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With the release of Skullgirls on PC, more people are getting their hands on it to review it. Rock, Paper, Shotgun is no exception, and did their own first impressions thing on it. I just want to respond to some of the issues they had.

"There is a problem though: it doesn’t go far enough. It starts at the very beginning, but then doesn’t extend to the point it needs to prepare you for the online arena. Each character is given a tutorial, but all this does is explain their special moves and allow you to try them out. There’s no combo examples, no explanations of how these specials can be linked or best times to use them. Now, Skullgirls’ actual fighting mechanics are simple enough that knowing the over-arching links – light, medium, heavy, launch into air and jump, light, medium, heavy – is enough to get you started. This still leaves you totally unprepared for an online foray though, meaning it’s either back to training mode or time to spend many hours fighting the AI."

This part is talking about the fantastic tutorial mode Skullgirls has that makes it easy for players to learn the basics, but then criticizes it for not going far enough. They're basically saying that they want the tutorial to just hand them a good combo that would work competitively so they can just jump into the online mode and hold their own against people who have been practicing for God knows how long. Here's an idea; take all those moves the tutorial just taught you, and figure out what works, everyone else had to do the same. Too lazy for that? One quick Google search will bring up combo flowcharts for pretty much any character you want to play. Need to see the combo in action? Well, Youtube is a thing.

"Story mode is short and sweet, but never manages to link the fights together in such a way that it feels like a narrative rather than background."

Never? Really? I guess that part where Painwheel fights a clone of herself representing the mind-control that has been controlling her is just background. Never you mind the fact that she's fighting for her own freedom against the people who turned her into a Skullgirl hunting abomination, that's just a minor, unimportant scene.

And, of course, what would a Skullgirls review/first impressions be without a few paragraphs to attack the creators' art decision? They praise the uniqueness of each character, but then bash it because, God forbid, quite a few of the characters are well-endowed. I never hear any of these complaints in other, more popular fighting games, like the busty, scantily-clad Mai Shiranui from King of fighters, or BlazBlue's Makoto Nanaya. Is Skullgirls getting the short end of the stick because it's not a well-known and beloved franchise? Seems like it to me.

I highly recommend Skullgirls, especially if you've always wanted try and get into the fighting game genre. It's available for PS3, Xbox 360 and Steam. I'd highly recommend getting it on Steam though.