A fighting game serving as a sequel to an RPG? It sounds crazy. RPG fans aren’t necessarily into the absurdly precise input of fighters just as fighting fans don’t necessarily care about lengthy stories. But like the groundbreaking discovery of combining chocolate and peanut butter, Persona 4 Arena really works.

Arc System Works is known for stacking copious amounts of mechanics onto their fighting systems, and Persona 4 Arena is no exception. It’s for that reason that the level of accessibility on display here is so surprising. The tired old adage of “easy to learn, tough to master” is in full force.

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Skullgirls, the beautifully animated 2D fighter, has been out for a little while and now so is its soundtrack. Why should you care? Two words: Michiru Yamane. The woman behind many of the most beloved Castlevania soundtracks (including Symphony of the Night) lent her talent to this little fighting game that could.

While the overall focus leans more toward jazz, Yamane’s contributions are distinctly reminiscent of her previous works. “The Fish Man’s Dance” sounds like it could have been pulled straight from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin while tracks like “The Lives We Left Behind” and “Skull Heart Arrhythmia” trigger other memories of her work on the series (in the best possible way).

But it wouldn’t be fair to talk about the Skullgirls soundtrack without mentioning the score’s other contributors. You’ll also hear music from Vincent Diamante (Flower), Blaine McGurty, and Brenton Kossak. Diamante’s “Shenanigans and Goings-Ons” in particular is a short, but sweet track that has an upbeat, swing feel to it.

You can find the Skullgirls soundtrack on both Amazon ($8.99) and iTunes ($9.99).

Buy the Soundtrack: Amazon MP3 / iTunes

Just over two years ago, The King of Fighters XII released with a great fighting system, a hopelessly broken online experience, and an almost complete lack of single player modes. Today, the latest entry in the series releases with the intent to right the missteps of its predecessor.

The expanded roster of The King of Fighters XIII doesn’t have much new for the series, but it brings back a lot of the fighters missing from XII including Team Women Fighters members Mai, King, and my personal favorite, Yuri. With over 30 fighters available, the amount of choices are once again approaching the levels of its decade-old asset ripping, last generation entries.

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Have you been scared off by the complex nature of the fighting game genre, but intrigued by its resurgence in recent years? Atlus is planning on replacing that fear with knowledge by dishing out a new series of tutorial videos leading up to the release of The King of Fighters XIII.

This first video featuring Dream Cancel community member, Metaphysics, starts with the basics. And I mean the very basics. While the first half is more of an introductory course on fighting games in general, things get a little more interesting when character archetypes and play styles enter the discussion. (more…)

Skullgirls has apparently been a thing in the works for quite a while now, but I’d never even heard of this fighting game until spotting it at E3. Two things about it really stood out to me. The immediate thing was its unique visual style and character design. The other, more gradual thing was that, for a game that seemed to me to be an unknown, there were always people teaming around it. Filled with intrigue, I eventually conceded and waited in line to give it a try.

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Before the release of the Nintendo 3DS, I had already essentially purchased Street Fighter IV twice. The first time I picked up the special edition of its original release, while the second time I grabbed the vastly improved second iteration.

I didn’t really feel like I “needed” to buy a third version, but as an early adopter of the new system, I wanted a good showpiece for the more powerful handheld. Since the graphics of Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition are arguably the best looking of all the 3DS launch titles, it seemed like a natural choice. But as I got it home and spent the better portion of a week playing it, my feelings gravitated from buying it for lack of other games to falling in love with it all over again.

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"Capcom's Vs. series is finally back in action!"

It’s hard to believe it has been an entire decade since the last new entry in Capcom’s popular Vs. series. While Tatsunoko may be one of the biggest anime companies in Japan, very few people are familiar with the majority of their work here in the states. This, combined with the more complex licensing issues of the Tatsunoko properties overseas has made Tatsunoko vs. Capcom‘s localization a delightful surprise.

And, thanks to a smart move by Capcom, this localization is not of the original version we missed out on, but the next iteration with a larger character roster, balance tweaks, and a near-simultaneous, international release.

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"2D is back in business!"

We are seeing a glorious return of the 2D Fighter genre lately. Games like “BlazBlue”, “Street Fighter IV” (the graphics may be 3D, but it’s the gameplay that counts), the upcoming “Tatsunoko vs. Capcom”, the digital release of “Marvel vs. Capcom 2″, and “The King of Fighters XII” are breathing new life into what seemed like a diminishing genre.

The King of Fighters XI (ps2) was relatively well received when it released in 2007. It had a variety of modes, both single-player and multiplayer, and had a very large character roster. But, just as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ripped a large portion of its assets from previous fighters (like 1995′s Marvel Super-Heroes), KOFXI was able to pack in so many characters by taking their assets from a combination of previous entries in the series and other SNK games.

This leads me to my first point of discussion: The King of Fighters XII, though it is the latest entry in the series, has less than half the number of characters that XI has. Why this is surprising to anyone is beyond me. Every character had to be painstakingly redrawn in High Definition from scratch, since ripping sprites from previous entries was no longer an option. Yes, there are a lot of characters not present in KOFXII that I miss, but the characters that made the cut feel as solid as ever, and there are already talks to add more via DLC.

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