

Making matters worse, the endings are weak, with many leaving players more confused than fulfilled. And as far as that Story mode is concerned, it's little more than a couple of dialogue bits interspersed between a couple of the matches. There's simply not a deep moveset available. Most of the combos just involve basic attacks. Although there's a bit of diversity among the fighters and their styles, the problem here is that each character only has a couple of special moves. And as far as Support is concerned, the run-in attacks barely scratch the opponent and, at best, provide a sort of human shield to absorb one of the enemy's hits. Despite being used to charge up and add extra damage to special moves, even the heaviest-hitting Force attacks feel underwhelming in power.

The problems start with those Force and Support gauges. While it has all the pieces to make for a pretty strong fighting game, those pieces never quite fit together right and leave lots of empty holes. There are Force gauges for charged-up special moves, Support gauges allowing players to call in for help from the sidelines, a variety of fighters using different styles and weapons to stand out from one another, and a Story mode meant to tie everything together into a cohesive narrative. The game takes many of the elements of popular fighters and tosses everything into the mix. Unfortunately, the shortage of content, price and lack of unlockables causes us to be unable to score this game any higher.įor a little more information on Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena read here.Some games offer something original that strikes a chord and makes for a unique fan experience, but this is a cookie-cutter game that borrows liberally from its peers and lacks real substance. Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena receives a 6.5/10, the game has a wonderful art style and the combat works. This character occasionally makes an appearance and helps you fight, and you can also swap between that and your main character in between battles, to swap things up if you’re either getting bored with the same character or need to try a new strategy.īlade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena is out now on steam for AUD $40, which is a bit too expensive for a game with such a lack of content. When you start a battle, you can choose a second character to support you. A relatively large roster of playable characters who are unlocked from the beginning, and the support characters. You’ve got your different types of attacks, combo attacks, counters, all that sort of combat stuff. Having everything available at the start doesn’t really give much for some gamers to want to work towards.īlade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena doesn’t do anything new. Some of us like in-game unlocks from time spent and progression. Believe it or not, there are gamers still out there that enjoy working towards something other than becoming the best at the game. It’s a real shame that fighting games don’t allow you to unlock characters, or anything really from your play time anymore. It’s interesting to see these characters fighting and how they move, the fluidity to it all is rather fascinating. They aren’t exactly flat enough to be considered 2D, and again there isn’t enough to them to consider them 3D. The backdrops are completely in 2D, yet the characters are sort of a mix between 2D and 3D somehow.

The art style in the game is beautiful and strangely fascinating. You either play against the AI with wildly varying difficulty levels or other players who either have no idea what they are doing or have mastered the fighting styles. That said, it could be too simple for people, considering there are really only two ways to play story mode and online. There are no super moves or special attacks or anything like that, it is a pretty basic combat system which calls for more skill rather than landing powerful finishing moves. Compared to games such as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, it is incredibly simple. The combat in the game is something that is either going to be loved or hated. So all you’d be doing for most of the battles is beating up on someone who just stands there and takes it. The easy ones do let you come to terms with the controls and set up your controls more easily, but the enemies hardly do anything. Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Studio Saizensen, which features characters from both Shining Blade and Shining Hearts.įirstly, if you have even an average skill level with these sorts of games, you are going to want to bump it up to at least the medium difficulty level for the campaign.
