Pure Gameplay Rush.
I played Melty Blood for the first time about three years ago and man is this game great. Fighting games live or die based on their pure and simple mechanics. Some fighting games have a very natural feel to them, All I have to do is grab the controller and I can start performing immediately. Oddly enough, this naturalism isn’t fundamental for a great fighting game. Injustice is a good fighting game and it feels pretty bad. Even Street Fighter and Marvel 3 don’t feel completely fluid, but they’re great games. Melty Blood is a rare fighting game that not only controls amazingly, but on top of this it’s a damn good fighting game which collects a lot of my favorite things from the genre into one incredible package.
I’m not going to go into the backstory of how Melty Blood came to be. You can look it all up. I’ll just say that this version of Melty Blood is the advanced and perfected later version of a game and that has gone through many iterations.
The depth here is as deep as the ocean. Every character has three versions to play as. This is kind of like Capcom Vs. SNK 2 with the ‘Groove” system, but it goes much deeper than that. Not only is the system and meter management changed, but the characters themselves can have minor to wildly different properties. This is to the point where you can call each version of the character a separate character. The closest comparison to this is the unlimited characters in Arc System Work’s games, or the many different version of Kyo in The King Of Fighters. It’s like this, but for every character. It’s hard to put into words how fascinating this mechanic alone makes this game. This mechanic alone is so powerful and fun that it really bumps this game from being a great fighting game to an elite title.
The system properties unique to each moon ‘phase’ (versions of characters) are varied and deep. They range from Street Fighter type super meter to K-Groove type meter management. Add on top of this Just Defends, instant blocks, dodges, reverse magic series, guard cancel attacks and others. You are looking at so many options that it’s staggering to think about, but natural to use.
And with all this ridiculous complexity, the game manages to strike up a beautiful simplicity at the same time. Special moves are almost always simple down-forward or dragon punch motions. Combos can be started with a simple a-b-c series. The game even has a context sensitive button (first I’ve seen in a fighting game) that will do different tasks at different times depending on the situation your in.
Speaking of simplicity, the graphics are perfect. They shy away from the pomposity that befits many anime style fighters in favor of a laid back approach. Characters for the most part wear simple clothes, i.e. a t-shirt and jeans or a simple school uniform. Nothing is over the top and it makes the game feel very mature. Even the backgrounds follow this idea. You don’t find yourself fighting in an exploding dungeon with minions mukking about in the background. No, in Melty Blood you’ll find that your opponent and yourself will practice pugilism right in the middle of a green suburb or in front of the school.
I could go on and on about this game, but it’s a game that you really have to feel for yourself. It has a perfect balance of intimidating depth and accessible simplicity that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a fighting game. Even though this game is fairly old now (two years since the latest version) it’s still damn good and actually a modern day classic.