Cherry Tree High Girls' Fight Review

Platforms:  PC (Via Steam)
Players: 1

Today we are going to take a look at Cherry Tree High Girls' Fight available on Steam right now. Developed by 773 and published by Sekai Project.

Let me start off by saying that I was a huge fan of Cherry Tree High Comedy Club when it was first released several years ago so I was very excited to check this one out when the opportunity to review it came up! I went in cold purposely, not looking up any information on it all, and was surprised to find that it was a card fighting/stat growing game as opposed to the earlier titles in the series. Not one to let that stop me I jumped right into it!

Totally my silhouette.

Okay, now the game starts you off by setting you up to be a manager of a team of three girls who will compete in the Second Girls' Fight contest. You pick some qualities (these affect certain aspects of your team) and your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the difficulty, so for this review I played on Normal. Now you're given a very fighting game-esque roster of characters who all seem quite varied. The game gives you little information on which characters have better stats or attacks over others (this comes to be very important soon) so I started out by picking the sukeban-esque, Asuka Hidori, the idol, Monica Minami (Who also is a magical girl named Pretty Nammy), and the shinobi, Fuuko Kazakura. Let me mention before we go further that picking your team is actually FAR more important than this game lets on, so choose wisely. Giving that I had no other information to go on except for aesthetics, I thought I did okay, but some of these choices would come back to haunt me.

When you pick your characters you are able to use AP to get a quick boost to their unity meter. You learn about the character's motivation here too. Now while I will of course admit that recruiting the characters themselves is not the focus of the game, but I couldn't help but feel that there should have been more gameplay mechanics towards filling your roster over simply picking them and going through a dialogue scene. Perhaps some toned-down dating sim type mechanics could have been incorporated here especially since the non-combat elements of the game seem to be leaning in this direction.

Had me from the first lines.

Your team picked you go into the main part of the game which takes you through a weekly schedule of training Monday through Thursday with a match on Friday. These segments were very familiar to me as both a fan of stat raising sim games and the previous Cherry Tree High titles. Basically you can pick activities for your girls to do that raise a specific stat, you can teach them a new move, or you can rest. Now depending on their mood they can either succeed or fail at the activity and indicators are given at the start of each day as to how your fighter is feeling towards anything besides resting.

Failure with a smile!

Besides the stat raising, there are also conversations you can have with your fighter which raise your unity stats and also conversations you can have around campus (or overhear as it were) which either provide hints (mostly useless) or give you more topics to discuss with your team. As you progress and get better acquainted with your fighters you're also given the option of "massaging" your fighter in a place of your choosing. Depending on where you massage you can either raise your unity stat nice and high or get a comical scene about why you're touching them where you shouldn't. It's worth noting here that depending on the character this location does in fact change. I mention this as these scenes provided some much needed comedic relief in this game and were some of my favorite scenes due to the colorful dialogue.

It could be a dating sim though...

Well all this had me thinking I was in familiar territory playing a dating sim of sorts, but then it's Friday came around and it was time for a match. Now this is the main part of the game and you would think it would shine, but this is probably where the game simply falls apart, or at the very least begins to show some cracks.

Let me explain the system as best I can since the game doesn't do a very good job of it. You are dealt five random cards with five levels assigned to them (also random). For example, you could get two punch cards with a level of 2 and 4, a kick with level 5, and two throws with levels 1 and 3. You use these cards to attack your enemy. Sounds simple right? Well it isn't. First let me explain the biggest problem with this system: the fact that it's completely random and not very transparent. Pure chance dictates that you'll have any attacks worth using. Remember when I said I picked the idol girl Monica Minami? Well, I come to find out she's pretty much useless in anything but Ki attacks. As a matter of fact there were entire movesets where I had no moves that caused damage for her at all.Well every so often I got a Ki card and sometimes it was even a 5, so I used it thinking I'd for sure get some damage in. Then the opponent of course tossed my attack aside and hits me with a level 3 kick completely confusing me with how the system works. It's at this point that I realize I have no idea what I'm doing.

Sorry, not sorry for all the Minami screen shots.

Let me elaborate on some of these fighting mechanics a bit. I should have known that when the Steam page prominently displayed the fact that a recent update had included an instruction manual that something was wrong with the system. I had to resort to searching online to try to figure out what I was doing wrong, but it seemed most everyone was as confused as I was. Remember how I mentioned that my Level 5 Ki attack was defeated by a Level 3 Kick? Well apparently that has something to do with the advantage meter, which is something you can't actually see until the attack takes place. Now this is a little unfair as occasionally you are shown a move from your opponent's upcoming move set and you're able to properly match it. Unless you have a card of the same type that is higher though, it's best to dodge and evade though. Also since your hands are dealt randomly, there are times where you just can't do anything useful. Winning with a perfect streak? Well let's fix that by giving you five throws all with 1s and 2s for levels!

These cards where completely useless for Minami. Can't help but wonder if her line was mocking me or not...

Okay, back to the game. I lost this first match and I tried to restart my save. It was at this point that I learned that the game force saves at the start of every day so things like losses are recorded. (I know that a lot of you will say that I should back up my save and restore it, but that SHOULD NOT be a solution to fix odd game design choices) You might think this is okay, but let me fast forward a bit. I played for the next five matches and lost EVERY ONE. I thought that perhaps I was training them wrong so I made sure to evenly spread their skills around, but as the game progressed the opponents I fought just got stronger and I got progressively weaker. It was also at this point that I realized that not all characters are created equal. Two of the characters I picked, Minami and Fuuko were all but useless while some like Haruno (who I lost to very badly and picked on a later playthrough) can be completely over powered. I know you can argue this last point, but it's what I experienced. As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for the fun dialogue in between I probably would have quit the game at this point. Speaking of quitting the game, I should mention that this game has this really cool feature where you get a cutscene after quitting where the characters mock you for quitting. It was one of these scenes that made me decide to keep playing even though I was increasingly starting to realize I had ruined my save file.

It took a while to start seeing this screen...

Anyhow, since the story was progressing and I still hadn't one a single match, I decided to do the only sensible thing I could. I restarted the game completely. This time I took out Fuuko and switched in Kei Kousaka. This play through went much simpler as I learned the key to playing the game. Focus on one stat (and HP of course), learn new skills along certain skillsets that match that stat, and hope that the cards play in your favor during the matches. That's it. That is the secret to this game.

Yes it is. Too bad it takes a bit of cheapness to actually win...

Not surprisingly this worked, I won every single match and progressed all the way to the end using Kei's kicks almost exclusively. Now I can talk a bit about story, but it's pretty bare-bones and the small bit there is was decent enough that I don't want to throw spoilers around. Basically it served its purpose and if you go through conversation choices in the training modes you can actually learn a lot about each girl's backstory that offer more depth than the core game does. You might have wondered why I didn't switch out Minami earlier when I already stated that she was relatively useless (I dreaded whenever she was the last one up in a fight and had to win it, even if the opponent was close to being finished.) it was because she was funny as hell and her in-game banter really kept things moving for me! This was actually the case for a lot of other characters in the game as well. Great comedic writing made up for bad in-game stats and playability.

My thoughts exactly actually.

Well there you have it. Once I figured out the tricks to fighting (which basically is just make your characters over-powered in one single field) the game was super easy. It only lasted about three hours too. The real fun lies in replaying with different characters. I did a second round, but got bored of the fighting quickly, but the possibility for replayability is definitely there and there are more than enough character types and combinations so that no two playthroughs will ever be the same. On top of this certain options unlock upon completion of the game that add further depth, but once again, you have to look beyond the simple, and repetitive, core gameplay in order to get to that.

Uhhh....thanks for that?

In short, this is a beautiful game with an amazing art style that has some really fun moments, my one complaint is that the battle system should have been completely re-worked. Seeing as this is the core element of the game, this is indeed a huge complaint indeed. However, at the price point it's being offered on Steam and due to the fact that it isn't a completely bad game at its core, I say pick it up if you think you'd enjoy it. Just be aware of what you're getting into before purchasing it. Also, make sure you include Minami on your team at least once! (Sorry, not sorry that almost all my screen shots involved her!)

-Manuel

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Graphics: PERFECT
Sound: GOOD
Gameplay: GOOD
Value: GOOD

OVERALL: GOOD+

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FULL DISCLOSURE: This game was provided to A-To-J Connections free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of review.

Yes you did Minami, yes you did...