Blazing Strike: Retro Fighter Held Back By Nostalgia – Rushdown Review

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam and MacOS
Developer: RareBreed Makes Games
Genre: Fighting
Engine: Unity
Publisher: Aksys Games

[Editor’s Note: A review copy was provided by the Publisher for this review]

Blazing Strike has been a long time coming. Three years ago, Aksys Games showed off the first look of this retro-looking game that promised to bring back the days of the arcade. It also promised a 2022 release date that didn’t happen. However, fans were willing to wait for a game that looked like it would rekindle the glory days of Third Strike and KOF—whichever your favorite is (it’s probably ’98). To give further context to Blazing Strike’s hype, there were occasional videos to remind us the game was still in the works. This came at a time when fighting game fans were growing tired of developers making games more “accessible.” They were hoping Blazing Strike would return to the days when skill alone determined victory. No neutral skips, no easy-bake combos, no broken comeback mechanics—just you and your opponent in a match of skill. With all these expectations riding on it, does Blazing Strike live up to the hype?

No. No, it did not.

If anything, Blazing Strike shows us why some modernizations aren’t so bad after all. The game does give off a retro vibe, but not in the way you’d hope. It dives too deep into nostalgia, and ends up feeling dated. It’s the curse of the modern retro fighter, and Blazing Strike may be the worst offender yet.

STORY

This section won’t take long. The general story is rather sparse. Humans tried to travel to God so He could heal the world of all its problems. But as it turns out, God was evil. He sent a meteor strike that almost destroyed the world, until the Son saved what was left. The meteor strike caused people to mutate and gain powers, and now an evil organization wants to find these mutated people so they can experiment on them—and kill God. Or Dio.

The world of Blazing Strike sounds interesting in theory, but the presentation bores me to no end. There’s no voice acting, and the story is told through massive text dumps accompanied by flat character portraits that barely change expression. Occasionally, you’ll get a comic book panel spread or, if you’re lucky, an in-game “cutscene.” The concept is sound, but it’s clear the presentation was slapped together. Even the text boxes in the comic spreads look like they were done in Microsoft Word. I wasn’t expecting a cinematic experience, but something better than this.

GAMEPLAY

Blazing Strike is a 4-button fighter, where tapping the light button twice gives you a medium attack. There’s also a Rush button that lets you dash, chain buttons, and use EX normals. EX normals either launch or wall-bounce, but not every character has them. Not every character has an EX special move either, which is performed with the Rush gauge. Every character does have a super move, usually a motion plus two attack buttons. The game has links between lights and mediums, and some heavy attacks, depending on the character. The timing isn’t super strict, so learning max damage combos shouldn’t be too hard.

On paper, this all sounds good. But when you pick up a controller, it just doesn’t feel right. Fireballs don’t combo, and the input reader feels inconsistent. I had to switch up how I usually play fighting games just to make sure it wasn’t me. But the worst part by far is the Rush system. One of the most important aspects of a fighting game is movement—jumping, walking, and dashing all contribute to how good it feels to play. Tying dashing to what’s essentially a stamina meter is a bad idea. Running out of stamina not only stuns you but also prevents you from dashing or using chain attacks.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t that kind of like SF6’s Drive mechanic or City of the Wolves’ REV mechanic?” And yes, you could make that comparison. But those mechanics don’t tie core movement to a meter. Imagine if Third Strike’s dashes or KOF’s running were tied to stamina. I could accept losing the chain attacks since they can lead to big damage, but in a game that already feels slow and clunky, losing your dash makes it worse.

At this point, you might suggest hitting the training room to work through these issues. Normally, that would be a solution—except Blazing Strike has a terrible training room. Modern games like Skullgirls have perfected training mode with hitboxes, frame data, and movelists that show inputs and best use cases. Blazing Strike takes all that away in favor of a bare-bones retro approach. There’s no frame data, no comprehensive movelists, and no ability to change settings during training. You get hitboxes and a hit-stun bar, but the hitboxes feel off, likely due to poor animation. It’s frustrating.

Blazing Strike’s rich mechanics are buried under baffling design choices, and the only way to understand them is through a poorly executed training mode. There’s no tutorial either, apart from a brief video in story mode that feels like an old arcade cabinet demo. Why hide it there? The design choices leave me asking “why” more often than not, and as I said before, they make the game feel more dated than retro.

VISUALS

There’s a parry mechanic, where you tap forward to parry an attack. I bring it up here because a good parry depends on the ability to read attacks—something that’s easier when a game looks and feels fluid. Blazing Strike doesn’t always look fluid. The art style is great, and the character designs are cool, but the animations can be choppy. Some attacks skip frames, which contributes to the game’s clunky feel. It’s a shame, because the effects—burns, electric effects—are done well and add flair to the characters.

Sprite-based fighters use just enough frames to appear fluid, but here, there aren’t enough frames to maintain that illusion. When the game does animate well, it looks good. The backgrounds, though? They’re fine. Nothing special, sometimes flat and forgettable. The best visuals by far are the story mode illustrations and win screen art, which are just great. I just wish it translated better in-game.

AUDIO

To sell the retro aesthetic, the soundtrack feels like something you’d find on a 32-bit system. The best way to describe it? “Fine.” None of the tracks are memorable, at least not for me. I played the game minutes before writing this as a refresher, and I still can’t recall most of the music. What I do remember annoys me. And when the most memorable music is also the most annoying? Not a good look. There’s some sparse voice acting in different languages, which is cool, but the voice work can be laughably bad.

The sound design is equally underwhelming. Older games had iconic sounds. Think of Third Strike’s parry or Alpha’s counters—you can hear them in your head. Blazing Strike’s parry sound is lackluster and less impactful.It barely has a sound, and what it does have blends with regular hit effects. Overall, the sound effects feel generic and uninspired.

CONCLUSION

Blazing Strike is held back by its obsession with the past. We’ve moved on from those days for a reason, and this game is a reminder that innovation is better than iteration, especially when the iteration doesn’t improve on anything. Its identity is stuck in trying to replicate the good ol’ days, but those days haven’t gone anywhere. With older fighting games becoming more accessible, trying to mimic them for nostalgia’s sake just doesn’t work anymore. Pocket Bravery and Yatagarasu are examples of games that found a way to bridge the gap between retro and modern. Blazing Strike doesn’t stand a chance. The lackluster presentation only makes things worse.Maybe after some updates and refinement, this could live up to the hype. I can’t recommend this game in its current state for the $40 price tag. You’re better off saving your money for other retro-style fighting games or re-releases of old favorites.

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