Girl Fight Review

As a woman, reviewing a game called Girl Fight, it could be very easy to jump on the ‘here’s yet another sexist videogame’ train. However, an effort has been made to remain somewhat open-minded and talk about it as a whole fighter game, rather than just focus on the quite obvious flaws it presents itself with.

Firstly, as the name suggests, this title features an all-female cast, with eight scantily-clad women who you can choose to pit against each other in a 3D arena-style fight. The 3D presentation of the environments you can battle in are not dissimilar to the popular Dead Or Alive series, but there is no interactivity with your surroundings; they are purely a visual stimulus.

There are four different modes to choose from: Versus, Arcade (or story), Training and Online, although finding a partner online to test your skills against will prove a challenge in itself. Arcade mode begins with only one unlocked lady, and very little story is actually found in here, leaving your girls somewhat lacking in character. Furthermore, on completing story mode, you only unlock one additional avatar, so you’ll need to complete the whole Arcade mode eight times to collect them all.

The gist of the story seems to be that these women have been abducted by a mysterious group called “The Foundation” and are uploaded (?) into a virtual world to fight against each other. Apparently somehow the company are trying to weaponize these psi-amp abilities, and the only way they can escape is by beating each other up and working their way up to beat the big boss, Chrome.

Every time you beat the game and unlock a new character, you are one step closer to the end boss, but rather than getting a nice ending for each girl, with an update to the story, no, you get a provocative piece of artwork because... well boobs.

The ladies of Girl Fight are, unsurprisingly, tiny-waisted with larger-than-life breasts and outfits that accentuate their curves. Although really ‘accentuate’ is a kind word; there is nothing subtle going on here and unfortunately the unimpressive graphical quality of the character models, makes them look crude and rudimentary. With the caliber of fighting games that is available on the market at the moment, this is definitely disappointing in terms of visuals. Whilst the artwork is pretty nice, the battles themselves lack flow, the backgrounds are okay, but not inspiring, and the combatants fight with constantly bouncing boobs (which are beyond distracting), and faces as lifeless and lackluster as a blow-up doll.

 The controls are very simple, punch, kick, grab and block with an emphasis on stringing together as many uninterrupted hits as possible. This basic fighting style is made a little less boring with the addition of psi, which builds as you battle, allowing you to spend it on a psi-amp, which is basically a special move, giving you an advantage for a limited time. Whilst these do break the dreariness of the combat, they themselves are restricted in quantity (you can unlock a few more) and do nothing to mask the obvious: Girl Fight is no real test of skill.

In order to add some replay value to the game, challenges have been included for you to best. These are basic achievements, like defeating an opponent without taking any damage yourself. You can earn in-game currency by completing these and then use it to purchase additional content in the store. These include those aforementioned extra psi-amps as well as more skins for the ladies. Don’t get too excited though, as these skins are just recolours of what they are already wearing, so unless you desperately want your favourite in blue, they’re really not worth wasting your time on.

As you fight, the whole thing is narrated, or rather picked apart by the antagonist Chrome, who shouts things like “pathetic” or “psycho-killer”, and sounds a lot like GLaDOS. She doesn’t really add anything though, other than successfully getting that Talking Heads song stuck in your head.

 The simplicity of the game makes it easy to pick up and play, whether that be alone, or with friends, and you could probably waste away a few hours on it, as long as you’re a fan of dubstep as that will be blaring out at you the whole time.

All objectification of women aside, Girl Fight is a really basic fighter that will probably appeal to teenage boys and not many others. In all honesty, the game is fairly cheap, so the lack of content isn’t much of a surprise. If you’re looking for a decent game in the same genre, I’d recommend saving your money and getting an older Tekken, or if you must have boobs, DOA.