Here is my thing. Arena fighters can be amazing. The problem I have is that ALL of these games are rushed, made on a shoestring budget and have terrible design decisions.
That’s part of why I’m so excited for sparking zero. It’s been in development for 5 years, the devs are listening to our input, it’s a genuine sequel, and the devs really care about their work. It’s gonna be gas 🔥🔥
@warmice4136 For me, I'm keeping my expectations low. Look I wanna be excited as you, but after so many crappy arena fighters, I can't trust it. But I do hope it ends up good. I don't want it to suck.
@@jarrodeaston6373 Eh pretty much has most the things that actually make a good arena fighter, a large roster featuring even the obscure characters from the source material, actually large interesting looking and destructible environments and very nice looking visuals on everything. They just need to make punching the other guy through a building feel satisfying and they're golden. The thing is people don't nor have they ever played arena fighters for a deep competitive games. They play them because they just want a toy box to smash their action figures together. And don't get me wrong a lot of anime arena fighters don't succeed in what I described, but I think when they do succeed the people who complain about that kind of game don't understand why.
@@jarrodeaston6373I trust S0 wholeheartedly. Many yters said it plays just like bt3, like, they literally on instinct did combos from bt3, and the game just, let them.
@@m.a.k.dynasty4504 I mean dude is coming from a bias perspective, dude doesn't bring up why some people like these games, despite it being pretty obvious, it's because they are looking for a toybox to smash their action figures together.
One's Justice 2 is the best example of a development team taking criticism and feedback seriously and creating a better product for it. All its really missing is a sizeable budget, doesn't matter how good your development team is, they'll only be able to do so much with what they are given and they are definitely not getting the same love and budget DBZ and Naruto typically get.
@@kenonerboy technically speaking, by all accounts most of them have some hidden gems in there, but the overall exceution of them are bad and my hero is no exception to that
@Takashii85 i wouldnt say so. The opm game lacked pretty much everything. Mha doesnt feel nearly as bad as those mentioned. Its just not god level like bt3 and storm4
Im pretty tired of them. So many interesting game genres to adapt these franchises into and they always pick arena fighter as the default. The good ones standout especially but when there’s so many bad ones I could care less.
I mean they defend the good aspects of the game not all the game Bro if you ask them they will say the errors of the game and the fact that is overpriced
@saidbrizzo2187 ive heard people say it's better than every Naruto Storm game which is seriously wrong. Like Naruto Storm 2s story alone makes me want it over Cursed Clash
I feel like arena fighters can be fun because it's a 3D fight where you can run around anywhere which can fit the style depending on the Anime. If they do make good controls and gameplay then we probably wouldn't have this problem
Killlakill if did that perfectly it's just when you're content is a story mode which 4 characters 2 vartions and hear that 2 story mode only bosses were cut from the singular player mode and2 lerfculty fuctial characters in senketsu kisargi and nui fibers arms along with boss ragyo shinera koukets which in itself is kinda just a completely different character than ragyo being a set play trap type character and fiber arms nui is the duel wield ryuko variant of nui it's needed and senketsu kisargi wouldn't be used competive wise but for fun of course they used it
KLK is my favorite arena fighter of all time. It’s proof that arena fighters CAN be awesome. I hope the devs make another one with a bigger franchise someday.
It just sucks that we got a Kill La Kill arena fighter to begin with when the series has such a small roster, instead of an MGR-style action game developed by PlatinumGames.
DBZ BT3, Kill la Kill IF, Demon Slayer Hinokami, J-Stars, Kamen Rider Kabuto PS2, Gundam Extreme Versus, Dissidia, Urban Reign are my favorites. DBZ Sparking Zero is gonna be great no doubt
8:32 Another example would be the JoJo All Star Battle (and more recently it's remaster All Star Battle R) which Eyes of Heaven borrows a lot of it's character models from. It's a game filled with fanservice but the gameplay itself is quite well polished
That was what I was hoping for with that new Bleach game but unfortunately it’s just another arena fighter. Im praying that if a Chainsaw Man game ever happens it becomes something similar to DMC.
Yeh the only problem is most of mugen char would either recolor Mr Donald or recolor touhou char / I dont court kof char cause their r the base for mugen community
It depends on who made it & did they re-balanced the characters they got from other people. Some Mugen games are really great. And others are just horrible. I love Mugen too death. Even the horrible ones have some charm. As long as you understand 🤷🏾♀️ this character is a bloody God. His broken as all hell. If he hits you five times .. you're dead 😂
@@thethingoid no joke about that.. I try my best to see how far i can get. But long and behold, this random character just destroyed me in three punches 😅
Nah man j stars is quite literally the definition of clunky jump force is at the very least very responsive and can be fun sometimes if you’re good and the person you’re fighting isnt cheesing
@@Kdawg4859 Nah man thats just nostalgia i can tell you haven’t played j stars in forever by that opinion. Depth doesn’t matter if the game isn’t fun. To have all that “depth” and play like absolute shit really isn’t saying anything.Like j stars is literally not fun in the slightest bit combat is too clunky and slow. Everyone may kinda fight the same in jump force but atleast the combat is RESPONSIVE and has some type of flow. J stars is the definition of a mess and you’ll more often than not get pissed off at the mechanics more than anything else
@@iluvslaughter don’t matter to me I found j stars more entertaining with the jank than jump force also has a better roster i literally plat j stars so i really do like that game over jump force and I also want ti add it comes down to what you like out the two games some People like the jank clunky stuff also you can do a lot in stars that you can’t in jump force and do a lot more wild shit if you really get down to it and every character has there gimmick in that game unlike jump force as you put it felt samey
While I would agree that most anime arena fighters aren't good, I do understand the appeal of them. People aren't looking for a deep competitive games withe them, they are looking for a toybox to smash their action figures together. And I think it's pretty obvious that's what the appeal is. So I don't get why so many people don't understand that.
This exactly. People love Budokai Tenkaichi 3 because they'd put up SSJ4 Goku against SSJ2 Teen Gohan, beam struggle, punch each other through mountains, and just enjoy the spectacle of their favorite characters durking it out. And FighterZ has much less mass appeal because it's a sweaty competitive E-Sport that you need to practice before you can have fun with it. And even then, it feels like Street Fighter, not like Dragonball. It's mechanically deep, yes, it's visually rather pretty yes, but if you switched out the sprites for sprites from another franchise, nobody would even know that this is a Dragonball game. If you switch out the characters in Budokai Tenkaichi 3 you'd say "Man, they should make a Dragonball game just like this"
The main issue with arena fighters within the modern market (aside from the obvious "they're rushed asf") is that their one selling point of "easy to pick for any fan" is also a recipe for an extremely short life span. The game with a lack of depth gets boring quickly. And there's only so much a pretty animation for an ult can do. Arena fighters haven't truly evolved since it's popularity two decades ago, at least compared to other genres like 2D fighting games. Right now what the genre needs is one game that's actually big budget and has thought and talent put into it. (*nudge nudge* do your thing Sparking Zero pls). Because at this rate, we might as well revert to low budget Street fighter knock offs but with the skin of whatever IP it's for.
@@gibleyman I would disagree with that statement. To problem with most arena fighters is that they don't take full advantage of the genre. BT3 is often considered the gold standard because the hidden depth of the game aside, the basics of being able to fly around, blow each other up from the other end of the map and smash each other through buildings and other bits of scenery. That stuff never really got old and even outside of the competitive scene. Sparking Zero will not be a well balanced game (the devs have already admitted that the stronger characters lore wise will be stronger in game play). Nor will it probably be all that deep. What it will do is give the players the ability to recreate the scale of the battles in the source material. And that is what a lot of the other arena fighters lack.
Thank you for getting it. I play arena fighters just to feel like im playing the source with my favorite characters. I know dam well it wont be as deep as a 2-d fighter but I know it can be still fun.
Japanese and now U.S competitive player here. METEOR / t3 is actually extremely deep and complicated. The mechanics seen to be blatantly Ignored by critics and casual players. The western player base found the complexities rather late. with Italy player Paige and co. being the forefront of finding tech too! I hope some people will experience this in ZERO as the manager, has confirmed that it wont be a casual title.
@@Deathsyth-ks8uz maybe... but most of what I saw from people was very average. im not too sure about how many NA players actually new what they were doing in particular.
The thing that ruins arena fighters for me is the knockdown mechanic most of them seem to have. You do a basic combo or a special, then your opponent is sent hurdling far away for several seconds, then they lie on the ground for another few seconds, then they spend a second or two getting up while having invincibility the whole time, and THEN you finally get to attack again. It's excruciatingly boring to deal with, you're spending so much time just seeing someone fly off, roll around or just lie on the ground, and it's even worse when it happens to you, it completely destroys the pace of the fight and makes every fight such a drag. IMO these games would feel SO much better without this, with faster knockback and quicker getups it would be a lot more fluid and feel way better to play.
Sparking ZERO looks at least like it’ll be good. I hope the lesson that Bandai will take from it is that by giving a game a lot of time and allowing the devs to put lots of work into it, you can make a successful game
The Dragon Ball series is one of the only mainstream anime to have a wide variety of games to choose from you have: Kakarot - an rpg style game and mainly exists if you just want to experience the story with incredible visuals Xenoverse - a create character that includes characters from dragon ball heroes and several player battles and raid bosses and also has light rpg elements Breakers - an asymmetric game that allows you to play as a raider or survivor with multiple friends FighterZ - a competitive fighting game that boasted a huge fgc scene for its incredible visuals and it’s depth and technicality appealing to a wider audience And now Sparking Zero a continuation to tenkaichi series which is essentially the ultimate dragon ball battle simulator with the biggest roster, incredible visuals and the ability to create your own scenarios or experience what if scenarios
@sharpester7277 I agree with all of those points but i hesitate to call it the ultimate dragon ball game as a fighting game yes but as a dragon ball game not so much the roster is no where near the level of what the bt games have it doesn’t allow you to experience any aspect of the original story and doesn’t really offer anything outside of just the core fighting game mechanics don’t get me wrong fighterZ is incredible and it’s reference, callbacks and animations are phenomenal but it’s a fighting game first and foremost and i wouldn’t really recommend it to someone that wants to experience the story of the original series or just the ability to have a plethora of characters to choose from if i had to say games i would consider to be the ultimate dragon ball games it would be budokai 3/infinite world as well bt3 and sparking zero seems to be following suit in what those games did
@@Ares_-JM Big reason for that is cause Dragon Ball is just so popular that there's less risk with experimentation compared to whatever modern anime is popular, they usually lose a large chunk of it's hype after a season is over, so it's "best" to rush an easy to make Arena Fighter to come out while hype is still at it's peak, Dragon Ball will always sell ridiculously well and make up it's budget,no matter the game genre, when it releases, or how expensive a game was to make so they can go crazy with it.
Besides Breakers Naruto literally has done all that too lol Pick your poison of RPG story mode, Shinobi Striker, Pick Your 2d fighter though older gen and Open Arena fighter in storm 4.
@sharpester7277 Nah, not even close. It's a swety competitive E-Sport. That's what it wants to be. But that doesn't make for a good dragonball experience. It's a technically solid fighting game, don't get me wrong. But it IS a competitive sweatfest. It's a game you have to dedicate yourself to and master, because otherwise it's no fun at all. And unlike games like Budokai Tenkaichi or Xenoverse, it's not something you can pick up, have a good time with, scratch that Dragonball itch for a bit and then put it back down. To have fun with FighterZ you HAVE to practice, practice, practice. If you are a high skill E-Sports guy, then this is a great game. If you are a casual Dragonball fan, this game sucks major ass. To this day, Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is the ultimate Dragonball experience, with Xenoverse 2 as a close second. Neither of them is as mechanically complex as FighterZ is, but that is their strength. You don't NEED to practice 10 hours a day for a month before you can have fun with them like with FighterZ. You just pick a character (or in the case of Xenoverse make your own), then you have fun throwing beams, transforming and punching people through the arena, and feel like you are playing DRAGONBALL. FighterZ is a good fighting game but it doesn't really feel very Dragonball. If you switched the sprites out for another franchise you'd have no idea that this is a dragonball game.
@@EskChan19 agreed 100%, this is why I don't get alot of the xenoverse 2 haters. the game is good, its just meant to be a different genre from budokai tenkaichi and more of a character creator what if story rpg game than arena fighter, and dragon ball is such a good ip for games because of its variety of gaming genres, but if alot of these xenoverse haters fanboying over sparking zero had their way we wouldn't have variety and would only have budokai tenkaichi and nothing else, and I personally would hate that. let xenoverse and sparking zero both coexist along with kakarot and every other dragon ball game genre, dragon ball's gaming scene will thrive that way unlike these other anime ips.
Bandai doesn’t really make the game they just have the license and let the rest of the other companies do the work like what they did to the soul like games
Because it's a Jump Game so audience is expected to be Japan more than Overseas, in Japan it's always about Manga, J Stars Victory VS had Saiki which was character that didn't have anime at that time yet, and Jump Game on DS was using manga panels, so it's not really something new
1)The simple fact that Goku can be a Super Saiyan is itself a spoiler. 2) It's your problem. It's a game about ALL (the majority) of Shonen Jump characthers, what did you except? Kid Goku from the first chapter vs Ichigo when he was still alive?
I think you're half right about why they make so many 3d arena fighters, but some other reasons are theyre easy to get into without becoming "good", yes they're cheap but they also tend to be more casual oriented so more people who maybe dont game that often can get into them pretty easy if theyre just into the IP, the other is because you can capture the feeling of the show more easily (ala storm and tenkaichi series really feel like they belong in those franchises)
Yeah, this is what people often don't understand. The appeal of arenma and party fighters (like Smash Bros) is that you can pick them up and play. The casual Dragonball fan doesn't want to have to spend 10 hours a day every day for 2 months practicing combos and input timing in FighterZ before the game gets fun. He wants the game to be fun from the get go. Arena Fighters do that. You can give someone the controler, explain the controls, and two or three rounds in, they will be having fun. Two or three rounds in FighterZ you won't even know what most of the buttons do yet.
@@EskChan19that AND beginning players will be subjected to at best other players who understand the deeper mechanics better and at worst hardcore sweats who will do touch of death combos that will erase their character before they understand what even happened lol.
@EskChan19 that just sounds like a skill issue lol. Because regardless of all that, FighterZ is still one of the best selling DBZ games ever and it's skill ceiling didn't hold it back
@@EskChan19 that's not an excuse for every damn game to get the same braindead garbo over and over. If people got both that and games with depth no one would complain.
People often expect traditional fighting games when a beloved IP announces a new title. Yet, it's crucial to understand that the focus is not on the consumer, but on revenue generation. Fighting games don't achieve the mainstream status of franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rainbow Six, or even Pokemon, primarily due to player retention issues. The fighting game community (FGC) sees a decline in players over time, either from boredom or the daunting challenge of competing against professionals. Consequently, developers may opt for arena fighters, which are presumably simpler to create, require varying levels of effort, and leverage brand recognition to ensure sales. The choice then becomes: produce a complex game that may lose players and revenue over time, or develop a cost-effective, basic game loaded with well-known characters that could sell millions at launch due to instant character recognition.
I think their simpler nature does make arena fighters a lot more appealing for the casuals, than some people realize. Especially compared to the wall that is traditional fighting games, that lets be real, are pretty much unplayable to anyone who isn't already good at fighting games. To that end for casual who's just looking for a nice simple smashy smashy game, where they can recreate their favorite moments, or act out the fanficiton in their heads, arena fighters do scratch that itch. In my opinion the measure of an anime arena fighter isn't weather it's a deep or balanced game, but how effectively it serves as a toybox for the player to smash their action figures together. I don't necessarily think all or even most anime arena succeed in this regard either. But I do think Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is so fondly remembered because it was pretty much the perfect DBZ toybox.
Agreed, I fucking love traditional fighters, and ArcSys fighters, and nowadays people want ArcSys to make every anime fighter cause well, you cant deny, they are the kings of it. But everyone always forgets that DBFZ was the outlier cause well, it's goddamn Dragonball, you can quite literally slap Goku onto a food truck and people will flock to it, not even a joke. Outside of Dragonball, ArcSys fighters always end up becoming niche and sometimes considered inaccessible to new players due to their games usually having really high skill ceilings. As much as I despise Anime Arena fighters, they are very easy to pick up, easier to master than other fighters, and are very easy to develop. It's depressingly an easy way to rake in cash.
I think the biggest culprits in this curse are Spike Chunsoft. Their games are shallow with boring gameplay and cheap visuals, games like Jump Force and OPM are the prime examples of rushed development leading to an undercooked product that leaves fans ultimately disappointed. CC2's games might be samey, but their presentation is top notch and I think that's ultimately what anime fans want out of these sort of games, and it looks like Spike Chunsoft is taking a page out of their book with Sparking Zero, considering how visually impressive that game is shaping up to be. I also think that this recent trend of anime games trying to be more competitively viable is really healthy for the genre, it's better for arena fighters to be properly considered and respected as a subgenre of fighting games rather than relegating them to cheap, silly party games. The best games to feature this sort of direction are Demon Slayer: Hinokami Chronicles, and My Hero: One's Justice 2. Both of these games received proper balancing updates with feedback from the community, and had competitive communities for a while. Now on its own that doesn't say much (Jump Force also has a competitive scene) but it's moreso that these games feel like their mechanics were designed with proper competitive fighting in mind, the cast feels more balanced than your average Storm game, and the gameplay is much more deliberate than those games too. One's Justice 2 specifically feels like more like a fighting game than an arena fighter (if that makes sense) because every character plays completely differently, and both combos and neutral in that game feel more like what you'd get in a standard anime fighter over the usual button mashing you'd see in Storm games.
J stars is legendary for its roster. It found a way to include everyone including super obscure characters like Medaka and even Koro Sensei before the anime was popular. Crazy how it had a better roster with more representation from jump than jump force. It even found a way to make rom com characters useful through support like to love ru.
Byking is most known for developing the Gundam Vs series an anime arena fighter series so successful that Bandai refuses to make an up to date port of the game from the arcades where it originates, just so that they can keep selling the unbelievably expensive arcade machines whenever they port something it's usually outdated by 2-3 years behind the current arcade version, or something completely inferior and only somewhat based of the arcade version, like Gundam Versus it is however, still better than 90% of the games discussed on this video
J-Stars Victory Versus was such a fun game man. Janky, laggy, unbalanced but maaan I felt like I was using Yusuke, Gon, Kenshiro, etc. Had so much fun online, learning neat tricks and sharing it with the community. Having small tournaments where we banned OP characters.
Another comment said it but I think you gave very little credit to the Budokai Tenkaichi and Ultimate Ninja Storm saga, they are quite good and fun franchises with a moderately advanced complexity (I say this more than anything because of the Budokai Tenkaichi which genuinely, are deeper than they seem).
People aren't tired of arena fighters the people that never liked them are just loud....The problem is they don't give these games a budget to be a good arena fighter.
Oh no. People are tired of Arena fighters. They are pretty much the only anime games. I am part of the casual and I am extremely tired that literally everything for anime and manga games are just boring fighting games. Variety is supposed to be the spice of life, but the only thing here is more boring fighters that all play the same.
The last part you mention is true about arena fighters and how that genre has a similar fanbase to sports gamers who buy those games annually. At least dragon ball sparking zero is putting the effort with all the content it has
Which they do because they're licensed games made on the assumption that people will buy them because of the IP rather than the actual quality of the game
Listening to this while playing Sparking. I think the issue that arena fighters have had is just a lack of effort. They were just shoved out the door and basically just low effort clones.
One of the big problems, in my opinion, is the fact that a lot of these are the first console games in the individual franchises. Kill la Kill, One Punch, Demon Slayer, 7Deadly Sins, JJK, My Hero, these all got an arena fighter before exploring other game genres and all but My Hero have succeeded (I say this because One's Justice 2 exists so please bare with me for not saying anything positive towards the other games that got positive feedback). But in the end, not making an arena fighter doesn't guarantee a good fate either, case in point, the first Black Clover console game, a team based PvP focused game, came and went in less than a year (I think its fall lies in the game genre they decided to use for its first game). On the other side of the spectrum, there's the Fairy Tail console game. It was a turn based RPG that, despite its flaws and obviously cut corners, ended up getting a sequel set to release in December of 2024. I guess it's all just the luck of the draw...
dragon ball games have always been great and don't suffer the issues other arena fighters do with their deep combat mechanics, Budakai 4 (sparking zero) is going to be the greatest anime arena fighter no matter how you look into it. I'm not glazing, I'm just basing my opinions on all the trailers and gameplays out there showing the developer's passion to make a good game for the people who have been waiting for 17 years.
You should check out Anarchy Reigns, it’s a pretty decent arena fighter done right. It was developed by Platinum the devs behind Bayonetta and MGRR. Also, you left out the raging blast games, lmao. Great video either way. As for Naruto, the series had a bunch of games, from RPGs on the DS to open-world adventure games. There was the Clash of Ninja series, which was pretty good, unfortunately, it’s the Storm series that gets to live on. I feel like the lack of completion made them complacent later on.
I loved that game but it wasn't an arena fighter. It was a 3rd person open world beat em up. Still to this day haven't seen any game like it, but it felt like Halo with Martial Arts and no guns. It was me and my friends go to multiplayer game in the Xbox 360 days
When dragon ball started being the only series I thought was releasing good arena fighter or just good anime games told me a lot. I realized this after storm went on hiatus. FighterZ, and Xenoverse2 are great. I really think anime games should be looking at different genres… you know like Kakarot and FighterZ not being arena fighter. Imagine bleach with devil may cry gameplay. That would be so on brand especially if you know Nero and Ichigo share the same voice actor. Was that one piece rpg that came out any good?
Sparking Zero unfortunately continues the trend of rushed anime arena fighters. The game has the foundation of a great game, but all we get is the wireframe. I’m probably just going to move on from this genre. Nobody can do it right so forget it.
Im surprised Saint Seya Soldiers Soul was left out of this. Besides the BT series i think Urban Reign is one of the best arena fighters of all time. Not anime but still worth a mention
Saint seiya is not well know in English speaking markets. Only in Spanish Latin America, a handful of European countries and some Asian ones. Seems the creator here is either from America or some other country that didn’t get the SS hype. So it probably went under the radar for him. Plus, it’s not even on sale digitally anymore. And grabbing a disc is expensive now. So maybe he knew about the game, and he couldn’t play it to make a proper review.
I think because of increase in Mobile gamers, devs have moved to Gacha games. Not saying that console gamers have reduced, but obviously there's a heavier attention being put in innovating Gacha games, making all current and upcoming Arena Fighters more formulaic. I hope Sparking Zero breaks the curse
I think the issue he's pointing out isn't going to be resolved by Sparking Zero! because we still aren't getting boss battles, different sorts of gameplays and depth. I think Kakarot already fixed the issue though
This video is way too biased to reach a conclusion that just isn't consistently supported. Yes, people do not like bad arena fighters, like Cursed Clash, Hero Nobody Knows and so on...But that's not exclusive to Arena Fighters, people just don't like badly designed games that clearly feel rushed in general. If people don't like Arena fighters at all, it makes absolutely no sense as to why people quite like the Storm 4, Hinokami Chronicles and even One's Justice 2. Players love well made games, it just happens that the great majority of recent Arena Fighters are not that recently.
Anime fans say they don't want anymore arena fighters but will then ignore games like OP Odyssey, DB Breakers and NxB Shinobi Strikers. They don't know what they want.
They didn't ignore these games, but these games also had tons of problems, Breakers was barebones and buggy at launch, although it's way better now, a lot of people just didn't want to give it a second chance after a bad launch, same thing with Shinobi Strikers severely lacking on content at launch and not having much depth, One Piece Odyssey was pretty good tho.
@@eliezercardoso8009Release Strikee actually had such a small tidy jutsu list that you could actually find some debth in it. Theres some combos you can run that look flashy, others that do big dmg and even counters with some jutsu. Hell Hakus a really old character and his jutsu still counters modern releases, most notably kawakii so knowing when to use that was key.
Because a lot of those were unfortunately shit at launch and people never bothered to try it again. Look at FighterZ, although it's community has stopped growing it was a successful non arena fighting game.
I wish anime games tried their hand at the formula Fullmetal Alchemist PS2 games had, RPG platforming beatemups. Those game were so fun, dope, and really did the source material justice. Beating Scar (a battle you were supposed to lose) was so hype. Imagining something like that at a grander scale with modern consoles, my God...
You will unironically find almost all of these games in my library (Hinokami Chronicles,Hero Nobody Knows,My Hero One Justice 1 + 2,Eyes of heaven, Jump Force, Jstars Victory + and probably others I forgot.)
One thing I remember about My Hero One’s Justice, and forgive me, I don’t remember his name cause I’m not a fan of the property, sadly, but the guy with the rotting hands. He has one attack that had a countdown, and if you landed the attack thrice, boom, dead. Thing is, if you did that attack, the opponent would be downed, and when they got back up, there was, like, a half-second where they couldn’t move, but were still vulnerable. Land the attack. Run back a little. Wait a second. Leap at them again. Repeat one more time and they’re instantly dead. It was a very balanced game.
"I really think it will end the anime arena cycle" **Bleach: Rebirth of Souls has entered the chat** There is a chance it plays more like Soul Caliber as a 3D fighter, but we'll see. I hope it is good because god I want a good Bleach game please dear god.
I can't believe xenoverse gets a pass for you, yes I loved the cac stuff at the time but gameplay wise it's the most janky and horribly made arena fighter I've ever played.
I loved Byrning Blood. From its artstyle to how they handled combat, it was a great time. Especially the small details like Luffy's steam when using 2nd Gear.
Eh to be fair I don't think most anime arena fighters are meant to be competitive games, nor are the people who play them looking for a competitive game. They are looking to act out the fanfiction in their heads.
@TeamTowers1 the thing is fighting games live and die off of casual and competitive play. Most arena fighters, especially those made by spike, are just blind arena fighters which prioritizes "fun" over mechanics for skill, or anything competitive. If it was just all about acting out fun anime stuff Demon Slayer, Jump Force, and more should be still alive and well. Then there's Gundam Extreme Versus, which backs up my sentiment as it's still alive and well, and has been doing so for a decade or two. It's an arena fighter, yet made it to EVO with the likes of Tekken and such.
@TeamTowers1 Point is fighting game logic still applies to Arena fighters. Atleast I can give JJK Cursed Clash some credit, it tried copying the Gundam Extreme VS mold. (Final Fantasy NT got their mold from Gundam Extreme VS too). But, it didn't do it with the best optimization. Atleast Byking is trying, which is respectable. Demon Slayer tried as well, but given CC2 is limited by the anime, they ofc stopped updating the game, stopped trying to keep it active, etc. It had a nice competitive scene until then.
@@mousemessiah I think you are kind of missing my point. A player can't really do the "act out the fanfiction in their heads" thing with a traditional fighter, it just doesn't scratch that itch. That is an itch that anime arena fighters at least in theory scratch. By no means all of them do that well mind you (I would argue most of them don't) but that really is the appeal of the Budokai Tenkaichi games and will very much be the appeal of Sparking Zero. People still love Budokai Tenkaichi 3 to this day and that is a game that is clearly designed for fun over balance (given how only 5 characters out of the 160 plus roster are even viable on it's competitive scene).
@@mousemessiah I'm not so sure that logic really applies. I'm not a fighting game player and I loved the BT games. The really issue with a lot anime arena fighters is that they lacked the things that made BT a great toybox game. Rather than having the kind of wide open destructible environments of BT and the attacks that can hit each other at massive distances across such expansive maps (eg one of the things that helped player recreated the scale of the battles in the source material), a lot of them lock players into a rather limited space that is little more than a ring. To that end while I am looking forward to Sparking Zero (I say this as someone who didn't play that many anime arena fighters beyond BT), but there isn't a chance in hell that could be ever be a balanced game, by virtue of the shear roster size making that impossible. But I also don't think it needs to be balanced (BT3 sure sure wasn't).
I love the representation of series in it, hel, it's the only video games that includes characters from Beelzebub (it never even got it's own game despite the manga having 240 chapters and a 60 episode run). The characters I played didn't feel completely similar either, I couldn't just use the same combo and special move with every character in the same way
Another thing I wonder is why so many anime games just retell the story of the anime/manga instead of telling a new original story. If they're afraid that an original story will muck up the continuity, they can just say that the games story is non-canon.
I feel like i have trash tastes cuz i love Eyes of heaven. The only thing i hate about it is when your character gets knocked down they take a fucking nap and get up really slowly.
They really did Jump Force dirty, just a generic cash grabs!! Better just play j-stars victory vs I do love MHOJ2 tho, better than other 3d anime arena fighters in recent years..
All anime fighters are fun, they just weren’t meant to be competitive. A lot of them are actually very different mechanically (I’m meaning the arena fighters) they just have a similar vibe- But you wouldn’t play Storm the same way you’d play Cursed Clash or Raging Blast- or even any of the Fate games. The issue with those games is that they’re never built on balance, they’re cash grabs. You play them with your friends and mess around, not online in any sort of ranked setting. This is why the only real successful anime fighting games are 2d. Idk when people started taking anime games so seriously as if they weren’t always kinda bad. Probably around the same time people forgot that games were meant to kill time and be fun.
Hopefully dragon ball sparking zero and bleach rebirth of souls can set a new standard for these games going forward and start pushing these games in the right direction
Hopefully, sparking zero and rebirth of souls save the genre. It's depressing when your favorite anime/manga series gets a low-budget game adaptation compared to other franchises.
I think the fact that it's still sold for 60 dollars despite being glorified DLC is the biggest insult to the players here. I think that with all the specifically additional content Connections adds (so without considering the recycled content from previous games), it's only slightly better than the Road to Boruto DLC for Storm 4.
Many already commented about it, but I'll say too. Seiya soldier's soul is one of my favorites arena fighter, not only the graphics are good, but the combat and gameplay is also very good, besides that, the story mode has four arcs, and the character rooster is huge, with bronze, gold, silver saints, and even odin saints, poiseidon marines and hades specters, and you can even unlock the gods themselves, all the characters for free, no DLC, nothing. You just need to play the story mode, and you'll have all those characters. Besides that, saint seiya SS even received many dubs for different languages, spanish, Brazilian Portuguese etc. The voice acting in this game is perfect in all languages.
That’s why I have hope for nen impact while yes it isn’t that visually appealing due to its low budget but if it really controls like marvel vs Capcom I think it’ll really take off
Demon Slayer HC had such high potential to be something great. I feel it just needs one sequel with more characters and balance changes to be a classic arena fighter .
Would love to think after Sparking zero is where Bandai changes how they do things but it's been the same for so long that Dragon Ball is the series that gets the most put in it
Yeah sadly but not this time they literally give us the same characters like what no new characters after 5 years i expected more considering they have 5 active dbz games shame on them
The end point is a bit of a contradiction. The problem isn’t the genre, it’s the lack of polish fed into the genre. I personally love arena fighters, even the ones that follow a formula.
I think you should have also gone over the other arena fighters Dragon Ball had post Tenkaichi. Raging Blast, Zenkai Battle, Battle of Z, and maybe Ultimate Tenkaichi.
The Dark Age was 20 years ago when all of Anime/Anime Games was kept in the Dark in Japan. This is the Grey Age, the game are here but only the Arena games appeal/sell to the Western Audiences.
i think sparking zero will set a new precedent for arena fighters, this is the game im looking forward to the most, if it is incredibly great, then we will hopefully get just as great, if not greater arena fighters
What I have learned throughout the years is to never buy tie in things, if you like a movie watch it and that's it. If you enjoy an anime watch it and that's it. The only exceptions would be Transformers: The Game (2007 film), Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Here is my thing. Arena fighters can be amazing. The problem I have is that ALL of these games are rushed, made on a shoestring budget and have terrible design decisions.
That’s part of why I’m so excited for sparking zero. It’s been in development for 5 years, the devs are listening to our input, it’s a genuine sequel, and the devs really care about their work. It’s gonna be gas 🔥🔥
@warmice4136 For me, I'm keeping my expectations low. Look I wanna be excited as you, but after so many crappy arena fighters, I can't trust it. But I do hope it ends up good. I don't want it to suck.
@@jarrodeaston6373 Eh pretty much has most the things that actually make a good arena fighter, a large roster featuring even the obscure characters from the source material, actually large interesting looking and destructible environments and very nice looking visuals on everything. They just need to make punching the other guy through a building feel satisfying and they're golden. The thing is people don't nor have they ever played arena fighters for a deep competitive games. They play them because they just want a toy box to smash their action figures together. And don't get me wrong a lot of anime arena fighters don't succeed in what I described, but I think when they do succeed the people who complain about that kind of game don't understand why.
@@jarrodeaston6373I trust S0 wholeheartedly. Many yters said it plays just like bt3, like, they literally on instinct did combos from bt3, and the game just, let them.
Gundam Extreme Versus is a good anime arena fighter!
Cursed Clash didn't set a record for the most refunds, some guy on tiktok said that and everyone spread it around I believe
Welp, now everyone thinks it's true, so according to most, it's the most refunded. Sadly that's how truths/myths come about.
I wouldn’t believe it’s not like I mean that game is fucking horrible
No surprise people believed it
I swear, this guy almost never fact checks some of the stuff he says and just goes off of word of mouth.
@@m.a.k.dynasty4504 I mean dude is coming from a bias perspective, dude doesn't bring up why some people like these games, despite it being pretty obvious, it's because they are looking for a toybox to smash their action figures together.
One's Justice 2 is the best example of a development team taking criticism and feedback seriously and creating a better product for it. All its really missing is a sizeable budget, doesn't matter how good your development team is, they'll only be able to do so much with what they are given and they are definitely not getting the same love and budget DBZ and Naruto typically get.
@Jo-dp5go they don't deserve more. They're just so old they get it by default.
U didnt give storm 4 and dbzbt3 enough credit. Ppl still love arena fighters, they just dont like being scammed.
Factsss
Those games are quality. Not trash ass shit like my hero, opm, jjk etc
@Takashii85 my hero, seems to have some complexity, so i wouldnt lump it in with the rest, but def not storm4 or bt3 lvl
@@kenonerboy technically speaking, by all accounts most of them have some hidden gems in there, but the overall exceution of them are bad and my hero is no exception to that
@Takashii85 i wouldnt say so. The opm game lacked pretty much everything. Mha doesnt feel nearly as bad as those mentioned. Its just not god level like bt3 and storm4
Consumers are not tired of Arena fighters, consumers are tired of bad games
Especially bad arena fighters
I'm tired of arena fighters that is why I play games like persona
Im pretty tired of them. So many interesting game genres to adapt these franchises into and they always pick arena fighter as the default.
The good ones standout especially but when there’s so many bad ones I could care less.
Here after sparking zero was one of the most fun games I own
I will never forget seeing people actively defend Cursed Clash when it was incredibly obvious the game was looking rough
People still defend it
I mean they defend the good aspects of the game not all the game
Bro if you ask them they will say the errors of the game and the fact that is overpriced
@saidbrizzo2187 ive heard people say it's better than every Naruto Storm game which is seriously wrong. Like Naruto Storm 2s story alone makes me want it over Cursed Clash
@@VaasharP For real men? Well There is a lot kind of people i guess
A mid anime deserves a mid game
I feel like arena fighters can be fun because it's a 3D fight where you can run around anywhere which can fit the style depending on the Anime. If they do make good controls and gameplay then we probably wouldn't have this problem
True...i just wish they would at least have decent netcode like One's Justice, and some crossplay wouldn't hurt either.
yeah but they can't really make the maps big to roam around because it'll annoy the ones who want to fight
Killlakill if did that perfectly it's just when you're content is a story mode which 4 characters 2 vartions and hear that 2 story mode only bosses were cut from the singular player mode and2 lerfculty fuctial characters in senketsu kisargi and nui fibers arms along with boss ragyo shinera koukets which in itself is kinda just a completely different character than ragyo being a set play trap type character and fiber arms nui is the duel wield ryuko variant of nui it's needed and senketsu kisargi wouldn't be used competive wise but for fun of course they used it
@@hunterculpepper1973wrong ip for time unfortunately
@hunterculpepper1973 hope a some studios take note of the gameplay since it builds off the storm system
Kill La Kill If is such a tradgedy. What a great game with so much potential. I hope to see a game like it in the future.
KLK is my favorite arena fighter of all time. It’s proof that arena fighters CAN be awesome. I hope the devs make another one with a bigger franchise someday.
@@RevengerPhoenix it was a big franchise… in 2014. Devs missed a huge opportunity being 5 years late to the hype train.
It just sucks that we got a Kill La Kill arena fighter to begin with when the series has such a small roster, instead of an MGR-style action game developed by PlatinumGames.
SAVE THE ANIME ARENA GAME SOCIETY, SPARKING ZERO
This comment becomes much funnier when you remember there's a bleach arena fighter coming
@@dexnacorn7807 It's not an arena fighter, it's a proper fighting game
@@babastdu29 yes ik it's just funnier when i say it that way
DBZ BT3, Kill la Kill IF, Demon Slayer Hinokami, J-Stars, Kamen Rider Kabuto PS2, Gundam Extreme Versus, Dissidia, Urban Reign are my favorites. DBZ Sparking Zero is gonna be great no doubt
As well as Shrek Super Slam and TMNT Mutant Melee
Dude, thank you for remembering Urban Reign. That game has so much potential and I wish they would have developed it further.
Urban reign? That's more of a traditional beat em up. The one on one fights and the multiplayer though makes sense.
Gundam extreme versus is genuinely a good game that everyone should try orb watch once
Broooooo urban reign was THE game to play back in the day. It was basically 4-player tekken
Sparking zero out dark age over
sparking zero on the quest to save the genre
8:32 Another example would be the JoJo All Star Battle (and more recently it's remaster All Star Battle R) which Eyes of Heaven borrows a lot of it's character models from. It's a game filled with fanservice but the gameplay itself is quite well polished
With the Release of Sparking Zero this video didn't age that well
So I'll just quietly move on to your Sparking Zero video
We’re gonna get a Bleach arena fighter and Bleach fans are excited. If I had to take a guess, I think they’re just glad to finally get some rep
I stand by the fact that almost every single battle based Anime would be perfect for a devil may cry style game
That was what I was hoping for with that new Bleach game but unfortunately it’s just another arena fighter.
Im praying that if a Chainsaw Man game ever happens it becomes something similar to DMC.
Depends really, dragon ball fights don’t really allow for level design, as an example
It would do better as a Musou
I'm happy to say, that sparking zero it's an absolute MASTERPIECE in terms of combat
No YOU'RE a masterpiece!
At this point, M.U.G.E.N. anime games don't seem that bad
Yeh the only problem is most of mugen char would either recolor Mr Donald or recolor touhou char / I dont court kof char cause their r the base for mugen community
It depends on who made it & did they re-balanced the characters they got from other people. Some Mugen games are really great. And others are just horrible. I love Mugen too death. Even the horrible ones have some charm. As long as you understand 🤷🏾♀️ this character is a bloody God. His broken as all hell. If he hits you five times .. you're dead 😂
@@jeremyhall2727Thank goodness it's easy to modify character health and damage in Mugen.
@@thethingoid no joke about that.. I try my best to see how far i can get. But long and behold, this random character just destroyed me in three punches 😅
Say what you will I think J stars better than jump force and actually like the game a lot honestly
Nah man j stars is quite literally the definition of clunky jump force is at the very least very responsive and can be fun sometimes if you’re good and the person you’re fighting isnt cheesing
ruclips.net/video/a-12tVbDNjw/видео.htmlsi=VSnGDh8tTcC-1jMb
@@iluvslaughterJF might be smoother to play but ih has even less depth than J stars. Jstars wins this ez
@@Kdawg4859 Nah man thats just nostalgia i can tell you haven’t played j stars in forever by that opinion. Depth doesn’t matter if the game isn’t fun. To have all that “depth” and play like absolute shit really isn’t saying anything.Like j stars is literally not fun in the slightest bit combat is too clunky and slow. Everyone may kinda fight the same in jump force but atleast the combat is RESPONSIVE and has some type of flow. J stars is the definition of a mess and you’ll more often than not get pissed off at the mechanics more than anything else
@@iluvslaughter don’t matter to me I found j stars more entertaining with the jank than jump force also has a better roster i literally plat j stars so i really do like that game over jump force and I also want ti add it comes down to what you like out the two games some
People like the jank clunky stuff also you can do a lot in stars that you can’t in jump force and do a lot more wild shit if you really get down to it and every character has there gimmick in that game unlike jump force as you put it felt samey
While I would agree that most anime arena fighters aren't good, I do understand the appeal of them. People aren't looking for a deep competitive games withe them, they are looking for a toybox to smash their action figures together. And I think it's pretty obvious that's what the appeal is. So I don't get why so many people don't understand that.
This exactly. People love Budokai Tenkaichi 3 because they'd put up SSJ4 Goku against SSJ2 Teen Gohan, beam struggle, punch each other through mountains, and just enjoy the spectacle of their favorite characters durking it out. And FighterZ has much less mass appeal because it's a sweaty competitive E-Sport that you need to practice before you can have fun with it. And even then, it feels like Street Fighter, not like Dragonball. It's mechanically deep, yes, it's visually rather pretty yes, but if you switched out the sprites for sprites from another franchise, nobody would even know that this is a Dragonball game. If you switch out the characters in Budokai Tenkaichi 3 you'd say "Man, they should make a Dragonball game just like this"
The main issue with arena fighters within the modern market (aside from the obvious "they're rushed asf") is that their one selling point of "easy to pick for any fan" is also a recipe for an extremely short life span.
The game with a lack of depth gets boring quickly. And there's only so much a pretty animation for an ult can do.
Arena fighters haven't truly evolved since it's popularity two decades ago, at least compared to other genres like 2D fighting games.
Right now what the genre needs is one game that's actually big budget and has thought and talent put into it. (*nudge nudge* do your thing Sparking Zero pls).
Because at this rate, we might as well revert to low budget Street fighter knock offs but with the skin of whatever IP it's for.
@@gibleyman I would disagree with that statement. To problem with most arena fighters is that they don't take full advantage of the genre. BT3 is often considered the gold standard because the hidden depth of the game aside, the basics of being able to fly around, blow each other up from the other end of the map and smash each other through buildings and other bits of scenery. That stuff never really got old and even outside of the competitive scene.
Sparking Zero will not be a well balanced game (the devs have already admitted that the stronger characters lore wise will be stronger in game play). Nor will it probably be all that deep. What it will do is give the players the ability to recreate the scale of the battles in the source material. And that is what a lot of the other arena fighters lack.
I completely agree I don't need something that deep at all I'm playing just for the fun of it man
Thank you for getting it. I play arena fighters just to feel like im playing the source with my favorite characters. I know dam well it wont be as deep as a 2-d fighter but I know it can be still fun.
Anyone else here after Sparking Zero sold 3 million copies in just 24 hours lmao
Japanese and now U.S competitive player here. METEOR / t3 is actually
extremely deep and complicated. The mechanics seen to be blatantly Ignored by critics and casual players.
The western player base found the complexities rather late. with Italy player Paige and co. being the forefront of finding tech too!
I hope some people will experience this in ZERO as the manager, has confirmed that it wont be a casual title.
Everyone knows Tenkaichi 3 is deep, why do you think people wanted it back?
@@Deathsyth-ks8uz maybe... but most of what I saw from people was very average. im not too sure about how many NA players actually new what they were doing in particular.
@@Deathsyth-ks8uzpeople want it back cause it's just a fun dbz game series from their childhood. Not cause its deep lol
1v1 me bro street fighter
The thing that ruins arena fighters for me is the knockdown mechanic most of them seem to have. You do a basic combo or a special, then your opponent is sent hurdling far away for several seconds, then they lie on the ground for another few seconds, then they spend a second or two getting up while having invincibility the whole time, and THEN you finally get to attack again. It's excruciatingly boring to deal with, you're spending so much time just seeing someone fly off, roll around or just lie on the ground, and it's even worse when it happens to you, it completely destroys the pace of the fight and makes every fight such a drag. IMO these games would feel SO much better without this, with faster knockback and quicker getups it would be a lot more fluid and feel way better to play.
Sparking ZERO looks at least like it’ll be good. I hope the lesson that Bandai will take from it is that by giving a game a lot of time and allowing the devs to put lots of work into it, you can make a successful game
Came from the future to tell you it's PEAK.
The Dragon Ball series is one of the only mainstream anime to have a wide variety of games to choose from you have:
Kakarot - an rpg style game and mainly exists if you just want to experience the story with incredible visuals
Xenoverse - a create character that includes characters from dragon ball heroes and several player battles and raid bosses and also has light rpg elements
Breakers - an asymmetric game that allows you to play as a raider or survivor with multiple friends
FighterZ - a competitive fighting game that boasted a huge fgc scene for its incredible visuals and it’s depth and technicality appealing to a wider audience
And now Sparking Zero a continuation to tenkaichi series which is essentially the ultimate dragon ball battle simulator with the biggest roster, incredible visuals and the ability to create your own scenarios or experience what if scenarios
@sharpester7277 I agree with all of those points but i hesitate to call it the ultimate dragon ball game as a fighting game yes but as a dragon ball game not so much the roster is no where near the level of what the bt games have it doesn’t allow you to experience any aspect of the original story and doesn’t really offer anything outside of just the core fighting game mechanics don’t get me wrong fighterZ is incredible and it’s reference, callbacks and animations are phenomenal but it’s a fighting game first and foremost and i wouldn’t really recommend it to someone that wants to experience the story of the original series or just the ability to have a plethora of characters to choose from if i had to say games i would consider to be the ultimate dragon ball games it would be budokai 3/infinite world as well bt3 and sparking zero seems to be following suit in what those games did
@@Ares_-JM Big reason for that is cause Dragon Ball is just so popular that there's less risk with experimentation compared to whatever modern anime is popular, they usually lose a large chunk of it's hype after a season is over, so it's "best" to rush an easy to make Arena Fighter to come out while hype is still at it's peak, Dragon Ball will always sell ridiculously well and make up it's budget,no matter the game genre, when it releases, or how expensive a game was to make so they can go crazy with it.
Besides Breakers Naruto literally has done all that too lol Pick your poison of RPG story mode, Shinobi Striker, Pick Your 2d fighter though older gen and Open Arena fighter in storm 4.
@sharpester7277 Nah, not even close. It's a swety competitive E-Sport. That's what it wants to be. But that doesn't make for a good dragonball experience. It's a technically solid fighting game, don't get me wrong. But it IS a competitive sweatfest. It's a game you have to dedicate yourself to and master, because otherwise it's no fun at all. And unlike games like Budokai Tenkaichi or Xenoverse, it's not something you can pick up, have a good time with, scratch that Dragonball itch for a bit and then put it back down. To have fun with FighterZ you HAVE to practice, practice, practice. If you are a high skill E-Sports guy, then this is a great game. If you are a casual Dragonball fan, this game sucks major ass.
To this day, Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is the ultimate Dragonball experience, with Xenoverse 2 as a close second. Neither of them is as mechanically complex as FighterZ is, but that is their strength. You don't NEED to practice 10 hours a day for a month before you can have fun with them like with FighterZ. You just pick a character (or in the case of Xenoverse make your own), then you have fun throwing beams, transforming and punching people through the arena, and feel like you are playing DRAGONBALL. FighterZ is a good fighting game but it doesn't really feel very Dragonball. If you switched the sprites out for another franchise you'd have no idea that this is a dragonball game.
@@EskChan19 agreed 100%, this is why I don't get alot of the xenoverse 2 haters. the game is good, its just meant to be a different genre from budokai tenkaichi and more of a character creator what if story rpg game than arena fighter, and dragon ball is such a good ip for games because of its variety of gaming genres, but if alot of these xenoverse haters fanboying over sparking zero had their way we wouldn't have variety and would only have budokai tenkaichi and nothing else, and I personally would hate that. let xenoverse and sparking zero both coexist along with kakarot and every other dragon ball game genre, dragon ball's gaming scene will thrive that way unlike these other anime ips.
Bandai Namco has become Krabby the Clown
More like Cheapy the Cheapskate
Bandai doesn’t really make the game they just have the license and let the rest of the other companies do the work like what they did to the soul like games
One thing to add about Jump Force is the amount of manga spoilers for many characters (mostly Bleach)
Well to be honest they had to, even it wasn't still animated they best to be up to date otherwise people would also complain about it.
Tbh, if it weren’t for seeing the spoilers about Jotaro and Dio’s abilities, I never would have watched jojos bizarre adventure
Sounds like your problem, shoulda caught up, the material is there. If you choose not to be up to date, it is your responsibility to avoid spoilers.
Because it's a Jump Game so audience is expected to be Japan more than Overseas, in Japan it's always about Manga, J Stars Victory VS had Saiki which was character that didn't have anime at that time yet, and Jump Game on DS was using manga panels, so it's not really something new
1)The simple fact that Goku can be a Super Saiyan is itself a spoiler.
2) It's your problem. It's a game about ALL (the majority) of Shonen Jump characthers, what did you except? Kid Goku from the first chapter vs Ichigo when he was still alive?
Didn't expect a One Piece spoiler in a video about arena fighters. Hopefully I forget by time I get to Marineford, I'm at the end of Skypia rn
I think you're half right about why they make so many 3d arena fighters, but some other reasons are theyre easy to get into without becoming "good", yes they're cheap but they also tend to be more casual oriented so more people who maybe dont game that often can get into them pretty easy if theyre just into the IP, the other is because you can capture the feeling of the show more easily (ala storm and tenkaichi series really feel like they belong in those franchises)
Yeah, this is what people often don't understand. The appeal of arenma and party fighters (like Smash Bros) is that you can pick them up and play. The casual Dragonball fan doesn't want to have to spend 10 hours a day every day for 2 months practicing combos and input timing in FighterZ before the game gets fun. He wants the game to be fun from the get go. Arena Fighters do that. You can give someone the controler, explain the controls, and two or three rounds in, they will be having fun. Two or three rounds in FighterZ you won't even know what most of the buttons do yet.
@@EskChan19that AND beginning players will be subjected to at best other players who understand the deeper mechanics better and at worst hardcore sweats who will do touch of death combos that will erase their character before they understand what even happened lol.
@EskChan19 that just sounds like a skill issue lol. Because regardless of all that, FighterZ is still one of the best selling DBZ games ever and it's skill ceiling didn't hold it back
@JShocks7 no one said it was being held back, simply has a different audience in mind
@@EskChan19 that's not an excuse for every damn game to get the same braindead garbo over and over. If people got both that and games with depth no one would complain.
People often expect traditional fighting games when a beloved IP announces a new title. Yet, it's crucial to understand that the focus is not on the consumer, but on revenue generation. Fighting games don't achieve the mainstream status of franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rainbow Six, or even Pokemon, primarily due to player retention issues. The fighting game community (FGC) sees a decline in players over time, either from boredom or the daunting challenge of competing against professionals. Consequently, developers may opt for arena fighters, which are presumably simpler to create, require varying levels of effort, and leverage brand recognition to ensure sales. The choice then becomes: produce a complex game that may lose players and revenue over time, or develop a cost-effective, basic game loaded with well-known characters that could sell millions at launch due to instant character recognition.
I think their simpler nature does make arena fighters a lot more appealing for the casuals, than some people realize. Especially compared to the wall that is traditional fighting games, that lets be real, are pretty much unplayable to anyone who isn't already good at fighting games. To that end for casual who's just looking for a nice simple smashy smashy game, where they can recreate their favorite moments, or act out the fanficiton in their heads, arena fighters do scratch that itch. In my opinion the measure of an anime arena fighter isn't weather it's a deep or balanced game, but how effectively it serves as a toybox for the player to smash their action figures together. I don't necessarily think all or even most anime arena succeed in this regard either. But I do think Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is so fondly remembered because it was pretty much the perfect DBZ toybox.
@TeamTowers1 exactly! That's why Sparking Zero is gonna be lit!
Agreed, I fucking love traditional fighters, and ArcSys fighters, and nowadays people want ArcSys to make every anime fighter cause well, you cant deny, they are the kings of it. But everyone always forgets that DBFZ was the outlier cause well, it's goddamn Dragonball, you can quite literally slap Goku onto a food truck and people will flock to it, not even a joke. Outside of Dragonball, ArcSys fighters always end up becoming niche and sometimes considered inaccessible to new players due to their games usually having really high skill ceilings.
As much as I despise Anime Arena fighters, they are very easy to pick up, easier to master than other fighters, and are very easy to develop. It's depressingly an easy way to rake in cash.
@@ubermaster1 I agree.
Fighting games do attract the mainstream. How? Well because of influencers or big RUclipsrs like Maximilian Dood.
It's a crime gundam exvs mbon wasn't talked about here
In a good way?
Its because gundam vs is good
the fact that they say "Byking is a new name" during the BNHA part kinda shows how lacking the research he did when it comes to anime arena fighters
@@tedjomuljono3052gunslinger Stratos?
@@diamonshade7484 the Gundam VS series(and DBZ Zenkai Battle), Stratos isn't exactly an anime game, since it isn't based on a particular IP
Man I just can't wait for sparking zero.. I preordered it already
And Sparking Zero followed this trend :(
I hope the December update fixes the online and the R1 battles
I think the biggest culprits in this curse are Spike Chunsoft. Their games are shallow with boring gameplay and cheap visuals, games like Jump Force and OPM are the prime examples of rushed development leading to an undercooked product that leaves fans ultimately disappointed. CC2's games might be samey, but their presentation is top notch and I think that's ultimately what anime fans want out of these sort of games, and it looks like Spike Chunsoft is taking a page out of their book with Sparking Zero, considering how visually impressive that game is shaping up to be.
I also think that this recent trend of anime games trying to be more competitively viable is really healthy for the genre, it's better for arena fighters to be properly considered and respected as a subgenre of fighting games rather than relegating them to cheap, silly party games. The best games to feature this sort of direction are Demon Slayer: Hinokami Chronicles, and My Hero: One's Justice 2. Both of these games received proper balancing updates with feedback from the community, and had competitive communities for a while. Now on its own that doesn't say much (Jump Force also has a competitive scene) but it's moreso that these games feel like their mechanics were designed with proper competitive fighting in mind, the cast feels more balanced than your average Storm game, and the gameplay is much more deliberate than those games too. One's Justice 2 specifically feels like more like a fighting game than an arena fighter (if that makes sense) because every character plays completely differently, and both combos and neutral in that game feel more like what you'd get in a standard anime fighter over the usual button mashing you'd see in Storm games.
Saint Seiya: Soldier's Soul is still one of my fav arena fighters along with DBZ BT3, J-Stars Victory and Gundam Extreme VS Maxiboost On.
J-Stars Victory Vs expanded my horizon in anime and holds a special place for me
J stars is legendary for its roster. It found a way to include everyone including super obscure characters like Medaka and even Koro Sensei before the anime was popular. Crazy how it had a better roster with more representation from jump than jump force. It even found a way to make rom com characters useful through support like to love ru.
Byking is most known for developing the Gundam Vs series
an anime arena fighter series so successful that Bandai refuses to make an up to date port of the game from the arcades where it originates, just so that they can keep selling the unbelievably expensive arcade machines
whenever they port something it's usually outdated by 2-3 years behind the current arcade version, or something completely inferior and only somewhat based of the arcade version, like Gundam Versus
it is however, still better than 90% of the games discussed on this video
J-Stars Victory Versus was such a fun game man. Janky, laggy, unbalanced but maaan I felt like I was using Yusuke, Gon, Kenshiro, etc. Had so much fun online, learning neat tricks and sharing it with the community. Having small tournaments where we banned OP characters.
Another comment said it but I think you gave very little credit to the Budokai Tenkaichi and Ultimate Ninja Storm saga, they are quite good and fun franchises with a moderately advanced complexity (I say this more than anything because of the Budokai Tenkaichi which genuinely, are deeper than they seem).
People aren't tired of arena fighters the people that never liked them are just loud....The problem is they don't give these games a budget to be a good arena fighter.
Well it’s also because it’s hard to make because making video games is complex and not simple
Oh no. People are tired of Arena fighters. They are pretty much the only anime games. I am part of the casual and I am extremely tired that literally everything for anime and manga games are just boring fighting games. Variety is supposed to be the spice of life, but the only thing here is more boring fighters that all play the same.
Now you are weong about sparking zero. How does it feel?
Bandai, plz bring back One Piece: Grand Battle and Naruto: Clash of Ninja.
Not every anime fighter has to follow the same template.
I really REALLY wanna try out clash of ninja
Bandai didn't make Naruto clash of ninja that goes to Eight Ing and Tomy (now Takara Tomy)
@@BiggestGoatfr Yes, but now that they own the overall game rights to Naruto, it means they can greenlight any new entry. Eighting is the developer.
@@CarbyGuuGuu Neither owns the rights to Clash of Ninja though. They can make a similar game but it won’t be Clash of Ninja.
The last part you mention is true about arena fighters and how that genre has a similar fanbase to sports gamers who buy those games annually. At least dragon ball sparking zero is putting the effort with all the content it has
The problem isn't arena fighters, it's the fact that they refuse to get good studios to make them
Which they do because they're licensed games made on the assumption that people will buy them because of the IP rather than the actual quality of the game
Tbh, my main issue with Kill la Kill: if was the fact that Super Ryuko wasn't playable post-game
Listening to this while playing Sparking. I think the issue that arena fighters have had is just a lack of effort. They were just shoved out the door and basically just low effort clones.
The gundam extreme versus game was so goood no lie it's just true
I didn't mind Jump Force. It's a shame it was abandoned :(
One of the big problems, in my opinion, is the fact that a lot of these are the first console games in the individual franchises. Kill la Kill, One Punch, Demon Slayer, 7Deadly Sins, JJK, My Hero, these all got an arena fighter before exploring other game genres and all but My Hero have succeeded (I say this because One's Justice 2 exists so please bare with me for not saying anything positive towards the other games that got positive feedback).
But in the end, not making an arena fighter doesn't guarantee a good fate either, case in point, the first Black Clover console game, a team based PvP focused game, came and went in less than a year (I think its fall lies in the game genre they decided to use for its first game).
On the other side of the spectrum, there's the Fairy Tail console game. It was a turn based RPG that, despite its flaws and obviously cut corners, ended up getting a sequel set to release in December of 2024.
I guess it's all just the luck of the draw...
dragon ball games have always been great and don't suffer the issues other arena fighters do with their deep combat mechanics, Budakai 4 (sparking zero) is going to be the greatest anime arena fighter no matter how you look into it. I'm not glazing, I'm just basing my opinions on all the trailers and gameplays out there showing the developer's passion to make a good game for the people who have been waiting for 17 years.
You should check out Anarchy Reigns, it’s a pretty decent arena fighter done right. It was developed by Platinum the devs behind Bayonetta and MGRR.
Also, you left out the raging blast games, lmao. Great video either way.
As for Naruto, the series had a bunch of games, from RPGs on the DS to open-world adventure games. There was the Clash of Ninja series, which was pretty good, unfortunately, it’s the Storm series that gets to live on. I feel like the lack of completion made them complacent later on.
I loved that game but it wasn't an arena fighter. It was a 3rd person open world beat em up. Still to this day haven't seen any game like it, but it felt like Halo with Martial Arts and no guns. It was me and my friends go to multiplayer game in the Xbox 360 days
When dragon ball started being the only series I thought was releasing good arena fighter or just good anime games told me a lot. I realized this after storm went on hiatus. FighterZ, and Xenoverse2 are great. I really think anime games should be looking at different genres… you know like Kakarot and FighterZ not being arena fighter. Imagine bleach with devil may cry gameplay. That would be so on brand especially if you know Nero and Ichigo share the same voice actor. Was that one piece rpg that came out any good?
Sparking Zero unfortunately continues the trend of rushed anime arena fighters. The game has the foundation of a great game, but all we get is the wireframe.
I’m probably just going to move on from this genre. Nobody can do it right so forget it.
Im surprised Saint Seya Soldiers Soul was left out of this. Besides the BT series i think Urban Reign is one of the best arena fighters of all time. Not anime but still worth a mention
Saint seiya is not well know in English speaking markets. Only in Spanish Latin America, a handful of European countries and some Asian ones. Seems the creator here is either from America or some other country that didn’t get the SS hype. So it probably went under the radar for him.
Plus, it’s not even on sale digitally anymore. And grabbing a disc is expensive now. So maybe he knew about the game, and he couldn’t play it to make a proper review.
@@RevengerPhoenix makes sense. I pirated it even back then lol
I think because of increase in Mobile gamers, devs have moved to Gacha games. Not saying that console gamers have reduced, but obviously there's a heavier attention being put in innovating Gacha games, making all current and upcoming Arena Fighters more formulaic. I hope Sparking Zero breaks the curse
I think the issue he's pointing out isn't going to be resolved by Sparking Zero! because we still aren't getting boss battles, different sorts of gameplays and depth. I think Kakarot already fixed the issue though
@@saquibhussain2333Kakarot isnt arena fighter game, its fully rpg
@@mohammadtegarkharissidqi1755 exactly
Well that because mobile was the first to have gotcha Bandai made dragon ball Z Dokkan battle in 2012
@@saquibhussain2333son you have no idea how many of us OG gamer have waited for a new Budokai game and sparking Zero is that
JStars was still a banger to play with my friends mainly because it felt like it was still a great Jump game.
Sparking Zero will bring arena anime fighters back to glory
This video is way too biased to reach a conclusion that just isn't consistently supported. Yes, people do not like bad arena fighters, like Cursed Clash, Hero Nobody Knows and so on...But that's not exclusive to Arena Fighters, people just don't like badly designed games that clearly feel rushed in general. If people don't like Arena fighters at all, it makes absolutely no sense as to why people quite like the Storm 4, Hinokami Chronicles and even One's Justice 2.
Players love well made games, it just happens that the great majority of recent Arena Fighters are not that recently.
Sparking Zero will save us all
8:31 Asbr created by the same developers is a great 2d fighting game
Eyes of Heaven is literally just cheap asset flip of the original ASB(no R)
Anime fans say they don't want anymore arena fighters but will then ignore games like OP Odyssey, DB Breakers and NxB Shinobi Strikers. They don't know what they want.
Anime fans didn't ignore those games, what are you talking about?
They didn't ignore these games, but these games also had tons of problems, Breakers was barebones and buggy at launch, although it's way better now, a lot of people just didn't want to give it a second chance after a bad launch, same thing with Shinobi Strikers severely lacking on content at launch and not having much depth, One Piece Odyssey was pretty good tho.
You can also just not like arena fighters and the games you listed bro it's not that hard
@@eliezercardoso8009Release Strikee actually had such a small tidy jutsu list that you could actually find some debth in it. Theres some combos you can run that look flashy, others that do big dmg and even counters with some jutsu. Hell Hakus a really old character and his jutsu still counters modern releases, most notably kawakii so knowing when to use that was key.
Because a lot of those were unfortunately shit at launch and people never bothered to try it again. Look at FighterZ, although it's community has stopped growing it was a successful non arena fighting game.
I pray to God and hope that the Bleach Rebirth game wont be trash.
The Bleach fans are *starving* for a new video game!
I wish anime games tried their hand at the formula Fullmetal Alchemist PS2 games had, RPG platforming beatemups. Those game were so fun, dope, and really did the source material justice. Beating Scar (a battle you were supposed to lose) was so hype. Imagining something like that at a grander scale with modern consoles, my God...
4 months later and sparking zero did do good
You will unironically find almost all of these games in my library (Hinokami Chronicles,Hero Nobody Knows,My Hero One Justice 1 + 2,Eyes of heaven, Jump Force, Jstars Victory + and probably others I forgot.)
I hope Sparking Zero and Bleach Rebirth of Souls bring a new golden age.
I actually played ones justice until OJ2’s release. It wasn’t dead. Oj2 didn’t die quickly after launch either. It died recently
Yup, there was a massive difference between OJ1's lifespan and OJ2's lifespan.
One thing I remember about My Hero One’s Justice, and forgive me, I don’t remember his name cause I’m not a fan of the property, sadly,
but the guy with the rotting hands. He has one attack that had a countdown, and if you landed the attack thrice, boom, dead.
Thing is, if you did that attack, the opponent would be downed, and when they got back up, there was, like, a half-second where they couldn’t move, but were still vulnerable.
Land the attack.
Run back a little. Wait a second. Leap at them again. Repeat one more time and they’re instantly dead.
It was a
very balanced game.
"I really think it will end the anime arena cycle"
**Bleach: Rebirth of Souls has entered the chat**
There is a chance it plays more like Soul Caliber as a 3D fighter, but we'll see. I hope it is good because god I want a good Bleach game please dear god.
Then there's sparking
I didn’t know that Spike Chunsoft was two companies that combined🤯
The reason why Tenkaichi 2&3 is loved is because there were depths to the gameplay.
I can't believe xenoverse gets a pass for you, yes I loved the cac stuff at the time but gameplay wise it's the most janky and horribly made arena fighter I've ever played.
I loved Byrning Blood. From its artstyle to how they handled combat, it was a great time. Especially the small details like Luffy's steam when using 2nd Gear.
Where's Gundam Extreme Versus? The only good competitive arena. Not even bait, it's a series of games that's been around for 20+ years.
Eh to be fair I don't think most anime arena fighters are meant to be competitive games, nor are the people who play them looking for a competitive game. They are looking to act out the fanfiction in their heads.
@TeamTowers1 the thing is fighting games live and die off of casual and competitive play. Most arena fighters, especially those made by spike, are just blind arena fighters which prioritizes "fun" over mechanics for skill, or anything competitive.
If it was just all about acting out fun anime stuff Demon Slayer, Jump Force, and more should be still alive and well.
Then there's Gundam Extreme Versus, which backs up my sentiment as it's still alive and well, and has been doing so for a decade or two. It's an arena fighter, yet made it to EVO with the likes of Tekken and such.
@TeamTowers1 Point is fighting game logic still applies to Arena fighters.
Atleast I can give JJK Cursed Clash some credit, it tried copying the Gundam Extreme VS mold. (Final Fantasy NT got their mold from Gundam Extreme VS too). But, it didn't do it with the best optimization. Atleast Byking is trying, which is respectable.
Demon Slayer tried as well, but given CC2 is limited by the anime, they ofc stopped updating the game, stopped trying to keep it active, etc. It had a nice competitive scene until then.
@@mousemessiah I think you are kind of missing my point. A player can't really do the "act out the fanfiction in their heads" thing with a traditional fighter, it just doesn't scratch that itch. That is an itch that anime arena fighters at least in theory scratch. By no means all of them do that well mind you (I would argue most of them don't) but that really is the appeal of the Budokai Tenkaichi games and will very much be the appeal of Sparking Zero. People still love Budokai Tenkaichi 3 to this day and that is a game that is clearly designed for fun over balance (given how only 5 characters out of the 160 plus roster are even viable on it's competitive scene).
@@mousemessiah I'm not so sure that logic really applies. I'm not a fighting game player and I loved the BT games. The really issue with a lot anime arena fighters is that they lacked the things that made BT a great toybox game. Rather than having the kind of wide open destructible environments of BT and the attacks that can hit each other at massive distances across such expansive maps (eg one of the things that helped player recreated the scale of the battles in the source material), a lot of them lock players into a rather limited space that is little more than a ring. To that end while I am looking forward to Sparking Zero (I say this as someone who didn't play that many anime arena fighters beyond BT), but there isn't a chance in hell that could be ever be a balanced game, by virtue of the shear roster size making that impossible. But I also don't think it needs to be balanced (BT3 sure sure wasn't).
Dont shit talk j-stars. That game was amazing and introduced to me some of my favorite series
I love the representation of series in it, hel, it's the only video games that includes characters from Beelzebub (it never even got it's own game despite the manga having 240 chapters and a 60 episode run).
The characters I played didn't feel completely similar either, I couldn't just use the same combo and special move with every character in the same way
A J stars rerelease on all modern platforms with cross play would have seriously been so much better than jump force.
Another thing I wonder is why so many anime games just retell the story of the anime/manga instead of telling a new original story.
If they're afraid that an original story will muck up the continuity, they can just say that the games story is non-canon.
Xenoverse,breakers,that mmo db game, and I think jump force(I don't know if that game has a story since I haven't played it)
Real OGs play Virtual On and Gundam Vs
I feel like i have trash tastes cuz i love Eyes of heaven. The only thing i hate about it is when your character gets knocked down they take a fucking nap and get up really slowly.
They really did Jump Force dirty, just a generic cash grabs!! Better just play j-stars victory vs
I do love MHOJ2 tho, better than other 3d anime arena fighters in recent years..
All anime fighters are fun, they just weren’t meant to be competitive.
A lot of them are actually very different mechanically (I’m meaning the arena fighters) they just have a similar vibe-
But you wouldn’t play Storm the same way you’d play Cursed Clash or Raging Blast- or even any of the Fate games.
The issue with those games is that they’re never built on balance, they’re cash grabs.
You play them with your friends and mess around, not online in any sort of ranked setting.
This is why the only real successful anime fighting games are 2d.
Idk when people started taking anime games so seriously as if they weren’t always kinda bad.
Probably around the same time people forgot that games were meant to kill time and be fun.
Gundam continues to reign supreme.
Hopefully dragon ball sparking zero and bleach rebirth of souls can set a new standard for these games going forward and start pushing these games in the right direction
Hopefully, sparking zero and rebirth of souls save the genre. It's depressing when your favorite anime/manga series gets a low-budget game adaptation compared to other franchises.
Yeah but even if it does save the genre the series of the games that failed might not get another game
Sparking zero is gonna be so good though
19:40 "Glorified dlc for the previous instalment" just like Generation and Revolution, at least compared to these two Connection has a real story mode
I think the fact that it's still sold for 60 dollars despite being glorified DLC is the biggest insult to the players here. I think that with all the specifically additional content Connections adds (so without considering the recycled content from previous games), it's only slightly better than the Road to Boruto DLC for Storm 4.
I still wonder how anime slideshows kept getting used, really cutting whatever costs they can huh...
basically we need to rob bandai out of all the cash they made post storm 3
Also, something to keep in mind is that a lot of these games have small development teams and a rushed schedule
Many already commented about it, but I'll say too. Seiya soldier's soul is one of my favorites arena fighter, not only the graphics are good, but the combat and gameplay is also very good, besides that, the story mode has four arcs, and the character rooster is huge, with bronze, gold, silver saints, and even odin saints, poiseidon marines and hades specters, and you can even unlock the gods themselves, all the characters for free, no DLC, nothing. You just need to play the story mode, and you'll have all those characters.
Besides that, saint seiya SS even received many dubs for different languages, spanish, Brazilian Portuguese etc. The voice acting in this game is perfect in all languages.
Real ones remember ult ninja 3 having the “first open world” for Naruto
That’s why I have hope for nen impact while yes it isn’t that visually appealing due to its low budget but if it really controls like marvel vs Capcom I think it’ll really take off
I'd agree, but with the Marvel Collection announced, I wonder if people will go back to that when the time comes.
Demon Slayer HC had such high potential to be something great. I feel it just needs one sequel with more characters and balance changes to be a classic arena fighter .
I was happy when I read there was going to be a Kaiju No. 8 video game, then I read it was going to be an arena fighter...
Would love to think after Sparking zero is where Bandai changes how they do things but it's been the same for so long that Dragon Ball is the series that gets the most put in it
Yeah sadly but not this time they literally give us the same characters like what no new characters after 5 years i expected more considering they have 5 active dbz games shame on them
The end point is a bit of a contradiction. The problem isn’t the genre, it’s the lack of polish fed into the genre. I personally love arena fighters, even the ones that follow a formula.
I think you should have also gone over the other arena fighters Dragon Ball had post Tenkaichi. Raging Blast, Zenkai Battle, Battle of Z, and maybe Ultimate Tenkaichi.
The Dark Age was 20 years ago when all of Anime/Anime Games was kept in the Dark in Japan.
This is the Grey Age, the game are here but only the Arena games appeal/sell to the Western Audiences.
i think sparking zero will set a new precedent for arena fighters, this is the game im looking forward to the most, if it is incredibly great, then we will hopefully get just as great, if not greater arena fighters
All we need is a game for each anime where you create your character and level up like Elden ring. An open world where you it’s got pvp and pve
Bro there’s 2 already code vain and Scarlet nexus both are great games
What I have learned throughout the years is to never buy tie in things, if you like a movie watch it and that's it. If you enjoy an anime watch it and that's it.
The only exceptions would be Transformers: The Game (2007 film), Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)