Beowulf, with his Hulk Hogan-inspired moveset and hype system, is a clear standout, but he’s in good company with Big Band and Robo Fortune.

The characters introduced since Skullgirls’ original release have some of the most stylish and interesting new ideas I’ve seen from fighting games in a long time. Even though it has obvious palette swaps, like Robo Fortune and Fukua, these color changes are more to save money on asset creation than skimping on design. But Lab Zero has packed a ton of creativity into its 14-character roster. The small roster packs a lot of creativityīuilt by a small team, Skullgirls is not going to have the 30-plus character casts of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Each of these things are minor by themselves, but they add up to make Skullgirls feel like a blockbuster fighting game built on a budget, and one with the players’ interest at heart. Lab Zero has also developed a built-in fightstick driver for the game, which means almost any PS3 or PC-compatible fightsticks you have will work on PS4 automatically. You can also swap among controllers and map every button to your liking, with a tournament-ready mode which allows you to map the buttons before selecting your character.

The netplay is smooth, allowing you to check an opponent’s connection before you play them the training mode is exhaustive, letting you check the range and damage of every move in the game, practice combos in the corner or middle of the stage with a quick restart button, and muck with all sorts of other options. Lab Zero clearly loves fighting games, and it shows in the attention to detail it’s put into giving Skullgirls one of the most expansive feature sets of any fighting game to date. And for indie developer Lab Zero to have done more to bring in new players into the fighting game fold than big companies like Capcom is impressive.Ĭouple this with how the combo system allows you to chain light, medium, and heavy attacks into each other with ease and you have one of the most friendly fighters around. Usually, you have to watch hours of videos online if you want to get a course on how to play fighting games.

This makes Skullgirls a great starting point for anyone looking to get into an intimidating genre. It also teaches you the basics of defense, like why you should block low attacks preemptively (by holding the down and away from the opponent), and how to block high attacks on reaction. Its extensive tutorials teach you how all of these special moves fit together on a per-character basis, so you know when to execute an uppercut, not just how. Most fighting games teach you how to move, your character’s special attacks, their distinct systems, and a few combos.

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