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Trying to write up an article about Fantasy Strike

Fantasy Strike (also abbreviate as FS) is a videogame developed and published by Sirlin Games. As a game of the fighting game genre, it is about one-on-one battles between fantastic characters that require fast reflexes, knowledge on the situation and reading the opponents mind. The game was released on 15.07.2019 on PC (Steam), Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Gameplay
Fantasy Strikes playstyle proves similar to traditional 2D fighting games. Each player picks a character to play, which are then placed in a 2D arena. By performing various attacks unique to the character, each player tries to bring down their opponents health pool down to zero to win a round. Whoever is the first to win four out of seven rounds is given the match win. In addition to attacks, players can use blocking to defend against attacks and break through blocks by using throws. A unique feature to Fantasy Strike is the "Yomi Counter", which can be performed when not attacking by pressing no buttons at all. When yomi countering, if the character is hit by an opponents throw, they won't get hit and instead perform a counter throw, turning the tables.

The game features various modes for single and multiplayer. Singleplayer pits the player in matches against AI controlled opponents, with different modes putting a different spin on the formula. Arcade adds some story through artwork and dialog, as well as stronger version of the character Midori who serves as the final challenge. Survival provides a stream of progressively stronger opponents, with especially strong shadow bosses inbetween. Daily Challenge is similar to Survival, but can only be played once per day and compares the players result to other players. Boss Rush allows the player to pick power-ups after each battle, but also introduces special opponents that also possess power-ups. Finally, Single Match lets the player play a standard match of his choosing.

Multiplayer allows player-against-player matches both locally and online. The latter provides automatic match-making for a casual and a ranked queue, or directly challenging specific opponents through friend matches. Players may either choose to play Standard or Team Battle. Standard refers to the classic mode, where each player picks a character to play a best of seven. Team Battle instead makes each player pick three characters. The game will then randomly pick a character from each players pool of characters, upon which the players play a best of five. The winning player removes his character from his pool. This is repeated until a player has no more characters in his pool, meaning he won with all of his characters and is thus declared the winner. Team Battle is used in ranked play and proposed as the go-to mode for tournaments, as it is designed to alleviate the issue of counter-picking [ref].

In addition to single-player and multi-player modes, there is also a tutorial, a learn section and a training mode. The tutorial should teach new players how to play the game in general, while the learn section contains characters spotlight videos that delve deeper into what to do with each individual character. The training mode is lets player experiment and practice with a character as well as look up frame data in real-time.

Setting
The game is set in the world of the same name, "Fantasy Strike", a world featured in other Sirlin Games games. In the games story, the character Rook hosts a martial arts tournament to rally the strongest fighters of the land. In the games arcade mode, the player plays through set arcade mode, gaining insight into the characters motivations.

Characters
On release the game featured ten different playable characters, categorized into four different groups: 4 zoner characters, 2 rushdown characters, 2 grappler characters and 2 wildcard characters. Additional, non-playable characters appear in the games arcade mode story sequences.

Reception
Fantasy Strike received "generally favorable reviews", according to video game review collecto website Metacritic. Although the game is highly similar across platforms, most reviews focus on the Switch version of the game specfically.

Many reviewers praise the games accessibility by virtue of the relative ease of execution, while retaining the depth that makes fighting games difficult to master and fun. Gillham from God is a Geek notes that "While the moves are simple, implementation is not." and Farrell from PC Invasion states that "[...] the game is purely skill-based, as every good fighter game is. . Even so, some reviewers worry that the game "could prove too simple for pros" or that "the action just gets too repetitive too fast because of its limited movesets".

With ten characters, reviewers mention that Fantasy strikes roster is fairly small compared to other titles. However, most are also quick to mention how those few characters are highly distinct and offer unique experiences.

Reviewers also praised the in-game materials that are supposed to help the player learn and understand the game, i.e. the tutorial and the character spotlight videos. Martinez from Gaming Illustraed mentions how "Utilizing both videos and tutorials helps you deepen your understanding of surface and high level play and the underlying mechanics." . Furthermore, some reviewers commented on how the clean visuals and various UI Hints (such as color-coded moves and "Jumpable" text) made it easier to understand what was happening while playing. All these features supposedly further highten the games accessibility.

Reviewers also agree that the rollback based netcode makes for a solid online experience.

Concerning the visual presentation, reviewers appear to be in disagreement. Some say that "The visuals and aesthetics are mostly bland", ascribing the game a typical style that is not distinct enough to set itself apart. On the other hand, some consider the visuals "charming and wonderfully crafted", highlighting the game as something that is pleasing to look at.

Some Switch reviews expressed confusion at the naming of the virtual buttons, as their names do not match with the names on the physical controller. For example, the virtual A button is mapped to the physical X button, instead of the physical A button as initially expected. While this was mostly a minor complaint, some reviewers thought it could hurt the accessibility of the game especially for newcomers to the fighting game genre.

Reviewers also expressed their dissatisfaction with some of the single-player modes. Jones from Heavy says that "While there’s a lot of modes on display here, not all of them are fully featured and worth returning to." and O'Reilly from Nintendo life complains that the "arcade mode is a little barebones". In contrast, the single player-mode boss rush is mentioned as a highlight.