February 26, 2019, 10 PM Eastern

Many fighting game fans probably tuned into EVO’s Twitch stream to see which fighting games would be announced as one of the main showcase games for this year’s EVO tournament. Unlike previous years where they stretched out announcing titles for shenanigans and such, Mr Wizard and Markman played it straight and announced nine games straight through. Much of the games announced early were no brainers to those who have been following the FGC community closely in the past year: Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Dragon Ball Z FighterZ, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Mortal Kombat 11. Soulcalibur VI made it and the surprise game that was announced prior to the final game slot was Samurai Shodown.

After right games, I thought the last game that would take the final slot would be Dead or Alive 6, a game that was about to be released later that week and thought it’d make sense to take advantage of another new game to be featured for EVO 2019. To almost everyone’s surprise, Mr Wizard announced that Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] was the ninth featured game for EVO. Never would I thought UNIST would ever get a slot after UNIEL was shafted pretty hard with strong support back when it was up for its eligibility in 2015. UNIST making it in felt like a cinderella sports team breaking through, beating out one of the biggest EVO games that was a main game for six years prior in Super Smash Brothers Melee. (The “Thank You Melee” video afterward felt like pouring more salt to the wound on top of Melee not chosen to be an EVO main title this year.) UNIST making it in also meant Guilty Gear Xrd REV2 was out. While I thought REV2 always shown incredible pool and top 8 matches at EVO, for this year I’m glad to have UNIST have its moment. Who knows if UNIST will be featured as an EVO main title ever again after this year?

It’s amazing that UNIST has the fourth highest amount of entrants out of the nine featured games at EVO (as of Mr Wiz’s 01 May tweet) and has the fifth highest entrants at Combo Breaker, one of the biggest fighting game majors in the United States.

As we’re getting closer to EVO 2019, I am pretty much writing an ode to an incredible anime fighting game that somehow worked its way into an EVO featured title.

BREAKING NEWS! SHOULD I WAIT FOR THE NEW UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH GAME TO GET INTO THIS FIGHTING GAME?

https://gematsu.com/2019/05/under-night-in-birth-exelatecl-r-rated-for-ps4-switch-in-taiwan

In my opinion, if folks are interested in Under Night I would advise folks to buy UNIST. Who knows how far development of this new UNIB game currently as reported? Factoring in the localization efforts of bringing it over to North America after its release in Japan and Asia, it’ll be a good while if we see the new UNIB game here. I believe it took over a year for the NA console releases of UNIEL and UNIST to make it over after their JP console release. UNIST is riding high from it’s inclusion in EVO and there are many folks recently joining in because of it, so there’s no better time to ride the wave than right now.

HOW DID IT EARN IT’S SPOT?

I have not kept up with every fighting game tournament going on and hearing what games have been doing well or not with the community, but from what I gathered it has been getting a lot of entrants in anime-centric tournaments leading up to the EVO 2019 announcement. It also got a lot of entrants as an EVO side game last year and ran an incredible tournament from what I’ve was able to watch. I guess a little bit of hearing UNIST’s growth and considering the history and factors of the other games on the bubble (Melee, DOA6, etc.) may have been enough for the EVO leadership group to award UNIST the final featured title spot.

WHY AM I SO PSYCHED THAT IT’S AN EVO MAIN GAME?

I’m excited that it’s an EVO main game this year because I think it’s about time to show how awesome UNIST is to fans of other fighting game fans. I think the game is very exciting to watch and has a unique balance of patience and action packed within each round. The presentation is pleasing to view and the every character is the game has great personality that it presents themselves well to spectors in my opinion. It’s also another game to see whether a North American players can have success against their Japanese/overseas competitors.

WHO ARE THE FOLKS TO LOOK AT FOR IN UNIST?

I reiterate that I have not been following the community very closely, but one competitor that stands out in North America goes by the name Squish, who has finished first and top-8 in numerous UNIST North American tournaments and won at EVO 2018. Clearlamp is a Japanese competitor to look out for, he won in UNIST at Climax of Night, a North American FG Anime focused tournament. In terms of community, HellaBrett has been a big supporter of the game who assists running locals in Northern California. James Chen has uploaded a tutorial series of UNIST on his Youtube channel.

WHY DO I LIKE UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH EXE:LATE[ST] SO MUCH?

I already wrote a five-star review and placed it was my number one game of 2018, but I’ll try to stretch out further why I think UNIST is an awesome video game here.

THE CHARACTERS

Fun to Play With AND Against

UNIST is one of the rare games where I feel like the entire roster is fun to play and fun to play against. Each character is so unique in their fighting style that it’s fun to proceed playing against different characters and how players play their characters. I feel it doesn’t get too stale that or get too hectic that affects my enjoyment of most fighting games I casually come across. There’s a certain flow that every character has that’s engaging to play in every battle.

Impressive Looking and Excellently Designed Fighting Movesets

Adding to the character’s fun factor is how each one has impressive looking and designed set of moves with them. While many characters fall into certain fighting game archetypes (shoto, zoners, rushdown, grapplers) their movesets make them more interesting to watch and play. I love the persona and sword interplay that Orie employs. Carmine has a unique trait where he loses life utilizing his special moves and can gain health back with throws and other methods. Merkava stands out with his extended limbs and flying ability. Eltinum has an active reload mechanic where if you successfully reload within the little window, she earns powered up bullets.

Well-Designed and Bursting with Personality

There’s a distinct lack of “I want to be the best” or “I’m the strongest” found in UNIST’s roster. Instead, you’ll find a lot of subtle and unique characteristics that UNIST’s roster brings to the table. There’s Merkava with his noodle arms, Wagner and her high mighty smugness, Mika’s childness, Gordeau’s brashness, Carmine playing the crazed man, Hilda and Byakuya laughing their asses off, etc. You don’t need to play the game’s story mode to get a glimpse of the character’s personality traits to shine through in battle.

THE FIGHTING

Aggressive Yet Grounded

UNIST’s fighting shows a lot of aggressiveness as the entire cast can lockdown their opponents with their unique skill set, yet that aggressiveness is grounded as there are windows to turn the tide. A mixture of player’s playstyle and intuition along with character skills and battle mechanics can make certain matches one sided and other matches go crazily back and forth. The fighting looks and plays action packed but there’s bits of patience sprinkled in many spots in between the action. If I were to compare how UNIST plays to its counterparts, I feels more active than Street Fighter yet not quite as outlandish as Guilty Gear. It’s somewhere in between those two games is where I feel UNIST’s fighting falls under.

Excellent Mechanics

What helps UNIST’s fighting be so engaging is its excellent mechanics that feels right at home. GRD is the most important mechanic in the game as the player who wins the cycle earns subtle but important benefits that they can use over their opponent. Players earn vorpal for winning a GRD cycle, in which it inflicts additional damage on attacks, opens up additional mechanics, and gives most characters a subtle benefit to assist them in battle. What I love about the GRD system that it can be won in a variety of ways. Offense is typically the way GRD is won most times, but impressive shield blocking and breaking your opponents GRD are other ways GRD can but won. Hence there’s always additional tension when the next GRD cycle closes. Other mechanics such as chain shift and veil off (similar to Arc System Work’s Burst mechanic) are additional tools that can give the player and the offensive to continue being on the offense and defensive players tools to interrupt their opponents offense and quickly mount a counterattack.

THE PACKAGE

Mostly Comprehensive Training Mode

UNIST’s early praise upon launch was its comprehensive training mode, which teaches high-level fighting game wide techniques employed by expert competitors into its game. Those of us who watch fighting game tournaments and are unclear in techniques such as option-select, whiff punish, okizeme, etc. are explored and taught in the game. It’s great to see the developers spend some time on exploring these techniques and see how it it’s used in their game, along with some techniques that is unique to their game.

Practical Combos in Character Combo Missions

It’s also great to see the combo missions in UNIST be practical in use of battle for the entire roster. There’s also a short Cliff Notes set of missions of what the player should do with their character in a few instances that I wish French Bread would go deeper to show the intent and ins-and-outs of the character to new players who are looking for a character to main.

The Soundtrack!!!

UNIST has a lot of bangers that adds excitement and drama to every battle and their equally amazing to listen to on their own.

Unreal Black Things and Other Verbiage

I love the wacky verbiage found in spots in the game, from the title screen with the UNREAL BLACK THINGS, the quick fight introductions with a loads of text under the character, rounds called CLAUSES and DIVIDE to start each round, and other little odd text found in and around the game.

No Patches and Season Passes!

The most impressive aspect to UNIST’s package is the lack of patches and season passes. Most bigger budgeted fighting games in this gaming generation have relied on patch updates fixing bugs and promising balance adjustments and expanding the roster through season passes to keep their audience interested in their game. UNIST succeeds against the grain by sticking with the product and haven’t had to follow up to issue additional patches to fix nor need to expand its roster to keep its audience happy. The game has been out for over a year in North America and has seen its growth not only in tournament attendance, but also in interest and enthusiasm. It’s great for newcomers to buy the game and go straight into it without having to download patches to be up to date and find most information available for the game to still be relevant.

JOIN THE GIANT BOMB FGC DISCORD!

https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/fighting-games-general-ex-plus-a-1790649/?page=1

Anyone interesting in playing UNIST with fellow duders are welcome to join the GB FGC Discord for casual and tournament play. You can find the link to the discord on the first page of the FGC thread linked above.

ENJOY UNIST!

Thanks for reading and enjoy UNIST whether you’re watching it or decide to dive in and play it!