Wholly original fighting games are few and far between, especially so when we're talking about fighting games developed outside Japan.

Skullgirls has been generating positive buzz since it was announced early this year, and Reverge Labs have decided to spend a little more time working on Skullgirls, prompting a delay into early 2012.

"There are a lot of reasons behind this delay, but the overriding one is that we’re just trying to make the best game we can," said designer, producer and community manager Peter Bartholow on the game's website.

"As tournament attendees and forum-goers know, we’ve done extensive tweaking and added new features based on community feedback," he continued. "While many of these things are individually small, they add up over time and can delay other tasks--some companies call this 'feature creep,' but we call it the extra polish that takes a game from 'good' to 'great.'

Bartholow even went ahead and listed out the changes that are coming as a result of the community:

• Gameplay speed changes – 10% faster!
• Lots of new effects and overall presentation improvements
• Upgraded backgrounds to 3D
• Additional music from Michiru Yamane
• Requested color palettes
• Accidental pause prevention option – hold Start for 15 frames to pause
• PlayStation 3 custom soundtrack option
• Button macros to help when playing on a pad
• Innumerable balance and gameplay tweaks
• In-game art galleries

There's no new, specific release date for Skullgirls. For the moment, it's just "early" in the first quarter of 2012, so in the worst case scenario, expect it before the end of March on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

Wholly original fighting games are few and far between, especially so when we're talking about fighting games developed outside Japan.

Skullgirls has been generating positive buzz since it was announced early this year, and Reverge Labs have decided to spend a little more time working on Skullgirls, prompting a delay into early 2012.

"There are a lot of reasons behind this delay, but the overriding one is that we’re just trying to make the best game we can," said designer, producer and community manager Peter Bartholow on the game's website.

"As tournament attendees and forum-goers know, we’ve done extensive tweaking and added new features based on community feedback," he continued. "While many of these things are individually small, they add up over time and can delay other tasks--some companies call this 'feature creep,' but we call it the extra polish that takes a game from 'good' to 'great.'

Bartholow even went ahead and listed out the changes that are coming as a result of the community:

• Gameplay speed changes – 10% faster!
• Lots of new effects and overall presentation improvements
• Upgraded backgrounds to 3D
• Additional music from Michiru Yamane
• Requested color palettes
• Accidental pause prevention option – hold Start for 15 frames to pause
• PlayStation 3 custom soundtrack option
• Button macros to help when playing on a pad
• Innumerable balance and gameplay tweaks
• In-game art galleries

There's no new, specific release date for Skullgirls. For the moment, it's just "early" in the first quarter of 2012, so in the worst case scenario, expect it before the end of March on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

shame i like the look of this

"Innumerable balance and gameplay tweaks" 
Is that more than 42?

Why would anyone want a custom soundtrack option when the soundtrack was composed by Michiru Yamane?

Yay! One less game to buy this year. Fuck! One more game to buy early next year.

At any rate. I hope it gets out there before the 2012 EVO cutoff, if that really exists.

I knew this was going to happen.

oh man, finally a ps3 game that actually incorporates custom soundtracks? Sweeeet. Shame its been delayed but, from what i've seen this game looks really nice, especially the custom assists. The people in the tournament fighting game community seem to be really excited too.

@ErikSchroder said:

Why would anyone want a custom soundtrack option when the soundtrack was composed by Michiru Yamane?

Because I would not be able to "get down with the sickness" if not for a custom soundtrack option.

Aw! Oh well, glad they're taking the time to do good work. Still totally can't wait for this game though, if for no other reason than the expansion of the genre.

In game art galleries?! This just turned into a day-one purchase for me! </sarcasm>

I'm afraid I can't let you do that.

Love the accidental start prevention idea, very clever. Roll on 2012.

Good to hear. Want the game to be even better when it launches.

I'm sure this is simply a way to avoid the holiday game rush. Skullgirls looks to be one of the finest fighting games that has come out in a while. So I hopefully it will come out when it can get it's proper time in the spotlight.

@ErikSchroder: It's one of our most-requested features, surprisingly.

But, yes, it is usually couched with something like "The soundtrack is amazing and I'll want to listen to it a lot, but I'd like the option to play my own music."

All I want is a look at more characters. There are only 4 so far.

My one problem with this game was the fucking backgrounds.

I am totally okay with this.

@Red Rum: We've announced a fifth, Ms. Fortune, and will be showing her in motion very soon.

http://skullgirls.com/characters/ms-fortune/

Bummer, this looks really neat.

While I personally don't care for the character design, the huge thing I want from this game is a fully featured real tutorial and training mode to help people that don't know what they're doing. The crappy trial modes Capcom has been shoving down our throats is a terrible standard, and most of the devs of these games seem content to hide all the information about how to "really" play these games. It's a very archaic mentality that needs change, and if this game brings forth what was promised in that quick look a while back, I hope they lead the way to opening the eyes of Capcom, Namco, and Neverealm to stop sandbagging on stuff like frame data, command capture, etc...

I want this game in my hands right now, but at least their using the time to make the game better. Mike Z and the team keep up the good work.

Some more game polishing can't hurt.

@Vegsen said:

I'm afraid I can't let you do that.

Is that you, HAL?

The extent of my knowledge about this game is held within this article, but I am excited about any game where the developer is willing to postpone release shortly to satisfy the wishes of the community (of course the keyword is shortly). The fact that they are relaying the changes that they are working on makes me think that they're statement:

some companies call this 'feature creep,' but we call it the extra polish that takes a game from 'good' to 'great.'

Holds some truth.

Call me excited for more news on Skullgirls.

This is was my first post, haha fun.

I like looking up their dresses:)

At any rate. I hope it gets out there before the 2012 EVO cutoff, if that really exists.

Any idea how many playable characters there will be? I've literally only ever seen those two.

I continue to hate this game's artstyle and concept, but I'm still interested in it.

To be honest... at the rate they were pumping out character trailers and information about the game, it seemed like it wasn't going to come out in 2011 anyway. I'm looking forward to this game and hope they take as much time as they need to clean everything up.