DNF Duel

Leaving a negative review strictly due to the regional pricing issues. Players outside NA/JPN should not be paying exorbitantly more for a game that is relatively cheaper compared to its contemporaries. Guilty Gear Strive does not have this issue, nor does King of Fighters XV. Completely unreasonable.

just go play guilty gear

I really like this game. Its more fast paced gameplay has been a breath of fresh air for a time period where anime fighters have been slowing down, and additionally, like all games published/developed by Arc Sys, it oozes with a style that does it's source material justice. However, the radio silence throughout its life makes it a very hard recommend for most people. If you're looking for something to grind and play lots of matches in, you'll find that the lack of support has fed into a decline of players, and subsequently, finding matches can be difficult. If you're like me, you play only every now and then a bit of arcade and single player, and/or can get your friends for a few rounds, it's fun and worth getting on a sale. But because of it's direct conflict with what fighting game support in the 2020s should be, i can't recommend it as a main game, and opt to leave a negative review. It's just something to change to when you're a bit tired of your other options.

The 8 people that are still playing are too good for new players to have any hope of winning. Very little offline single player content. If you MUST try for yourself, get this already cheap game when it's on sale. You might get rinsed fast enough to get a refund.

Arc. Your game is dying. make it cross platform

The bombarding of negative reviews for reasons not exclusive to but including "not enough people in the matchmaking" is doing this REALLY fun game no favours, like a gross self-fulfilling prophecy. I wholeheartedly recommend it to any fan of crazy fighting games.

I guess now is as good of a time as any to put my two cents in the ring (Patch 1.4.0) [b]Update:[/b] As of 12/20/2023 Its free on the EGS store and that has caused an influx of new players so Its seeing a bit of a resurgance for now. I'm easily able to get matches in matchmaking for now I hope people will give this wonderful game a second chance. I even got out of Bronze 1 with Kuno! Before I continue I gotta address some elephants in the room Barebones content: Its about standard to other fighting games of its tier. Which means you get online, a story mode some training aids, and a few small extras. That said Compared to the rest of the industry (And bigger budget fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, SF6, and your Soul Caliburs), having your main mode be multiplayer is an issue because... "Dead Game" Well yes but also no, but also Yes: This is 100% A discord fighter where you find people on dedicated discord servers instead of playing ranked matchmaking (never been a fan of arcsys style "arcade" lobbies, find em a bit stressful vs just jump in and go). Its been like that because... Lack of post launch Developer communication and support over the first year: Yup, Its been horrid, but spectre is finally out (and she's great) and it looks like the update cycle is going to be a bit more regular with one new character coming out this fall, two this winter and one in 2024 (and no new ports). It might not be as bad as launch to now but that was still unnaceptable and I have my doubts its gonna continue past 2024 Thumbs downers, I don't fault you one bit. So why am I thumbsing it up? Because despite all of that I really like this game and want to talk about its design! Even though I'm utter trash at it (Especially with my main for some reason, seriously I put most of my time/energy with Kunoichi and I did terribly with her, [strike]never breaking out of bronze 1 and only really winning games when I decided to take a break and pick someone else like Troubleshooter, Vanguard or ghostblade[/strike] [b]EDIT: WE ARE OUT OF BRONZE 1![/b]) Its got the coolest cast I've ever seen in a fighting game. Sure I cant do half the combos that some of you Ultra instinct Diety ranked players can pull out on command but the characters look great and I love the fact that everyone is absolutley cracked with stupid normals and stupid moves. They look great, the game sounds great and they all feel saucey! I'm normally more of a fan of more neutral/oki based fighters (Soul Calibur 2 is my favorite fighting game ever for reference) over big combo based stuff and I still prefer those over this but DNF does it in a way where it recongizes the BS that combos bring. Everyone is busted, but so are you! It does result in a very pressure heavy and oppressive game and requires a LOT of grind to get to a point to be competitive, plus its never fun to "Drop the controller" as your opponent styles on you (or have some defensive mechanics have your turn stolen after you got in and started your combo) but with how DNF balanced it, I think its pretty cool and actually somewhat intuitive! It boils down to how it uses meter I'm not normally a fan of how most fighting games handle ability limiting meters. With the exception of limiting supers, it usually feels like a band-aid solution to dealing with some kind of issue the game has by introducing a powerful ability that circumvents the issue or as a way to force a gimmick. I understand there is actual thought and strategy to how these things go (See:Baiting burst in Guilty gear) so its not really a bad thing design wise but it always felt very patchwork way of dealing with a design issue mid-development and often leading to abilities one could easily forget exists at best or shoehorned in at worst. However DNF is the exception to this rule because Eighting really thought through how meter interacts with everything. White life always regenerates but gets nuked with magic attacks, which are tied to a mana bar and when the other guy runs out of mana thats when you start to look for gaps in their pressure and begin yours because you were regenerating mana while you were weathering the storm. Then you can find a gap and flip the script with your own advantage where your white life starts to tick back up making conversions less risky and allowing you to do the roman-cancel nonsense that strive had to extend your pressure and refilling your mana at the cost of said regenerating health. Or maybe you can then sacrifice your pressure to take your turn back with guard cancel if you find you can sneak one in and then you can use your white life to get some of that pressure back via conversion. Its actually kind of a genius way to represent turns that doesn't feel super limiting either way. Holistic feels like the appropriate word to use in regard to DNF's use of meter I find I am a fan of block button and simple motions and again they feel well integrated into this game (For reference: I think Modern controls feel absolutley wrong in SF6 to me but the exact same layout exists in GBVS and it feels great there). I think the traditional controls are well intentioned but fall flat because of the fact that you not only have them overlaid over movement, but also simple motions as well (Also completley pointless for skills) Beyond that As for the mobility, I'm mostly ok with it not being an airdasher, it wasn't trying to be that at all and they've been slowly layering on defensive mechanics to compensate for the game's cracked normals/advantage state (Such as back rolling and Indomitable spirit this last patch). This patch especially as a lot of vortexes seem to be patched out in favor of more mix. It still results in a very opppressive game but Its more refined now. To be honest I think this issue caused some initial bad word of mouth (because everyone was expecting Strive but crazier) which was then compounded by the horrid dev support which led to the community drying up. Netcode was some of the best I've ever played with when it was new, rarely had issues. I wish this game was managed better, I think it deserves better than what happened to it. But at this point it is what it is. Street fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and Tekken 8 at this point are understandably sucking up all the oxygen in the room and while Its theoretically possible for a revival (and I'd LOVE to see it!) I'm not holding my breath. I'll still play it with friends on occasion, play around with the new characters as they come out and maybe try for some discord events.