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Review: Melty Blood [PC] |
Extra-large, drill-handed thanks again to Sub for this.
Before we go anywhere with this review, the publisher of this game ought to be formally introduced. Watanabe Productions is a doujinshi game company run by mad geniuses who came up with the idea of sticking your favorite hentai game characters into 2D fighting games. Their first project was the Queen Of Hearts series, with characters from To Heart, then Party’s Breaker based on Comic Party, Kyo, and Terry, then Glove On Fight, which, well, let’s just say that that game had everything. After teasing the fans with two incomplete demo versions of the game, Watanabe has finally broken the anticipation, the pain, and the drooling with the release of Melty Blood, based on Type-Moon’s Tsuki Hime (”Moon Princess”, another doujin game that got really big, will be spawning a TV series any day now, and let’s not talk anymore about that).
The reason I took all that time to introduce the creators of this game as fans is simple. Melty Blood is utterly, spotlessly professional in every way. It starts off with a semi-animated video sequence, where, for the most part, beautifully drawn stills pop on and off screen while the theme song (with vocals!) plays in the background. The sequence sets the tone for the game: dramatically different from Watanabe’s past productions, mostly because of the tone of the original work. I know little to nothing about Tsukihime, but I can tell you this: it’s dark, all the girls are hardened killers, and the game being an H-game, I’m sure the guy gets to nail them all.
On to the graphics: This is where the game gets even more impressive than Watanabe’s prior releases. Those games had squatty, moderately SD sprites for all characters. In Melty Blood, we get fully-formed characters what look like people, in all their glory. Animations are on the level of Capcom Vs. SNK2, with perhaps a bit smoother movement than that game, but certainly nothing on the order of SF3 or Garou here. The loss here is that there are only eight characters, final boss included.
Sound is good. Music fits the mood of the game, predominantly jazzy, subtle, and foreboding. The game is voice-acted: interestingly, this is the first time voice acting has been used for Tsukihime, and though actors are all uncredited in the game, it is rumored that they are most likely the official voice cast of the imminent Tsukihime anime. And if they are, then I’m looking forward to their performances, because they’re good. Aruceid sounds different from what I thought she would (the demo had no voices), though. She has too squeaky a voice for someone so very…… angry-looking. In a nice voice-related touch, win quotes are not printed on the screen, but rather spoken. Classy.
Character design isn’t so much an achievement this game did on its own, but they’re damn well-represented in this game, so I’ll talk about them. Of special note is the sole male character (final boss aside), presumably the guy who quests to get laid in the h-game. He looks like Love Hina’s Keitaro had he flipped out from the Love Hina Experience (staring at tits while being kicked in the crotch over and over again) and started knifing people. This, I like. I can’t look at the guy without laughing though. He’s really geeky-looking, and it’s just strange seeing a nerd like him using big knifin’ around special moves. As for the rest of them, you can see for yourselves in the screenshots. Final statement on character design: My Ciel action figure is in the mail.
Oh, right, gameplay. That. Most of Watanabe’s games are primarily influenced by Guilty Gear with a lot of touches from other games. The control layout’s simple. There are three attacks of increasing strength (hereafter referred to as A, B, and C because i’m an alphabet fanboy), and a parry button. You heard me, bitches, a parry button. And it works much the same way as in SF3. Don’t get your panties all pantied up or whatever. Each player has a “Vital Source” gauge, which decreases with defensive play, more or less. I’m fairly sure this affects damage taken and dealt, given some testing on the old demo. Parrying, when it doesn’t actually connect, decreases said meter by about 20%. You can’t just run in with it, but when you can use it efficiently, it can turn things around. Supers work on a three-level “magic circuit” meter system, which is more or less the same as any other super move system. One level gets you an EX-style special move, and three levels allows the character’s full-fledged super move. Some of these are extremely impressive. The combo system is like that of Guilty Gear but with heavier damage scaling. Using 2029320392 jabs in a combo is heavily discouraged, as damage of any particular hit decreases with number of hits in the combo. If anything, C->C->super move is more productive, though harder to land because of that first hit, than A->A->A->B->B->C->super move. Given that even the damaging combos only do moderate damage at best, it would be very difficult to put together an infinite in this game. Most often it’s worth it not to use the super at all in a combo and wait until you can use the super alone, or use a level 3 attack. Also present are the Guilty Gear standards: double jump and air dash.
As far as game modes, you’ve got a story mode (Tsukihime was originally one of those games where you read a lot of words and looked at a lot of pictures, SOME PORNOGRAPHIC) with multiple endings based on whether or not you get your ass kicked in such and such a fight. There’s a lot of the talkin’, and being that this game is Japanese, you probably won’t get much out of the mode. Given that this takes the place of the tradition Arcade mode, it’s kind of annoying, but at least the creators made sure to include a VS Computer mode. From there, you’ve got standard Training mode and nothing else. I’m hoping for some unlockable characters, but I’ll wait till someone I know stumbles upon them before I actually go ahead playing Story mode to unlock them.
Overall: really impressive game, less than what I expected, but still solid, and I’ll probably have some fun playing with people for a little while. Absolutely check it out if you’re a fan of this style of fighter.
