Cute, Fighting And Totally Free

@ninjafetus: When I open the file, McAfee blocks it and says there's a trojan in it. Just wanted to let you guys know....

@Griefy: that makes me a sad panda.

That's it; I've made up my mind on japanese classes..

Leafy

@Chrysalis:
You CAN get the AppLocale to work; you just need to run it with admin priviledges before you launch it.
If you already ran it without pre-elevation; then uninstall it in the same manner (i.e., without pre-elevation).

Once that's done; rename the jap file and the .kgt to any english name (same name) and then use the applocale from start menu to run it... Mind you; you need to run it in compatibility mode.

Leafy

猫派おいしかったですね。

nekorodeo

@Do Kesubei: This. Half the people on here don't really get what Moe is. Not that I'm a major flaming Otaku, I just learned what it is recently from discussions stemming from Kotaku itself, but with any new subject I come across, I did some research. This is not really a Moe-centric focus game; Ashcraft does Moe a bit of dis-service by characterizing this as such.

Sure it has cutesy girl fighters, but they are not really inspiring nurturing or protective feelings when they can kick the living shit out of the others with martial arts, mana blasts, lasers, etc.

@bakagaijin: You could also just use the keyboard to play... but its harder to do some of the combos.

wazzzup16

@jobocan: It doesn't seem to like vista 64. If your machine can handle it, run Virtual PC 2007 with a XP virtual machine. That's the way I got the sound to work, but it's kind of overkill and may not be worth the time and effort.

clroen

@Shiroi Kaze: I didn't enjoy them at all. So yeah, I thought they were bad. But I know that they're considered some of the best in the anime community. Admittedly I didn't make past the halfway mark in any of those series, but I feel as though that's plenty of time to give a series a chance. Strangely enough, I did enjoy Haruhi, which from what I understand is kinda what made the modern moe movement explode.

Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw

@CombatDispenser: An Western fighter is a failed fighter..nub

As many have said already, this is a stirling effort by an indvidual that does'nt want any remuneration for his product, just the recognition and pats on the back for his hard work.

I say keep it up and pop over to his blog to leave some positive feedback. ou can even leave comments in English or all you who may be worried about the language barrier. Anyway, support this guy as it's people like him that need to know their work is valued and lead to more good 2D fighters (hopefully!)

Honeyman

@crazyace:

Gah, replied to the wrong person, aimed at Archaotic and friends.

crazyace

@Shiroi Kaze:

"Moe" is just a art medium not then art itself. "moe" can be shows starring RL cats, dogs; not to mention anime, games, and have nothing to do with the show itself being good or bad. I know people who absolutely hate anime and think it's all kiddy shows. The reality is they don't want to look bad in front of their friends and think that liking anime (and moe) means they don't have sophisticated tastes or are freaks.

This is like older generation folks who think the younger men who still like video games are the man-boys who have never grown up.

crazyace

@Koeta: Online support would be nice

NiteIce

@Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw: Wait, are you saying that Lucky Star, K-On!, Rozen Maiden are bad series?

Shiroi Kaze

@Zaylex:

Make sure you're in windows mode. Click option tab on top and then pick keyboard and map your keys with the mouse. Click on the key you want to remap and then press it. Pretty simple. Not sure why there's 6 mappable buttons though seeing how there's only ABC for attack...

@Marios_shadow: Turn your system locale to Japanese by going to the control panel/regional and language options.

kyoko-izuka

@Chrysalis: Turn your system locale to Japanese.

kyoko-izuka

@Netnavi: Moe is used to define cute, seemingly naive and innocent characters that inspire a nurturing effect in viewers and game players. People tend to think that moe is just an art style, but that isn't the case. If a character is drawn as a cute little girl, but acts independently and is worldly, she isn't considred moe.

A character that makes you want to gush over her, or that makes you want to protect her is considered a moe character. Context is important.

Do Kesubei

Someone should translate and hook up some online support /nod

Luna Himeki is my favorite so far.

@Do Kesubei: moe is such a weird term to me. I heard it is supposed to mean something really cute that is difficult to fap to (or something like that) but my friends say mo as in homo. So I just get confused when people use that terms because they sound the same.

I'ma DL this just to see how it is.

Umm.. wow those are some HIGH QUALITY sprites... amazing.

Wow impressive. Looks sharp and looks like it's animated good too. Most impressive.

Crap can't get this to run on my Vista laptop without switching the locale. NTLEA doesn't work right on my Vista since it's 64bit and AppLocale won't work(installed by turning off UAC) oh well.

Robotic Bilbo Bagins has no use for fleshy ones

The sprites actually look almost on parr with GG or BB from a technical standpoint and are visually far more pleasing than any of the ugly SFIV models, character designs range from cool to so generic it hurts, backgrounds and voices are nice, music is... well what you'd expect it to be.

For a free game though, this is really pretty amazing; it must have taken a lot of time (and a fair bit of cash) to put together... the guy behind it definitely deserves some kind of monetary reward for his hard work.. that said if it was afew dollars to download it I probably wouldn't have bothered so what can ya' do..

My one big complaint is that the assist characters are really f'ing off putting... the game would definitely be better off without them but hey, it's free!

Bynoe

Do not want overly cutsy characters, I get enough of that just being an otaku myself. Gets annoying.
Still, looks like a good fighter anyway, I'll try it out sometime.

AtticusSP

Anyone having problems with having sound? When I launch the game, using the emulator thing, I get an error, something about DirectSound, but the rest is in Japanese so I have no idea what it says... Otherwise it looks pretty fun.

@synapticflow: His name is Griefy; it warns all that he will commence with the griefing.

TheBrainNinja

Is it mac compatible, I noticed there was a section for mac's

II_Teky_II

@vr0oM: Yeah, what you did is the one option I knew I had that I didn't really want to follow. I tried exactly that in a Win7 VM and the game did launch.

AppLocale was a tool for XP that basically achieved the same thing, but for running a single application in the language instead of switching your default. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working for me in Win7.

I'd still like to hear if anyone gets NTLEA (or AppLocale) to work for them in Win7. Would be a good thing to know for future reference.

CnEY

@Gaff: The assist characters are moe, but a majority (if not all) of the main characters are not.

Do Kesubei

@MARl0:
I play fighters for the story.

You will not be the judge of me!!!

rp0

@potatojenkins:
Whoohoo! Thanks. That worked like a charm. I tried out the game and wow it is very high quality for being a freebie! Excellent graphics and animation. Even has voice overs and good music. The only thing that stinks is that it is only in Japanese (obviously). Can't read the story that way. Anyhow, there are some undoubtedly pervy designs here...but I'm not sure if that is a bad thing depending on your point of view. Still, fun game.

HanJeSu

@Do Kesubei: Don't forget:

The faintest hints of moe in this game are the helper / assist characters in the background.

@Knoxximus ver. 5.66:

This one sounds a bit more "kyyaaa!!" than "shoryuken!" to me, but that's ok. I'm all in for anything where videogame and moe can be put in one sentence. Y'know and that it has nothing to do with tentacles. Or sad otaku obsessions.

salsaman1991

This isn't moe.

Awesome game, though.

Do Kesubei

Well, you guys can stick to your $80 sausage-fests like GOW etc. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying my completely free deliciously soft girls thankyouverymuch.

SanfordAegimius

Travis Touchdown APPROVED!

@Archaotic: I've read what you've said in this thread, but I just want to make your stance clearer for me to understand.

You're dislike the art style because of what you think it represents, without having looked at the content of the game itself?

Do Kesubei

@Archaotic:
I gave up on taking you seriously as an intelligent person after seeing you include Melty Blood as a game with pure emphasis on moe characer. You're either trolling, or clueless as to what the game is actually about, or what moe is.

@Trygle12 is FREE!... and waiting for Disgaea 2:
Artefact is not a registered sex offender. I don't know where/how you came to that conclusion, but wow...

@ShadowOdin isn't american: I often hear people complaing about moe, but those same people never clearly stte what it is they would like to see. Worse, they'll saying 'I don't know... something different and unique', which is about as vague as you can get.

If you don't want to see moe characters, what do you want to see?

I like moe as much as the next guy. My only complaint about this game's art style is that it reminds me of Arcana Heart. Something can be drawn in moe style but still unique. Perhaps he'll create something like that in the future.

Do Kesubei

Looks good but I see some guilty gear Order Sol sprite rehash in the character with the over-sized sword

bottleofing

@ninjafetus: It still doesn't work for me...

What font do I specify?

That looks amazing, especially considering it's made by just one guy. Too bad it's so damn generic.

@vr0oM:

Okay, got it working in Windows 7.
I figured if I couldn't get the locale emulator to work... why not just change my computer's locale?
So I went to:
Control Panel > Region and Language > Administrative (tab) > Change system locale... (button)
From there, I chose Japanese (Japan), and my PC restarted.
I expected everything to be in Japanese when I logged back in, but so far everything's still in English, and the game actually runs.
I suppose any other non-unicode apps will run in Japanese, but I hope I don't run into many...

vr0oM

@Turambar: B> Selvaria Body Pillow: Oh I understand that each character fits an archetype, I guess what annoys me about most moe is that these archetypes are made painfully obvious, with little to no variation between series.

I guess I should have clarified that presenting characters in a one dimensional way is not something I find unique to moe. It happens everywhere in all forms of media from the east to the west, and unless done well, it just grates on my nerves. I guess my big bone of contention with moe influenced anime/games/whatever is that most don't seem to make any attempt to cover it up.

To me the idealization of a character is the simplification of a character. It's reducing them to a certain set of preferred traits, even negative ones, to try to make the character more appealing. This isn't always a bad thing, but from what I've seen in most moe anime, it is almost never done well. Perhaps "bores" was the wrong word choice, as there are cases where potentially interesting characters are left undeveloped in favor of placing them into a more moe role (although for the life of me I can't think of a good example right now). And I do think there is a difference between a character with moe traits (like Ed in your example) and a moe character (see anyone from Lucky Star, K-ON, Rozen Maiden, etc).

I guess my big contention with moe isn't so much with moe itself, but with the poor implementation of it that I see in so many series.

Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw

@Shiroi Kaze: Yeah, I was hesitating to say this because I haven't played MB in a long while, but it felt wrong to call it a moe fighting game.

@Jashin Slayer: Agreed. Have a lot of female friends that enjoyed some of those series.

@Archaotic: I would also like to point out in this thread, that not all people who like the "moe" stereotype are fat anti-social nerds.

I find a LARGE part of the audiences for shows like Lucky Star, Haruhi, K-On, etc to be well-adjusted females.

Usually, when people start hating something based solely on superficial observations, they are not actually hating it based on its own traits, but their own preconceptions and views of said content.

Its the same as hating Sci-Fi for being Sci-Fi or Fantasy for being Fantasy regardless of how good or bad whatever entries in said genre might be.

Jashin Slayer

@Archaotic: What? You list Melty Blood as a moe fighting game? That game deserves much more than that...

Shiroi Kaze

@CombatDispenser: Thats the point

:3

Altima NEO

@Turambar: B> Selvaria Body Pillow: I'm with you Turambar here (and that earns you an heart), moe is not equivallent necessarily to fanservice. The K-on! girls is a good example, they were moe, but I don't think there was anything sexual involved with them.

Moe is more a "so cute you want to hug them like a teddy bear" thing.

And yes, it's been overused in some anime genre, which seems to be the only ones Arch knows, sadly.

@CnEY:

I'm running Windows 7 as well, and NTLEA won't launch for me either... I guess Win7 is the problem. But I've seen screens of NTLEA working in Vista, so that's strange... I didn't think 7 was that different.

Anyone know of any other way to get this game to work? :)

vr0oM

@Archaotic: Clearly you seem to think moe means loli, which is so far off base. Moe isn't one thing. You seem to be blaming what you call moe for limiting the appeal of japanese media, specifically video games, in the western world. Have fighting games or Jrpgs ever really had mainstream acceptance outside of Street Fighter and Final Fantasy? They have and always will be a niche market outside of Japan (hell even inside of Japan). If you feel too dirty playing "moe" games, that just leads me to believe you are insecure of about own sexuality. Clearly no one is able to enjoy a game because of moe. It's just ssssssssssoooooooooooooooooo bad. And Dirty. Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Stop blaming shit on fanservice. Fanservice has been a party of Japanese nerd shit for decades. It's not going to stop existing to appeal to a wider western market.

pseudothought

Just played this, and the Capcom pedigree definitely shows. I can't believe it's free.

Also, who would look for reasons to hate on moe? I mean, besides Hitler?

@Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw: But every character fits some sort of archetype, and where their character can go from that point has always been somewhat obvious. It is not a problem indicative of moe, but of all character archetypes. The only difference is the character archetypes that fall under moe are more obvious, and hence making everything a bit more predictable.

That said, I don't see how it makes characters "overly simplified." It's not so much as "moe makes characters boring", it's more "boring characters have moe placed on them to make them appealing", something that I'm sure we see in many more places and not with just moe as a cover.

@Archaotic: I do agree very difficult for moe to stand upon it's own merits when discussing the objective quality of a show or game that simply fronts it. Taking the just ended K-ON! as an example, it's a slice of life show that focuses on 5 high school girls, each moe in varying categories. And while it is very easy to derive simple entertainment from it, the show as a whole is...empty. Moe as pure fanservice is legitimately fun, but not filling.

But then again, moe can also be used to either supplement the tone and narrative of a show, as well as help fully flesh a character. For the former, take Ed in Cowboy Bebop. She's full of various moe qualities, but they don't serve as simply fanservice to the audience, but helps act as a juxtaposition to the rest of the Bebop crew, a group that tries to achieve some sense of happiness that is always out of their reach, and a girl that is innately over flowing in it.

For the latter, there's Honey&Clover's Hagu. A 19-year old girl that has made some less attentive viewers brush her off as just loli-bait, her small stature and fragile personality is used to help symbolize her growth, as well as the the challenges that constantly face her.

Perhaps it says more of what kind anime I watch more than the moe genre as a whole though(I do tend to avoid most harem shows). On the lolicon front, not much can be said other than that, yes, it does fall under the wide umbrella of moe characteristics, but it is a far smaller portion of it that most seem to realize, merely given so much attention by both sides.

@tokugawa: Instead they go for no breasts on a 10 year old girl? Neither is better. This isn't an east vs. west thing. They both suck in their own ways. In fact, at the end of the day they're the same thing. The over simplification and idealization of an individual or group of individuals.

Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw

@: HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG...!!!!

Tye-The-Czar

@Archaotic: The thing that irks me most about Moe is the one dimensionality and typecasting that it promotes. Each character fits their specific mold and rarely breaks out. You can predict what little character development may occur, and it just leads to overly simplified, stereotypical characters. And honestly that just bores me to tears.

It's part of why as moe became more and more prevalent in anime, I started watching less and less, instead opting for more short films and experimental series with less focus on character driven story. And it's the same reason why I'm losing interest in JRPG's that are adopting the anime moe trend.

Sir-Lucius has a level 93 Ubersaw

Does anybody know how to edit the controls? I went to the options page for it but its all in Japanese so I don't know what to change/edit.

I have xpadder and a 360 wired controller that I use for third person games on PC, but I'd like to try using the keyboard for this. Has anybody figured out how to move around? WASD, the arrow keys, and the number pad refuses to work.

@Archaotic: The question is, what is better?

Western media tends to idolize a stereotype that most young girls cannot remotely reach at all.

At least japanese moe does not (or not entirely, at the very least) go for huge breasts on slutty blonde chicks.

@Archaotic: Hey I hear what you saying man and it make sense. TOO MANY MOE FIGHTING GAMES.

@ninjafetus:
Thanks so much!

@Invisible-Echidna: I happen to be fluent in Ewok and Clingon

jaredluse

@cornunderscore2x: Amen. At least this doesn't look like plays like the rest, which play like Guilty Gear.

pressstart

@Griefy:

Possibly rude and unnecessary? Just be a gent and answer the question.

@Turambar: B> Selvaria Body Pillow: Believe me, I know how you feel. It sucks to have something you're a fan of be constantly belittled, and boiled down to an oversimplified cliche; hell, being a fan of Nomura's games means I get hit with that shit every single day of my life.

I guess the problem is just that generally, I find female characters in anime (and video games, ESPECIALLY) very badly written; or at the least, considerably less fleshed-out than their male counterparts. Because oftentimes the lead female exists in an anime to perpetuate the show creator's vision of the idealized woman, they're usually very "simple" characters. For obvious reasons, this rarely meshes well with my tastes as a writer, a viewer or a gamer.

I mean, let's take the Tales series for example. I really like Tales of the Abyss because Tear is...remarkably different from most female leads in the franchise with the notable exception of Rutee from Tales of Destiny. Yes, she has big breasts and they make a few jokes at their expense, but aside from that, she's a strong-willed character with a mind of her own, a personalized role in the plot, and she doesn't exist solely as "Luke's future girlfriend". I was really intrigued by her characterization as compared to the other carbon-copy Tales heroines. She's really an outlier, and despite my burning hatred for Anise and anything related to Anise, Tear was a bright spot in that game for me.

However, when we roll on over to Vesperia, it's like every bit of progression they made in terms of writing was erased; Estelle is a naive, soft-spoken, "priestess-esque" main heroine with a constant need to be protected, AND the usual string of "anime heroine" cliches (can't cook, ashamed about how small her breasts are, etc.); it was like a slap in the face, especially considering how many people were defending the game as being a "step forward" for the series and telling me that I would really enjoy it. Yes, Yuri was a welcome change of pace, but the rest of the cast just fell right back into the usual anime stereotypes that Tales thrives on. Estelle, perhaps most of all, ended up just feeling like Yuna all over again but with a sword instead of a staff. And I'm tired of Yunas.

Now, I suppose I've gone off on a tangent, but the point I'm trying to make is that as long as moe is focused more on the idealization of women and less on writing solid, developed characters, it's very, very hard for me to support it; especially when it's so closely related to lolicon, which I hate with an undying passion.

Hope my meanderings made sense...

No character in this game wear pants.

Best 2D fighter in existence confirmed.

@Kayin: speaking of which, perhaps its time to install Melty Blood again.

@ashjaw: What would Kotaku be without all the incessant bitching and crying?

hey this should keep me distracted from an afternoon of running around trying to find a copy of blazblue just for everyone to tell me either it's sold out or been pushed back.

@Kazama Sogetsu ♥ BlazBlue: He goes by many names, but like FWM said, now you've summoned him

@ZaxxonQ.com: LOL we need more freeware PC ports!

@Kazama Sogetsu ♥ BlazBlue: Oh shit! You've summoned him!

This explains why people wanted english. Duh. Seems like jumping through hoops to me. Pass.

@Archaotic: My main peeve with this seemingly redefining of "moe" to make it synonymous with just shallow pedophilia is that it basically invalidates what makes many anime characters, past and present appealing physically or personality wise. It's like a giant field that included such a wide variety of character designs, many which depth that their moe characteristics help bring out, all got narrowed down into just "flat chests and panties" by both critics who don't know any better and by fans that don't look for anything else, and it's absolutely maddening.

Honestly, for anyone wanting to give the genre an actual try, I recommend the little "Find Your Starter Moe Anime" put together over at We Remember Love. Actually, I just about recommend his writing to anyone with an interest in anime, and particularly mecha.

[ghostlightning.wordpress.com]

@bakagaijin: Using my hori stick with it atm. Works fine with xpadder.

@Vanilla_Ninja:

Wait.... What?

Artefact is a registered sex offender?!

O_O I think I was right in leaving that site.

@ninjafetus: Thank you!

KesMonkey

@ShadowOdin isn't american: I thought his name was Etnecerc?

@Chrysalis: Yeah, NTLEA isn't launching for me either. I'm on Windows 7, I assume this could add to the problem, though I've tried running in XP SP3 compat mode and even as administrator. Running in compat mode gets me a couple of additional errors complaining about corrupted DLLs before the usual jibberish message.

Already tried running the game using applocale, that didn't seem to resolve the issue of the game simply showing a small window for a second and closing.

Maybe I'll try running this on my laptop which I currently have set up as a dedicated VN-playing machine (XP running all non-unicode apps in Japanese locale)...if this game will even run on a P4...

CnEY

@CombatDispenser: It's a fighter. Does it really matter?

MARl0

@[i177.photobucket.com]

@Turambar: B> Selvaria Body Pillow: You have a valid point. I think the problem is that moe often goes hand in hand with lolicon, as Miyazaki himself once pointed out. When people idealize a certain aspect of a character too much, it becomes a full-on obsession, which is the very origin point of lolicon itself.

Not to mention the word's usage has been kinda twisted around in the same way that "otaku" went from meaning "creepy, overly obsessed fan of ANYTHING" in Japanese to "fan of anime" when used as a loanword by English speakers.

You certainly have a point, though.

@OrtenseDemophon: My claims are not bizarre, dammit. Star Ocean 4 is insipid anime bullshit, and that wouldn't change no matter WHAT platform it's on. Besides, you know I love Lost Odyssey. :[

The way I see it, there is no reason to make a game in a genre that has no reason to involve little girls STARRING nothing but little girls exists for one reason, and one reason alone; to appeal to the creepy, shut-in, hyper-otaku moe idolizers. There's no logical reason for a fighting game starring a bunch of 10-year-olds except that pervy weirdos get their jollies off from all the panty flashes.

@Archaotic: I think you're confusing Lolicon with moe here. Moe is simply a highly general term used to describe specific appeals that a specific female character (and sometimes male) can give off. It is honestly no different IN CONCEPT from specific aspects of designs of video game characters that make them more appealing to us.

@Noctis: Yeah but they are good examples of actually doing that while claiming they aren't.
Artefact has too big of an ego to be taken seriously anyway.

@Archaotic: Sheeeeet....if it plays good, I'll fucks with it.

@Knoxximus ver. 5.66: Holy shit, and you even left out the "r"...BLASPHEMY!

@ShadowOdin isn't american: You are a fraud. There is no "s" in "Crecente"! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

@[www.vector.co.jp] and it'll autostart the download

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: Ditto. PS3 version for teh BluRayz!

oh god, cute idols fighting, see through and gothic dresses, with magical wands and crazy effects
you've got to pay me 100 dollars to play it for 5 minutes

Lupin

Hmm, still can't get it to work. I tried downloading that emulator and following the screenshots, but I'm getting an error when it tries to load...

Chrysalis

@Noctis: Yah, you are right on that.

@Noctis: You are talking about Archaotic, this guy can make the most bizarre claim without any kind of evidence and will simple ignore if someone prove him wrong with numbers or evidences, just check his comments at any discussion about a exclusive RPG on 360 or any SE RPG :P But this time he is somewhat right, but with exageration as aways

OrtenseDemophon

Ahem, i really wanted to try this out, but i have no frickin clue where to click after following the link. XP

@Trygle12 is FREE!... and waiting for Disgaea 2:

... I'm saying that Sankaku, and Artefact in particular, would disagree that moe causes the exploitation of young females.

Looks fun, and both animation and art are superb, specially for a free game.

I'd actually buy that for a console, really.

@Noctis: They are actually pro-free speech and all that.

However it is a NSFW site sometimes.

So I haven't been there in a while.

@Trygle12 is FREE!... and waiting for Disgaea 2: You got it. If I don't like anyone I'm playing as, I'm not gonna play the game. Simple as that.

Great game. Totally digging the music and art style. Easy is a bit too EASY though.

Prophane33

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.:

You new to Sankaku or something? Try reading some more articles of theirs.

@Archaotic:Ah, I figured.

Moe characters would have the greatest effect on that aspect of gameplay.

@Radz: Ah I see. Thanks!

I'LL TAKE IT!

@Invisible-Echidna: Ummm, that would be a SHMUPper you are referring to with that "pew pew" action. Fighters? They sound a little bit more like, "SHOOOOOORYUKEEEN!".

@Trygle12 is FREE!... and waiting for Disgaea 2: I didn't say Power Stone, I said Power Instinct. :P

The point I'm making is that there's a whole bunch of moe fighters out in Japan, freeware and retail releases. This guy is clearly talented, and it's a shame that he's wasting it on moe when he could clearly be doing something better.

Gameplay is always nice to me in fighters, but I need some characters to like and an universe I'm intereste in, or I won't stay interested. It's why Guilty Gear captivates me while games like Virtua Fighter and (to a lesser extent) Tekken fall by the wayside.

@Gossy loves yo' mamma's flapjacks: Interesting idea, but yes, online play seems to have rendered it a bit antiquated by now, sad to say.

@Archaotic: Arcana Heart was a decent fighter, but this is one of the series I was thinking about.

Power Stone is supposed to be funny/parody.

....and The only loli I see in Melty Blood would be the catgirl. The rest are teens. :/

Anyways, You don't seem to be into fighting games for the common reasons, so I don't think we have much to discuss here.

While admit that moe has become a tad bit overbearing as of late I don't mind it here and there. It's usually not the main focus of fighters to tell you the truth.

@bakagaijin: Maybe I explained poorly, sorry.

Xpadder allows you to activate keyboard inputs through the use a controller, so any controller that works with your Windows OS, can be used. This means that the game itself would not specifically need support for that particular controller.

Basically, if you can get your PS3 controller to work with Windows, you can use Xpadder to set the controller up for this game, even if the game itself does not support it.

I hope that clears things up. :)

Radz

@Go Go Gadget: Gizmo:

See this post:
[forums.shoryuken.com]

God, It's a fighting game and it's free. Stop bitching about it being all "moe" you ungrateful fucks.

ashjaw

@undefined: Creative stuff, man! I've had this idea many years ago that was similar to what was on offer in quest mode on VF5, but a step further in that it would have a full on story based tournament mode.
As you control your fighter in the game the other fighter would be controlled by a virtual other player. You could have rivalries, alliances, progression from local tounaments to national tournaments.
But now we have viable online matches my idea seems a bit redundant.

@Trygle12 is FREE!... and waiting for Disgaea 2: Queen of Heart or whatever it's called, Power Instinct is DANGEROUSLY close, Melty Blood is as well...there are more, I just tend to avoid trying to think about them for the most part.

And yeah, I was working on an RPG concept while I was in college too. I've devised concepts for RPGs, fighting games, a mecha action title that also doubles as an animated series or graphic novel, and lastly a psychological horror/action game that I'm actually still working on right now.

@Archaotic: Despite all the story you put into that....

I would totally skip over that for the gameplay.

Fighter's are 95% gameplay, the rest is menu's and story.

You should of made an RPG tbh.

I don't mind moe, but this is only the second fighting game I have seen with pure emphasis on moe characters.

Mind listing the other series?

@jayntampa: Those are at least 18 I believe? Or College?
At least I can't feel like compare them with anime schoolgirls that are often 16 and look many times younger.

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: Yes. Brian Cescente.

That's exactly what mine does.

I don't know how to get it started.

@Radz: Seems complicated. How would you use a keyboard with a fighting game?

@Gossy loves yo' mamma's flapjacks: I'm a huge fan of story in fighters. The overall LACK of story in Street Fighter 4 is part of the reason I haven't stuck with it as long as I should.

Meanwhile I'm hammering away with BlazBlue's story mode just like I did in GGXX, trying to unlock every ending.

As for the fighter concept, I was working it out to be sort of a mix between Guilty Gear and Last Blade; weapon-based combat with a bit more speed and style to it. Each character had been infected by an elemental shard of a shattered artifact, giving them special powers.

Some of the character concepts were actually shaping up to be pretty cool. One of the side characters was a former priest and healer who was infected by the Darkness-element shard, which nullified his holy powers entirely; it drove him insane, and he began to hunt down all of the other people infected by the artifact in an attempt to reunite all of the pieces and purify himself of its influence.

Meanwhile, the "main hero" of sorts was a knight errant who found himself infected by the shard that encompassed the power of Destruction, forcing him to balance holding back its power from releasing itself and hurting innocents while also on a mission to bring back his lord's runaway daughter.

I actually wrote up an entire roster for the game, including movesets and super attacks, even concepted an animated intro for it all. Ah, college, those were the days...

@ShadowOdin isn't american: Your information must have come from a very reputable and handsome source.

@CombatDispenser:
He means that it's a fighter, it's all about the pew pew. Nothing else. Fighting is a universal language. This whole game could be in Ewok and I bet you'd still be able to figure it out.

Invisible-Echidna

@Noctis: Go through a few pages here, you're quite clearly uninformed.
[www.sankakucomplex.com]

@[www.xpadder.com]), which basically binds keyboard inputs to your controller, allowing keyboard only games to be played with one.

Radz

@Archaotic: Sweet, I'd buy that. I like when fighters get a bit of story into the mix- gives more of sense of purpose. Problem is the 'stories' are usually so painfully dull and/ or melodramatic that it's painful :)

@potatojenkins:
To answer my own question, just download this:
[www.mediafire.com]

run it, click "Add shortcut" or whatever in it, then hit okay, then right click the exe and run it under that program :x

This is probably a dumb question for some of you, but I don't play PC games so...

I'm downloading this now. Once it's installed, how can I control it? Can you hook up a PS3 controller to your PC? I don't have any controller specifically for the PC.

@potatojenkins: Off the top of my head- I think big squares where text should be means you don't have the Japanese language pack installed?

Radz

@Griefy: How's that sad? Explain.

CombatDispenser

@jayntampa: This is true. They don't, however, idealize PRETEEN girls, which is a large chunk of the moe trope. =/

@Noctis: That's pretty much what moe is. It's exploitation (not literal, more along the lines of blaxploitation than anything else) of a specfic fetish, which is that of the "idealized girl". You don't think they do it just for fun, right? They do it because there's an entire subculture of weirdos that get their rocks off to it.

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: I can understand you loving this game, because I hear all the ladies love Mister Jack

Sincerely,
/Jack Thompson, CEO of Microsoft

@ShadowOdin isn't american: Wait -- what??

Quote: Say what you want about western media, but we don't want to see highschool girls in sexually explicit scenarios.

Umm, Gossip Girl, 90210, half the slasher flicks out there, tons of other stuff ... Western media sexualizes teen girls with the best of them.

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: Blazblue is awesome though. I think it's worth $60, but I do agree with you on it being free and a 2D fighter can't go wrong with that combination.

motang

@Noctis: Yes, because the fact that Chrono Trigger is a loved and great game even by todays standard and haven't gotten nearly as much exposure as it should've is not a viable factor for one to be excited about him appearing in fighter that far surpasses Super Smash Bros and even Jump Ultimate Stars in the mount of characters present.

@ShadowOdin isn't american: It looks fun and its free. Generic. Yes. But free!

@undefined:

"sexual exploitation of young girls."

After making such a ridiculous claim, I suppose you have some evidence to back it up.

@Gossy loves yo' mamma's flapjacks: Well, I'm not sure; I was working on a fighting game concept back in college that was essentially transposing a PS1-era fantasy RPG into the one-on-one fighting game gameplay style. Obviously this is pretty cliche too, but I was hoping it would stand apart by the merits of having an in-depth story mode a la Guilty Gear XX or BlazBlue.

In the end though, anything's better than MORE moe. You could make a game where rampant, unfunny internet memes fight each other one on one and I'd be more likely to enjoy it than the umpteenth moe schoolgirl fighter.

@ShadowOdin isn't american: Pretty much.

@Deenight: 'It', a widely used singular pronoun, which mostly represents an impersonal, or inanimate object.

Also, yes, that's true. Someone could have made a pretty penny off of this.

How in the world do I get this to work :x I downloaded it, but since it's in Japanese, all the file names show up as big squares. Clicking the shortcut in the unzipper folder gives an error, clicking the EXE in one of the folders also just makes a window appear for a split second :x

Are you sure this is even compatible with non-Japanese XP? :x

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: I hate bills! Tehy prevent me from buying gaemz!! D:

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: Ah okay. I am definitely picking up the game, but not anytime soon since Im still having tons of fun with SF4. It was well worth the money I paid for it since I've been playing with it since launch.

@Archaotic: It is, and it is keeping japanese media from hitting big in the west.

No matter what they say about wanting to cater more to the west, as long as they keep producing such a huge amount of moe it won't help them.

Say what you want about western media, but we don't want to see highschool girls in sexually explicit scenarios.

Yet I find it strange. Back in the days when there were noticeably a lot less moe in japanese videogames they were at the top of the game. People loved japanese games and became more and more interested in japanese mainstream culture. Yet once that happened they totally switched gears to a more otaku-centric model with very bright and clean colors and cute spunky teenage girls everywhere with an alarming less amount of quality-control, and now they are loosing ground.

@Noctis: You do know how many characters are in Card Wars, right? I'm just speaking as a Chrono Trigger fan. That game's got Dante, KOS-MOS, and dozens of other characters in it. I don't know what the problem is with being excited that Chrono Trigger is getting some respect in the modern day, when apparently all it's good for is a cheap DS port and nothing more.

That's not hypocrisy, considering Crono's stereotypical Toriyama design is not even remotely the same thing as sexual exploitation of young girls.

@CombatDispenser:
But, I love it when cute bouncy girls start speaking to me in languages I can't understand.

Invisible-Echidna

@Archaotic: What style would you have gone for?

Anyone had any luck getting this to work? Mine just shows a window for a second before disappearing without much event.

Kenneth Koh

@Archaotic:

Oh, yeah. Crono is such an original, awesome character. What an amazing guy with such a perfect character design.

...

Generally when you insult something, you should try your darndest not to look like a hypocrite.

@Save me: I ordered it online so I could get the art book, actually.

@[ftp.vector.co.jp]

KesMonkey

@Squard: the blue button is the download link.

duokun

@WDYC: That would be phenomenal. A fighting game with Crono in it is already one of the greatest things ever.

@ShadowOdin isn't american: Sad but true. Moe is like a virus, corrupting everything it touches. =/

Sweeto! Going to download this bitch when I get home!

@Squard: found what?

Deenight

@All the ladies love Mister Jack!: Where did you get Blazblue from? My local gamestop doesnt even have it on display. Could I get it if I didnt preorder?

@Squard: Possibly the button that looks like a download symbol? >.> Really, shit is universal almost at this point.

@Archaotic: Bah, shut it! It's not like there are five million EVERYTHINGs in Japan, and you can't even pretend fighting games are the prominent games over there any more without displaying a good amount of ignorance.

And if he does do something unique, I sincerely hope he charges full price for it, because he would deserve it :p

WFROSE

@CombatDispenser: You need English for fighters? Sad.

@Archaotic: Hahah, I just referred to you in my post below (made before I saw any other comments on this article) and you actually beat me to it. And you're basically saying the same thing as me.

Cast on the website looks very stereotypical from the busty extreme fanservice girl to the obviously underaged girl that shouldn't be skilled enough to compete in these types of games (unless you're possessed, like Darkstalker's Annie)

@Squard:
sorry, found it

Squard

@Archaotic:

Yeah. I am so up for a free new fighter, but I just can't force myself to download this. I would like to hold on to SOME of what little dignity I have.

@Archaotic:

Card Wars creators should hire him to finish the damn game, I've been waiting years to play that freaking game.

WDYC

looks great... i am downloading it right now, but he should put this up on psn and xbl for a dollar and i'm sure he would be a lucky man... :D

Deenight

Where do I click on that Japanese site to download the game?

Squard

...and then it'll be updated on the Wii.

Looks awesomely awesome.

Looks really high quality for a freeware game, and I am liking it. Too bad creator is totally otaku and the cast looks like it's filled with only pretty girls.
Reminds me of the discussion about moe in JRPGs with Archaotic yesterday.
But really, I like stories even in my fighters and if the cast features exclusively only one gender, I can't feel like taking it serious other than for being otaku eye-candy.

Sincerely,
/Jack Thompson, CEO of Microsoft

This just makes me want blazblue to come to the UK even more! :(

Looks good.

At first I expected this to just be a MUGEN game with custom characters, but it appears to be a fair bit more complex than that.

...it's just too bad that such talent is being used to manufacture moe crap instead of something unique. Like there aren't FIVE MILLION fighters in Japan starring schoolgirls beating the crap out of each other or anything.

Now this was just made for people like me. 2D fighter? And it's free? Now this is a concept I can get behind. And here I just paid 60 whole dollars for Blazblue like a SUCKER.

Aw hell. I can't stay mad at you, Blazblue. But this still kicks ass.

That looks cool and all but...it's in Japanese. @.@''

CombatDispenser

what an easter egg.. thanks kotaku.. this isnt even a question of whether or not i'll download it but when will i be playing it.. ;)

Too many*

blah.

where do people get this "there are to moe fighting games" madness from? Its not like the fighter market is oversaturated with them.

Arcana Heart is the only commercial release of something of the such that i've seen. There's EFZ maybe, but that game is old and hasnt been updated for a looong time.

Aside from the fact that Melty Blood has more girls than guys, it doesn't fit the mold for such aside from like, two characters or so.