Because there’s no such thing as too many anime-inspired 2D fighting games, Aksys and RareBreed Makes Games just announced Blazing Strike, an homage to classic pixel-art fighters with modern game mechanics that’ll hopefully make it play as good as it looks.
The passion project of solo developer Mark “RareBreed” Chung, Blazing Strike started life as a 2D fighter with 3D characters back in 2015. For various reasons Chung scrapped the 3D characters idea, switching to full-on 2D sprites in 2018. In 2019, around the same time Blazing Strike made its debut as a playable demo at that year’s EVO, Chung launched a Kickstarter for the game only to pull the plug when it became obvious it would not reach its $70,000 funding goal. Now publisher Aksys, which knows its fighting games, has stepped in to bring Blazing Strike to consoles and PC in spring of 2022.
Though the Kickstarter campaign failed, it remains a good source of information on the characters facing off in Blazing Strike. There’s guy with cat head, obvious hero type, girl with goggles, pink-haired mohawk girl … the list goes on. The characters will be battling via a four-button system with light, medium, and heavy punches and kicks, as well as the ability to block, guard, and parry. There is a Rush Trigger that allows players to pull off super-fast attacks and movements, but using it depletes the Rush Meter, which can leave them in a groggy state. Blazing Strike will feature Story, Arcade, and VS. modes, with online play powered by GGPO rollback netcode.
It’s nice to see that Blazing Strike found a good home. As I said, we can never have too many anime-inspired 2D fighting games, especially ones with so much promise.
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