The Forgotten ArcSys Fighter - Battle Fantasia

Damn, I didn't know Texans could confirm their dp's into dp from anywhere on screen. The more you know

It's amazing how massively important Battle Fantasia is. It didn't just inspire SF4 to go 3D, rather when they did the early alpha tests of SF4 it was TERRIBLE because of the controls. Then they saw a Battle Fantasia machine at the arcade and said "THAT. Do it like THAT." More specifically, the alpha version of SF4 used full animation which made the controls TERRIBLE. 3D fighter style animation in a 2D fighter sucks because all attacks had too many frames. SFEX and Slap Happy Rythm Busters got around this by making the animations play ridiculously fast, but Battle Fantasia chose to force 3D models to behave like 2D sprites, having each frame be hand posed (and I'm pretty sure the hitboxes are in 2D too). This DRASTICALLY improved play control and well...paved the way for everything else that came after! Without Battle Fantasia, SF4 would have been terrible and the entire fighting game renaissance may have never happened.

I remember a conversion I had with Emiko Iwasaki in the mid-2010s. She was pretty bitter about her experience with Arcsys. She claimed she regularly got talked over and had to add a bunch of things to the game she didn't really want- she really wanted to make a more accessible game. I think she now works in MObile gaming. I hope she's doing well. This was the first fighting game with a woman lead designer.

10:02 I mean, Texas is the origin of the DP (Dr. Pepper)

I absolutely love this game's visual aesthetic. It gives off the exact vibes of a classic PS2 era JRPG that would've become a beloved cult classic that people would still be talking about fondly for years to come. Also Freed's design was totally inspired by John Silver from the classic Osamu Dezaki anime Takarajima/Treasure Island (1978)

I genuinely love Battle Fantasia. I wish Arcsys would have included a Battle Fantasia character in their crossover game Blazblue Tag Battle.

I was aware of Battle Fantasia's existence but until today I had never seen any gameplay of it. I actually didn't even knew it was 3D.

Coyori was voiced by Umeka Shoji, who also voiced the latest incarnation of Nekomusume in Gegege no Kitarou, making her a rare double catgirl voice actress. Come to think of it, Taokaka in Blazblue was voiced by Chiwa Saito, who also voices all the Tamamos in Fate, which are foxes so she doesn't count as a double catgirl...until you remember she was the voice of Xiaomei in Shining Hearts, who was also in Blade Arcus, another fighting game you should talk about. Therefore, I must conclude, I like fighting game catgirls.

Lol, Arcsys said that they couldn't make Sin's flag wave untill Strive because of some limitations, yet here we se Olivia with waving flag in a game that released before Xrd.

This game did something interesting with its boss fight (a super-powered DeathBringer) by essentially requiring you to enter Heat Mode in order to really do any damage to him, as you literally only do like 1 or 2 HP damage otherwise & he has super armor if you're not in Heat. It pretty much forces the player to actually engage with its mechanics & learn how each character's Heat Up works in order to defeat the boss, which is neat.

I've considered covering this game on multiple occasions but I'm glad you beat me to it, great video!

One thing you forgot to mention when you (briefly) brought up Blazblue is that it was meant to be an easier version of Guilty Gear, because ArcSys assumed GG's high skill floor was killing its potential for newcomers. Seeing as Blazblue was infinitely more successful before GGST, they were probably right.

16:9 moment...

They also made a Contra game. It kinda jank but it has the spirit for sure.

This looked so cool. Getting Power Stone and Soul Caliber vibes. Never heard of this thanks for covering it. This showed up in my recommendations.

The Granblue comparison is really apt, and it scratches a few of the same itches (mainly early GBVS).

You can see how influential this game was, SFV v triggers are basically the heat up system. I don't think we'll get a sequel but maybe they could guest in gbvs

This was the game that made me love fighting games I had my parents drive me all over for the physical release and then I stayed up all night playing it. Seeing any love for it makes me ecstatic. Great vid as always guile!

Shoutouts to the story / singleplayer mode, having one of the most ridiculously difficult boss fights I ever had the displeasure of going through Honestly kind of soured me on the game, back when I played it on PC +6 years ago. I always did thought it played really well, and I'm glad you were able to highlight it for others to try out Guile! Cheers 🤙

I REMEMBER THIS GAME. After searching around dustloop I saw this game and was like "oh I wonder what this is about" and went down the rabbit hole and almost bought it. It seems really cool but no rollback is a really hard sell in this day and age. Good to know that there's still a dedicated community surrounding it tho.