The simple-inputs fighting game Fantasy Strike has emerged from Early Access on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Steam (Mac/Windows/Linux).
After over four years of development, Sirlin Games has released their pet project fighting game. It serves as an adaptation of the developer’s Yomi card game, which itself was designed to simulate playing a 1v1 traditional fighting game. The game features single inputs for special moves, and you block by standing still and not doing anything. It’s an unusual fighter, but accessibility is the name of the game here, and it pulls that off with flying colours (literally, as one of the crazy combatants is a painter).
Aside from a bunch of improvements and fixes, the launch version’s claim to fame is the Boss Rush. In this mode, players fight through eight consecutive AI fighters while both they and their opponents become stronger. This isn’t just in a statistics or AI strength sense, as wild stage hazards start to trigger during fights. Before each fight, you pick one of three power-ups, and before half the fights you get to pick a second, really powerful gold power-up from a random set of three. All of these are cumulative over the course of your run, giving the mode a unique roguelike feel.
Fantasy Strike has accrued a lot of praise from the people who’ve played it, and stands as one of the easiest fighting games to pick up and learn. If that interests you, it’s available for about $30 USD on Steam, Switch, and PlayStation 4, with crossplay between the first two.
