Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax
A crossover fighting game celebrating Dengeki Bunko's 20th anniversary.
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax is a 2D arcade fighter from Ecole Software and French Bread, published by Sega. It marks two decades of ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko line, bringing together characters from its light novels. The game launched in Japanese arcades during March 2014, then hit PlayStation 3 and Vita that November. A revised edition, Fighting Climax Ignition, arrived in July 2015 with extra fighters and tweaked balance, releasing only in Japan that December on PS3, PS4, and Vita.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Ecole Software; French Bread
- Publisher
- Sega
- Genre
- Fighting game
- Platforms
- Arcade
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 3
- PlayStation Vita
- Producer
- Ryutaro Nonaka
- Director
- Takaharu Terada
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Arcade system
- Sega RingEdge 2
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax is a 2D fighting game where two opponents face off with a main fighter and an assist character. Players use weak, medium, and strong attack buttons, plus a support button to call in their assist. After summoning, the support gauge must refill before the assist can be used again. Filling the Climax Gauge through combat unlocks powerful Impact Skill attacks, while Blast Icons let players perform Blast Attacks to break free from combos. The home release features a story mode called Dream Duel Story, online multiplayer, and cross-save between PS3 and Vita. The Ignition update adds a second assist slot that works only for Blast Attacks, and introduces the Ignition system: one character per team gets a power-up after each round. If the same character receives Ignition in consecutive rounds, it grants an Extra Ignition instead.
Character roster
The initial roster includes 12 playable characters and 18 assist characters from 22 light novels; the current roster is 19 playable and 30 assist characters. All characters are voiced by their anime actors, with a few exceptions. A non-playable character, Denshin (voiced by Mao), based on the Dreamcast character from Sega Hard Girls, summons playable characters to fight a malevolent entity (voiced by Ken Narita) from Zetsumu, who takes the form of captured playable characters, followed by a form of Akira Yuki from Virtua Fighter with Pai Chan as his assist; both Akira and Pai became playable in console ports and post-Version 1.20 arcade versions. Eight additional characters (four playable, four assists) were added by mid-2014. Sega guests Selvaria Bles and Alicia Melchiott from Valkyria Chronicles appeared in console ports and later in arcade version 1.30. Stages and music are based on Sega titles including Sonic the Hedgehog, Nights into Dreams..., Shinobi, Border Break, Valkyria Chronicles, 7th Dragon, and Phantasy Star Online 2. DLC characters from Sword Art Online (Yuuki and assist Llenn) released December 25, 2015; DLC from And you thought there is never a girl online? (Ako and assist Rusian) in a future update.
Reception
Hardcore Gamer awarded it 4 out of 5, calling it a love-letter to anime and Sega fans. PlayStation Lifestyle gave it 5.5 out of 10, stating that although solid as a fighting game, the emphasis is not on gameplay and can leave newcomers disconnected. Destructoid noted it may be too simplistic for hardcore fighting fans and too complex for those intimidated by the genre. The PS3 version sold 34,671 copies in its first week in Japan (sixth on the sales chart), while the Vita version sold 25,607 copies (ninth on the chart).
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