Disbelieve No Longer! Umineko: Golden Fantasia Review

Player(s): 1-2
Platforms: PC (via Steam)

Do you like Umineko? Do you like fighting games? Do you want both in one package? Well, for the few of you left, Umineko: Golden Fantasia, out now on Steam, is for you!

Umineko: Golden Fantasia originally launched in Japan way back in 2010 at Comiket 79 as a fun, kind of alternative universe sequel to the Umineko visual novel series. It's a 2D, tag-team battle based game, with support for up to two players. All your favorite Umineko characters are here, and the game features gorgeous pixel sprite animation for all of them. The recent Steam release is based on the CROSS version of the game, released at Comiket 81 in late 2011, along with all its expansions, featuring 19 playable characters with a wide range of various movesets for whatever play style you wanna specialize in. The game features an Arcade mode, where you fight through the story; a Versus mode, allowing for quick fights against CPUs or real opponents, both local and online; and a Training mode so you can learn those sweet sweet combos.

General gameplay mechanics are your standard fighting game affair, with weak and strong attacks, specials, and the likes. Health is mildly recoverable in regular combat, assuming you can avoid hits, and guard breaking is also available. What I found interesting was when you switched out characters, there were special switch modes. Depending on how the switch is triggered, you might gain a bonus pair attack or a special guard, making regular switching a valid part of your gameplay style. Along with this way a unique way to boost skills for a limited time, which could happen on a team member switch or by summoning the Metaworld. A character can summon the Metaworld by expending their special gauge, and things get wild. Visually, the background drastically changes, and you're given a few seconds of crazy skills such as resurrection upon death or unlimited special gauge to unleash powerful attacks. More interestingly, one's opponent can cancel out this summoning by triggering their own Metaworld summon in a quick enough timeframe, but at a much higher SP gauge cost.

The barebones story of the game centers around a new witch in charge, and trying to find out who that is. Each pair selected for battle gets their own unique story bits for this search. What does this mean? I honestly can't get super into it without going deep into Umineko lore, but rest assured the story is light enough that a player can ignore it in favor of playing more matches. However, if you're a big Umineko fan, this is a fun expansion on the universe, filled with all sorts of nods to the original VN series. Going through the story unlocks various things like characters, announcer voices, and so on.

This game is not without its highs and lows. Visually, I do adore the pixel sprites and the backgrounds. The way the backgrounds change when The Metaverse is triggered is a delight. The inbetween "trash talk" scenes are wonderfully drawn, and the use of color throughout is a highlight. Things run smooth, and the music and voice overs are top notch (continuing Umineko's tradition of great sound design). You can turn on a feature that shows fan art during the loading screens. However, gameplay feels slow, especially for an anime fighter. The hits feel good, but combat seems to drag on. For being a Steam release with a surprisingly good online fighting feature, the general configuration is a pain, requiring one to launch a separate config program to set up using a controller and even fixing the aspect resolution (which doesn't seem to do much besides stretch out the screen art to fit, with no higher resolution art actually available). The default battles are set for 3 health bars and 3 minutes, and oh goodness they are the longest three minutes every time. Combos aren't too complex, but for a game with very niche appeal that's probably okay. The English text isn't the greatest flowing and borders on cheesy and awkward, but keeping the Japanese voices with no option for a dub is a good idea

Overall, if you like Umineko and fighting games, this is worth looking into. Beyond that, maybe someone looking for a well built but slow fighting game could find something here. I do feel despite its limited appeal, it's worth checking out, especially in a sea of fighting games that are starting to feel less and less fun to play. It is a very well built game, and if you can look past the lack of modern conveniences, you've got a bright, colorful fighter at a pretty good price with a well rounded roster and great music.

-Janette G

Umineko: Golden Fantasia is available now through steam!

Story: C
Graphics: B+
Sound: A+
Value: B+

OVERALL: B+

Pros:
+Great sound design
+Wonderful pixel art
+Smooth running gameplay

Cons:
-Clunky config setup
-Slow moving gameplay can be a turn off
-Light story may disappoint fans of the VN series

Disclaimer: This game was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.