow by another button for a different result based on what button. Almost all super specials are quarter circle forward or back inputs a few quarter circle back half circle forward input specials.

Game Mechanics:

-Simple 2D fighting game reduce your enemys life to zero to win.
-System is based around two characters that can be changed before the match and after every round (Not in story mode though)
Main-The character your controlling
Support-A character that based on a special input or action your character is doing will jump in to assist you in damaging an opponent/setting up combos or interupt your opponent that is attacking you. (Assist characters can be attacked)
-3 Meters are present
1st is your typical special bar (Max Stock is 3) that charges only when getting hit or doing damage more so if you get hit with a critical, using special moves, and only when your getting chip damage while blocking which are from special moves or super specials.
2nd one is your support gauge (Max is 4) which only builds when you recieve damage blocking will not build this meter nor does attacking.
3rd one is basically a counter system of some sort it's basic uses are used for 1 a blow back attack which basically is a hard hitting attack that knocks your opponent away from you and 2 a sort of Reflection barrier that does the same thing but cost 50% of the bar but blocks everything but throws and I'm pretty sure super specials or maybe my timing is off meter builds gradually but builds pretty slow.
-Recovery is in this game basically get knocked hold A,B or C to automatically get back up similar to BlazeBlue and Persona 4 Arena.
-Ex moves are present which is basically spend half a meter to enhance your special move which varies each characters for instance certain characters throw out their fireball much faster or more of them experiment with each character for different results.
-You can cancel in this game to continue your combo string from moves that shouldn't link but costs 1 bar.
-You can spend 1 bar to backdash evade out of a bad situation.
-There is no air blocking.
-Landing certain super specials seem to buff your character or debuff your enemy

Other Notes:
-Cross ups are possible with some characters some of them maybe not or I might just be bad at it with that character.

My first review here on Steam so I'll try to be as fair and to the point as possible.

Blade Arcus is the latest addition to SEGA's long running "Shining" RPG series but this time, we skip all of the hours of gameplay and grinding to progress the story for more simplier system......let's turn this franchise into a "FIGHTER".....someone at SEGA must have said that and "poof", it's done.

The game story revolves around it's two original characters Ryuuga & Pairon. As to what that story is? I don't know....I have yet to play story mode and quite frankly, I don't care much for it. I play fighting games for the fighting, not the story (majority of the game). If it was animated and you had to watch it like a movie like in Guilty Gear Xrd (Sign & Revelator), then I'll probably know what the story is cause I'll watch it in a heartbeat. Just know that there is a story to this game that is only relavent to this game and not any of the other Shining games that never made it here to the west:

- Shining Tears
- Shining Wind
- Shining Hearts
- Shining Blade

There's a lot more games in the series than what I posted but I'll keep it short for right now.

Blade Arcus sports 16 characters of whom all are from various Shining games that I just mentioned above with Ryuuga & Pairon making their Shining debut in this one. Consider this game more of a dream match to put some of the fan favorite characters the Shining series against one another. Outside of Shining Force 1 & 2, I'm only familiar with Dylan, Rick, Rouna, Misty, & Xiaomei from Shining Hearts due to the anime series. Each character is unique and there isn't really a carbon copy character in this game although one may realize that Ryuuga & Pairon are basically your Ryu & Ken (Street Fighter) staples of this game.....to some degree.

Keep in mind that Blade Arcus is "NOT" an airdasher anime fighting game. This game is slow paced which is could be similar to Koihime Enbu or Samurai Showdown but with a borrowed mechanic from Guilty Gear (which I will get into). The game sports a 2 vs 2 gameplay style where you pick any two characters where one will be your primary and the second will be your support character. You're able to switch roles of your characters in between rounds if you need a change of pace & strategy. Your secondary character is your assist character to whom you can all out "a la Marvel vs. Capcom" but there is a catch. You have an assist gauge that has 4 marks which indicate an assist level. Depending on when & how you call assist (Pressing D alone will make your assist do an assist attack depending on the situation you're in. Pressing D with an attack button will make your assist do an attack depending on the strengh attack you use.....which also counts to how much meter they'll use). You gain assist meter by taking damage or defending otherwise, it will fill "VERY" slowly if you're offensive. Offensive or Defensive.....the choice of how you use your meter is up to you and can determine the flow of a match. As for the borrowed Guilty Gear mechanic, there is one which is pretty much a "Roman Cancel"....that is, a mechanic that allows you to cancel a normal or special move animation to continue a combo. This mechanic is known as "Offensive Force" and consumes 1 whole super meter to use (so you get a total of 3).

Seeing as this is the first official western release of Blade Arcus, it's best you know that this game was ported to the Playstation 3 & 4 back in November of last year with extras like Arena Mode (arcade), an art gallery, and a stylish mechanic for those of you who are casual fighting game players or don't play fighting games at all. These modes & mechanics did NOT make it into the Steam release of this game. The reason for this is because the game was developed using the 2.01 arcade build as the basis. As to how Arena mode didn't make into this release, we don't know but evidently, this is a deal breaker for some people along with not having the art gallery. Degica Games is currently trying to see if Team Saisenzen will add them to the game but realize that it's Team Saisenzen that makes the final decision as their the publishers of this version, not Degica Games & not SEGA. Degica Games is only playing the advisor & EN PR role for Blade Arcus on Steam.

One of the key modes that was missing from the PS3/PS4 version of the game was Online mode which is exclusively made by Team Saisenzen for the Steam release. I'll admit, upon release of the game, playing online was straight garbage....I mean slow as molasses matches hindered this game like no tomorrow. Fortunately, after one day of release, there has been a update that addresses this issue and so far, I've experienced smooth online matches from various players and even those from Japan so right now, online play is pretty decent. This experience may be different for everyone else so please be aware that my experience my differ from yours.

Now......is this game worth getting? That's hard to say because I don't know how some of you think when it comes to fighting games. For me, this was a good purchase and it also shows my support for Degica Games & Team Saisenzen but also it shows my support for hoping that more games in the Shining series would be considered for the west if this game does good. If you're into slower paced fights, no out of control combos, no airdashing (the only exception is Rouna), & not many confusing mechanics to remember (at least in my book) then this game may be up your alley. If you're looking for more frantic fighting gameplay, you may want to steer clear. I would advise that you watch some videos of this game before you decide to purchase it if this type of gameplay is not your cup of tea. It's an enjoyable game to play to say the least.

:: PROS ::
- First game in YEARS from the Shining series to come to the western market
- Only version of the game that has Online Play
- Slow paced matches with simple mechanics (gameplay similar but mixed with Koihime Enbu, Samurai Showdown, Guilty Gear)
- Sonia is unlocked (so no DLC for this game at the moment)
- Features character designs by Tony Taka
- Good soundtrack

:: CONS ::
- Slow paced matches may turn off people who are into games like Guilty Gear, Melty Blood, Under Night In-Birth EXE|Late
- Missing console features not included in this version (Arena Mode, Art Gallery, Stylish (casual) gameplay mechanic)
- Features character designs by Tony Taka (Hey, there are actually people out there who hates his artwork so I have to cater to them too)

if you like games like guility gear and other 2D fighting games this one is a real good one. good amount of characters(16), movelist has streetfighter controls, there is a partner support, can change partner between rounds if you want(learn two characters at once) choose main character then choose secondary for support. an okay story, nice graphics, runs fast and smoothly, it is worth the money spent on it($30)(just only got released 7/30/16) there are some pretty good 2d fighting on Steam this is one of them

Highly Recommended