With Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Soul Calibur V, Street Fighter X Tekken, BlazBlue and about 4,000 versions of Street Fighter IV among others out on the market, can Reverge Lab’s new colourful upstart 2D fighter Skullgirls possibly compete with the competition?

Skullgirls on the surface certainly looks a bit lightweight boasting only eight characters, significantly lower than any of the games mentioned in the opening. There is hidden depth here though, for starters there are different ways to play Skullgirls with the fighting engine supporting one on one fights to 3 on 3 or 3 on 1 and so on, meaning there’s a lot to get out of these eight characters if you’re willing to put the time in.

There are also full arcade and story modes on offer, as well as full on tutorials teaching you how to play the game. These might seem like basic additions but they’re certainly missed when they aren’t all present (*cough* Marvel Vs Capcom 3). What really stands out about Skullgirls is it’s cartoony audiovisual presentation, the art style is likely to divide opinion but it certainly gives the game a unique personality, and the excellent soundtrack is provided by Michuri Yamane who is best known for her work on the Castlevania series.

The game is a six button fighter, and that’s about as much explanation of the fighting engine as you’re going to get from this review, being one of those people who seems to enjoy fighting games despite being absolutely terrible at them. Skullgirls is fun though, there you go. This leads to perhaps the game’s biggest issue, and that is the question of who exactly is this game for?

The six button layout was supposed to make the game more accessible to beginners, but despite this learning the basic mechanics and learning how to combo properly even with the tutorials isn’t nearly as simple as it is in Marvel Vs Capcom 3. Skullgirls sits on that awkward middle ground where it doesn’t have the flashy team based insanity of Capcom’s crossover games, nor does it have the pure techncial hardcore appeal of a Blazblue game.

Not to mention, the game is filled with all sorts of in-jokes and references to other fighting games, some of them really awkward (the gorilla’s fate is yearning?) In the end the overall experience comes off as a fan game, something made by fighting game fans simply for fans of the genre who want another one. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s still quite a good fighting game, but it does make the game a lot less special.

Throw in an infuriating final boss in the story and arcade modes, barely any unlockable items and a serious glitch on the Playstation 3 version that has basically crippled the online community at time of writing, and Skullgirls is slowly being dragged down from  a great fighting game to simply another good one. As a result, this review can only recommend it to people who are already hardcore fans of the genre and will get the most out of it, and that in itself is a shame.

7/10