This game lacks depth and variety in a lot of ways.
First off, it's primary selling point, the multiplayer mode only covers the bare minimum of what you would expect of a title in this genre and price category:
- Only 2 different versus game modes, being the mix of brawling and item-usage as shown in the trailer and a hastily tacked on Pinball mode, where opponents can only be hurt by shooting stage hazards at them.
- Featuring 9 playable characters that may diverge in terms of range, speed and specials but all rely on the same limited moveset which in the end makes them all play more or less the same. The "advanced techs" like perfect blocking or dodging don't really add anything to this except making some cpus almost impossible to beat in hand to hand combat.
- And at last the 8 different arenas that do change up the item variety but because of the very limited play options ultimately get old very quickly
And that's it. No modifiers, no item options (you can't even turn them off), no difficulty setting for the cpu, no team match options (aside from 2on2) and you can't even play co-op versus a single cpu. Neither in local play nor the story mode WHY?
This is what really put me off and made me go from being barely in favor of this game to straight up disliking it.
No 2 Player option even though you only have ONE story arc with TWO playable main characters is just straight up insulting and makes this being listed as a co-op game almost come off as false advertising.
Of course going 2on1 might trivialize the challenge of unlocking the hidden character but doing so might make the game at least a little bit entertaining!
Instead, getting beat up time and time again by those ridiculous, frame perfect final and hidden bosses, restarting over and over just to get a character that's basically the same as every other, except maybe a LITTLE bit faster, stronger and with more range, is NOT fun - And, now that i think about it, is probably really just there to increase game length and not have everyone immediately realize how shallow and uninteresting this game actually is.
Only get this if you want a watered-down version of Power Stone and regularly have friends over who enjoy content-light, casual brawlers.
