Skull Girls

The combos are actually pretty easy and lenient.

Nothing wrong with it, you say? So it's a perfect game then? ;)

Didn't mean to come up in here and take a dump on a game you enjoy, that wasn't my intention...guess it came out wrong, and I admit that my previous post didn't really contribute anything to the thread. But that's not really what I was getting at when I said that FEZ was a better purchase. I know the difference between a fighting game and a platformer, I was speaking more so along the lines of FEZ being (obviously) cheaper in price and it feels more thought out and content complete.

I think that was the deal killer(s) for me with Skull Girls was the fact that there isn't even an in-game command list and there are only 8 characters. What kind of fighter these days doesn't have an in-game command list? You actually have to go to the dev-created Skull Girls website and download a 27MB PDF from a Mediafire link. Perhaps if they implement an in-game command list and some free DLC characters down the road via patch, then I'll pick it up, but right now I am going to hold off.

However, if there's a demo I'll download it and see how it plays for myself. :)

are people really complaining about the character amount

8 characters, and the game has more versatility than games with 30+ characters.

its a $15 game from an indie studio, yet does everything better than almost every release of the genre in years.

There is a demo and they couldn't put a move list in yet because they had to rush the game out. If you want a movelist here's one.
http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Skullgirls

They do plan on fixing a few things and putting in a movelist asap.

I don't know about that...

Given the limited amount of fighters in Skull Girls upon release (a game developed in 2011/2012 where game development has become more widely accessible and streamlined thanks to technology) and looking at the character move sets, it looks like it owes a good deal to Street Fighter II, which was released in arcades 21 years ago and also featured an 8-character roster. And that was back 1991! I don't know about you, but back in '91 I was buying comic cards and pumping quarters into the SFII machine at Quik Stop like it was going out of style.

Now granted true-to-form 2D "fighting" games were still in their infantile stages back then and SFII didn't have the combo system it does today, but the root of each character's move set remains fairly similar while the combo system has evolved exponentially. So the Skull Girls devs have had source material right at their fingertips for over two decades!

A lot of newer fighting games dip their hands into this pot and apply the same formula to their game(s). The same can be said of games like Guilty Gear from Arc Sys Works; they brought technical 2D fighting games to a whole new level, and you see pieces of it come through in today's fighting games...even some of their own IP's like Blaz Blue.

To my knowledge neither game has a roster of 30+ characters...so I'm not sure which game(s) you're referencing. Are you perhaps referencing MvC 2, or 3 perhaps? MvC 3 I can definitely understand where you are coming from, but MvC 2 was an absolute game-changer and a masterpiece IMO. It was another positive milestone the fighting game genre. But in terms of Skull Girls doing "everything better than almost every release of the genre in years," perhaps you have been playing the wrong fighting games, or you need to broaden your horizon and try something else. That, or the "30+ characters" remark was an extreme exaggeration.

Granted there really aren't any arcades left, and digital is becoming a preferred method of release for some publishers, there are still quite a few indie doujin fighting games out there that don't have funding by a top-20 publisher and are are still solid fighters.

I wouldn't say that I'm "complaining" about an 8-character roster, but yes, I am expecting more from a fighting game released in 2012. Especially one that has been in development for several years and actually has publisher funding.




Thanks for the helpful post, good to know. :)

What exactly do you expect from the game exactly, Kobun?
That I at least want to know. I won't its a perfect game, but it does what it does well for the time being. From what I know, the main focus was the mechanics of the games anyways, to polish what was good in fighters and to refine what needed to be fixed.

I can agree that there are key things missing (character variety is not one of them, but things like a further fleshed out tutorial, and perhaps a mode that teaches you basic combos). I was surprised that the move list was missing, but its not going to take that long for one to not only find a character they like, but to also figure out their moves with practice. Just because you have to look about for an online one doesn't fully merit a complaint in my opinion, especially when its been noted, that they would fixing that issue asap.

Sometimes your forced to leave things out because you didn't have time. Things like that happen in development when you're pressed with a time limit. Being backed by a publisher doesn't help either, because that just furthers the stress of getting something done in time, instead of taking the time to be precise with everything.

Besides, I don't think indie companies have the luxury of constant delays like the bigger ones, since they need to make more of an effort to get people interested in their games.

Exactly. Capcom can put as many characters as they want since they are a big time publisher and developer. Autumn Games however just now starting out and this is their first game.

If only that were really true (on consoles).



*sigh*
You preferred FEZ over Skullgirls. Fine. But really ... comparing it to the grandfather of all (2D) fighting games? There's something wrong with that.

Im pretty sure capcom back in the early 90s still had a hell of a lot more money than reverge labs does now. Its kinda silly to sit here and ask why a game made by a small indie publisher has less content than established companies that have much bigger budgets behind their projects, such as Capcom, ASW and hell, even SNK.

Considering that, if they wanted to put a 20+ character roster in the game from the start, its probably safe to say we would be waiting another 2 to 3 years for the game to release. Hand drawn stuff takes a long time to make... KOF is actually a perfect example of this.

As far as the systems and gameplay goes, it's blown Capcom's [at the least] recent efforts out of the water. You could say the same for variety as well, considering how much is possible with a single character in SG compared to say, UMVC3. Not only that, but it does it without resorting to watering things down to make it accessible for people [Hello SF4, MVC3, SFXT, BB], and in addition to that, makes its own systems while fixing things that people complain about in every other title out there.

As a side note, I think its really hilarious [and ironic] how you call MVC2 a "masterpiece" when out of a 56 character roster, less than 10 of them were viable for competitive play.

Anyway, people should check out this thread of people trying to pin down all the references in the game, its a fun read :)

http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/skullgirls-easter-eggs-thread-giant-moai-head-inside.158467/

Holy lord, this is getting bananas. I am not looking to argue with anyone who is going to get on the defensive because someone shares a different opinion.
The game is unfinished and that is almost undeniable and unfortunate too. I do feel that it is a good start, and appreciate what they are trying to do. I'll try the demo out later today though as I said I would.



It is. Pretty much anyone can download the Microsoft XNA development kit and start making games for the XBL Indie channel. Of course, you have to have coding knowledge, but that should go without saying. Unfortunate that Sony doesn't offer something like this, but they've always been a little apprehensive with anyone "modifying" their source code and creating their own content...unless you pay them of course. ;) If you have any questions about development feel free to ask and I'll help out as best I can or try to point you in the right direction. :)



Comparing a game that was released over 20 years ago to a game that was recently released to prove a point, yes. Nothin' wrong with that.



Capcom may have had more money, back in the late 80s, early 90s, but who is to say? We could go back and forth with how much they had and how much that translates to today, etc, but that would be bananas. One thing they didn't have access to back then that they do today is an online audience to market their game to. That, and there are a heck of a lot more gamers and consoles in homes. Plus, this isn't just Reverge here, it is Konami, a 2011 top-20 publisher (number 13 in fact) too. Reverge was/is being paid to develop the game and they are also getting the help they needed to get the title on PSN and XBLA because I can almost guarantee that Reverge doesn't have a lic. to develop for XBLA or PSN on their own. Those lic. are pretty damn expensive which is why sometimes you'll only see some smaller devs put a game out on PSN or XBLA. Sometimes they (Sony/Microsoft) will even back them because they want the game on their platform exclusively.

SNK may have had a big presence here at one time back in the NeoGeo days, but they have never really had a huge marketing or development budget for the states. This is why third party publishers like Ignition and Atlus have had to co-publish their games in EUR and NA. They did have a small office in NJ at one point, but that closed down several years ago...due to funds drying up in NA. I was pretty bummed out by this.

I still think that MvC 2 is a fantastic game, and it is a damn shame what Capcom did with MvC 3. I bought it and dropped at most 15 hours into it. I never really got into competition play though, so I cannot attest how it performs in this respect. I don't play fighters on this level as I don't have the time to get into them on that level these days. :( But I absolutely loved playing MvC2 in arcades and on the Dreamcast with arcade sticks and a couple friends back in the day. I did get pretty heavily into Blaz Blue when it came out and even 100%-completed it, but still never on a competitive level. One thing that all of these games like MK, SC, BB, SF do though is offer are multiple modes of play; these have all become fairly standard among fighters. So while it (to bluntly put it) sucks that SG doesn't have much in this area, again, it is a good start. If anything, we could all say that it's a shame that Konami didn't front more money to beef up the dev team and make this a retail release.

Also, pretty cool easter egg thread. Thanks for sharing. I could say that the time spent making easter eggs could have been better spent implementing that move list...but let's not beat a dead horse. ;)
I can't believe someone found that reference to the Capcom v SNK 2 track. And while I don't see it posted there in the thread, I'm assuming that the giant Moai head is a reference to Konami's Gradius:



At any rate, let's have fun and enjoy some fightin' games. :D

Here's my Easter egg findings.

Here's my contribution:

Ms.Fortune - Morrigan Aseland from the Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers series



Parasoul - Kneesocks from the Anime "Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt"



Cellebra - Rainbow Mika from Street Fighter Zero/Alpha 3



A stretch but,

Parasoul - Mascot of the Stream FinestKO productions. A stream from Northern California that features games like BlazBlue, KoFXIII, Catherine, Guilty Gear, and just recently, Skullgirls.

http://www.twitch.tv/finestko

That last one is Mami Tomoe from Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika! >u< I would have never noticed that reference if someone hadn't pointed it out! She's my second favorite of the five~

Although, it does kind of look like a stretch, due to Mami's twintails and Parasoul's straight hair. :0
Here' hoping it's a true ref; that might mean someone in Reverge is a Mami fan~ <3

Wow. You have no clue. Development isn't limited to simply coding and creating the art assets, you know? Haven't you heard any of the nightmare stories about actually getting a game published on XBLA and/or PSN? You don't even know how little involved Konami was.



Indeed. There's totally, completely nothing wrong with that. I mean, we all know all modern Fantasy novels suck because ... you know... Lord of the Rings and all that.

@sakabato24:
That Parasoul palette is actually a reference to Tales of the Abyss' Tear (if I remember what MikeZ said correctly). I'd rather not have a repeat of Hectotane and his attributing of AH3 palettes to the wrong things.

I almost shouldn't dignify any of this with a response but...



Well this totally blows my mind! You mean to say that there are conference calls and SCRUM meetings, revisions for art direction amongst various other approval processes, milestones to meet (including vertical slice, beta, pre-alpha, gold, gold master, final candidate, ect.), translations including setting your game up to meet with EFIGs and other region standards, naming conventions to abide by, ESRB and first party standards to meet, bug databases to manage, networking coding and stress testing, rigging, audio composition, long crunch-time work sessions, AND you have to test and submit your game too?

I mean, I've heard of things called...pre-alpha and alpha builds, but wow the rest of it...total mind blower! I mean it's not like I work in the video game industry. So I wouldn't know anything about this sort of stuff. ;P

On a serious note, yes, it is a shame that Konami didn't step in and provide more support. This seems to be a growing trend with them lately: Otomedius, Skull Girls, Blades of Time, and perhaps others too. Hopefully, Reverge can learn from this when they go shopping around for a publisher with their next title. If they have the budget for it, I would recommend they hire an experienced business development manager and get him/her heavily involved with the pitching process. I don't know the intricacies of their deal, or how it went down, but hopefully for their sake, they didn't sign a contract that locks them into an x-game deal (x representing a number) with Konami.



Sorry, I don't read modern fantasy novels, I'm hard sci-fi (hopefully someone gets this ref.).

Now, if we're done here, perhaps we can move on like I suggested in my previous post and have some fun? :)

I'll just leave this here. This game still is amazing to it's core.

*Broken image*

Image doesn't work.

Anyone know some decent Parasoul combos?
I'm not looking for anything extravagant, just some simple bnbs and perhaps an air combo or two.
I figured out a few things with her, but I still have trouble setting it up just right.

Edit:
Going on about costumes, I noticed a few more.


Peacock 8- my guess is just old school cartoons like steamboat willy.
Peacock 10- Poison ivy or perhaps just a normal flower?

Painwheel 8- seems like a Valentine-esque costume.

Filia 7- reminds me of the blonde girl from sayonara zetsubo sensei
Filia 10- can't remember her name, but the brunette from highschool of the dead.

Cerebella 3-its a stretch, but I think Harley Quinn.
Cerebella 4- hsien-ko from darkstalkers.

sadfaic.jpg

I fixed it and re-uploaded the image onto my own uploading service.

Lmao, I saw this before

i vowed never again to buy another 2D fighter for two reasons...re-jump combos and dash-cancel combos. for some reason i can't get those goddamned things downpacked. and to make matters worse, in ALL 2D fighters that i've played, you'll always be just a scrub that just trolls half-assed combos and projectiles unless you can nail these...is this game an execption? (from the look of the videos, it doesn't look like it)

Valentine's Green hair pink outfit reminds me of Mariko from Megaman X series, her blonde hair pink outfit reminds me of Nightshift Nurses or something.

ALSO, ANYONE ELSE JUST NOW NOTICED THAT DOUBLE HAS SO MUCH IN COMMON WITH BRUTAL LEGEND'S BATTLE NUN!?

I want Skullgirls merchandise, Peacock's bomb plushie, Ms. Fortune head plushie, and a Valentine PVC figure.