It's a total knockout! The competition is fierce, and I'm not just talking about the folks delivering beat downs online. With so many fighting games on the market nowadays, fans of the genre are spoiled for choice. Studios are vying for mindshare, just as we're battling in the arena.

The PS3's golden years haven't seen many AAA-level game releases, but we have seen a slew of top-quality fighters hit the system. Much like how the PS2's latter days led to a lot of games getting releases that otherwise wouldn't have and thus making the system an even better buy as time went on, the...

If you are an avid fighting game fan, chances are good that you've come across the Melty Blood series at some point in time. Originally created as a collaboration between doujin circles Type Moon and French Bread, and set in the same universe as visual novel Tsukihime, the fighting series started...

If the folks at Arc System Works and Aksys Games aren't careful, they're going to get type-cast. The two names most closely associated with the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue franchises bring us yet another 2D, anime-style fighting game, this time from the development studio behind tournament fan-favorite...

It is always exciting to try what could be a great new fighting series. Especially when that title is developed by French Bread, developers of the respected but underappreciated Melty Blood series.

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Language, Mild Blood, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. It's a fighting game, so of course it's violent. I never really notice any blood in these cartoony anime fighting games, though.

Word salad titles.

This game is relatively niche, is really chuuni, and not too well known in the fighting game community. It is exactly why you should buy it, great mechanics, game flow, OST and the simplistic designs behind the characters is a great fallback from all of the recent overkill on some games.

Under Night In Birth Exe: Late has the most unmistakeably Japanese name of any game I've reviewed in ages. None of it makes sense, familiar words smashed together into complete gibberish, but seeing as it hails from the developer behind the Melty Blood series I suppose it could be worse.

Fluid, responsive and accessible mechanics; GRD system rewards fast and aggressive play, Great unique roster brought to life with impeccable 2D visuals, Solid netcode, even if it's best enjoyed locally

Involved premise deserved a dedicated story mode (and unlockable extra campaigns; Genre fans may expect more multiplayer options

As titles go, Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late takes an early lead for forgettable mouthful of the year, but thankfully co-developers Ecole Software and French-Bread have ensured that their new fighter is anything but that.

Accessible mechanics; Enjoyable characters; Plenty of content; Smooth and stable offline performance

Convoluted plot; Lack of localisation; Some odd performance issues online