Skullgirls 2nd Encore (Nintendo Switch)

Powah Dunk | December 10, 2019 | Review | No Comments

The Nintendo Switch is home to many Fighting Game ranging from Smash Brothers to Fatal Fury and even Power Rangers, Lab Zero Games fittingly saw this as a chance to introduce Skullgirls to a new market of eager battlers. Was it worth the gamble or is it all bones and no meat?

Skullgirls 2nd Encore is the most up to date and content wealthy version of Skullgirls. It contains the full roster, all current balances and an enhanced story mode.

The first thing anyone would notice about Skullgirls 2nd Encore is the art style and with good reason. I would describe the art direction as 1940s cartoon meets over the top anime style, it’s a beautiful mix and the developers have done a stand up job with Skullgirls.

Each character and location in Skullgirls 2nd Encore is colourful, interesting and endearing. Characters are the perfect range of weird and wacky, if not a little fan servicey at points!. You have fighters ranging from a wrestler wearing a wolf skin equipped with a steel chair to a nun/shapeless blob and even a fighter based on an Egyptian queen who will happily remove her skin and let her skeleton do the fighting for her.

Musically Skullgirls 2nd Encore does its genre tradition proud and has created some fantastic little toe tappers, all perfectly fit the game and are a joy to listen to during the heat of battle or even while out and about OR on the handy newly release Vinyl!.

On the gameplay portion of this meal, Skullgirls 2nd Encore is a wonderfully tight and lovingly crafted 2D fighting game, I would stake my claim to even dub this as a spiritual successor of sorts to the sadly dormant Darkstalkers series. Skullgirls 2nd Encore features a roster of 13 characters, all with their own 20 minute or so story (depending on relevance to the main story). There is also an arcade mode, survival, challenge and trial mode and even a special boss battle which will test your skills.

The game also features online multiplayer which wasn’t as populated as I would have liked at the time of trying but I can hope with release and the recent sale there is a healthier player pool now.

As mentioned earlier the game feels like Darkstalker but the option to make battles “tag” adds a level of MvC in its execution. Skullgirls 2nd Encore manages to feel complete in both single and Tag aspects which isn’t usually the case with fighters that offer both.

There is more than enough to love here with Skullgirls 2nd Encore, even on its worst day it still hangs with the likes of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid & BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. It’s amazing hand animated art style, music and addictive gameplay have made itself home on the Nintendo Switch and I for one couldn’t be enjoying this encore more if I tried!