It’s a battle between Japanese Indie heroes in Studio Saizensen’s next cross-over Fighter.
Publisher Nicalis announced a new fighting game for consoles, PC and Japanese arcades during Twitch’s E3 2017 Pre-Show Sunday evening. Developed under Studio Saizensen, Blade Strangers is an upcoming cross-over Fighter, featuring characters and stages from various Saizensen and Nicalis properties; in its current Alpha build, Blade Strangers highlights Cave Story, Code of Princess and Umihara Kawase. Rather than opt for the 2D hand-drawn method, Studio Saizensen instead created 3D models for each character, then rotoscoped them to emulate detailed 2D sprites; each stage has been taken directly from its source game, and optimized for use as a fighting game arena.
Upon full release, Blade Strangers will include Story Mode, Mission Mode Mode, offline Training, and local and online Versus Modes. According to a representative from Nicalis, the title is intended to be accessible to fighting game newcomers, but still balanced for competitive play; though direct details were not given, input simplicity was likened to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS, with the final speed and combo-complexity resembling the latter Guilty Gear and SNK Fighters. Unlike its inspirations, Blade Strangers will be a “grounded” Fighter, prioritizing ground-based combat and significantly lacking in extended air-combos; Studio Saizensen is also taking extra care to omit any possible “Infinite” combo loops.
A proper trailer has yet to surface, however an extended gameplay demo can be seen below, courtesy of Twitch and Nintendo Everything. More characters are currently in development however those present in the demo are as follows:
- Princess Solange (Code of Princess)
- Ali (Code of Princess)
- Master T. (Code of Princess)
- Curly (Cave Story)
- Kawase (Umihara Kawase)
Blade Strangers has no release window as of this time, but is currently in development for Japanese arcades, the PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. Studio Saizensen also served as the developer for Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena, a 2D cross-over fighting game including characters and stages from Shining Hearts and Shining Blade.
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