When it comes down to underrated 2D anime styled fighting games from 10’s decade one of the few titles that instantly comes to mind is Under Night In-Birth. For those who do not know Under Night In-Birth was initially released in arcade centers back in 2012. Under Night In-Birth was developed by Arc System Works, Ecole Software and French Bread and had multiple publishers depending on what country it was released in. The original console version of Under Night In-Birth appeared on PS3 between ’14-’15 and was ported to Microsoft Windows in 2016. The third version of Under Night In-Birth appeared on PS3, PS4, PS Vita and Microsoft Windows between ’17-’18. Also, the fourth and latest version of Under Night In-Birth known as [c/-r] was ported for the Nintendo Switch along with Microsoft Windows in 2020. Under Night In-Birth was a game that has been modified throughout the 10’s decade and the game was clearly more popular in the east opposed to the west. There was a plenty of high profile fighting games throughout the 10’a decade including Mortal Kombat IX-XI, Soul Calibur V-VI, Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core.
Its clear as day that Under Night In-Birth was overshadowed following its initial release on home consoles outside of Japan during the mid 10’s. One of the main things about Under Night In-Birth that was unique was the fact that it looked similar Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus visually. The soundtrack for Under Night In-Birth was great and had a pretty unique storyline that included 22 different segments featuring the main characters of the game. The storyline for the game revolved around the events regarding the Hollow Night phenomenon and had a morbid theme to it. Under Night In-Birth had approximately nineteen characters all with their own unique backgrounds plus two extra guest characters on different versions of the game. The characters featured in Under Night In-Birth included the likes of Hyde Kido, Waldstein, Linne, Carmine Prime, Seth the Assassin, Yuzuriha, Bloody Chaos and many others who all had both English & Japanese voice actors. There was also a variety of game modes included in Under Night In-Birth including Arcade, Versus, Network, Score Attack, Time Attack, Survival along with Training.
The gameplay for Under Night In-Birth was more robust than something one would see in a basic fighting game. The defining features in this 2D anime fighting title included the GRD mechanic along with the Veil Off and the ability for characters to reach their Vorpal state. The fighting features included in Under Night were special because they could be utilized depending on certain circumstances during combat. The accumulation of GRD played a major role in shifting the momentum to the favor of those who had the edge in battle. Players were often rewarded with added techniques result from gaining more GRD than their opponents in the forms of increased defensive and offensive mechanics such as Shield & Assault. While the gameplay for Under Night was not quite as robust as what SNK had brought to the KOF series during late 00’s-early 10’s it was still pretty good for an indie type fighting game.
Gaming Hearts Collection 