Go Fight Fantastic Review

Go Fight Fantastic is a hack-n'-slash title developed by Dinomite Games and published by Kinda Brave. This title has you controlling a team of characters where you can swap between the ones you are fighting with the hit of a button. The game offers Solo Play, Local Co-op, and Online Co-op, where you can play Story Mode or Horde Mode.

The first thing you will do is select three characters from the four available. Each has its own special abilities and stats in Support, Damage, and Maximum Health. The four characters available are:

Max Sparkles, the healer who has a spirit companion, Max supports the team with shields, healing orbs, and slowfields. He is great at helping his team, but his damage and maximum health stats are low. Dark Matter is a striker who rushes in and inflicts a tonne of damage on the enemy. Strong blows and mobility are his strengths, but he does not support his teammates. Super Nova, whose type is called a tank. She has a large sword that she uses as a shield, which allows her to face off against large groups of enemies. Her max health is high, with five stars, but support and damage are at two stars each. Mercury is an archer who uses blood magic to summon bombs, bows, and hammers to use on the battlefield. Her damage stat is high with four stars, her health is at three, but her support is on the low end with two.

Our team of smugglers is headed to Bird Planet; the ship's captain is a dog named Captain Bowie (he even has a hat and a little cape! So adorable!) He tells you about your next mission: you are to beam down to the surface and deliver some black market goods to the village elder, Grandpa Owl. You will need to be quick so you get off the planet before the Federal Alliance finds you. 

When you begin a Chapter, you will select one of four difficulties: Story is a great option if you only care about the story and not the combat; Easy still focuses on the story but gives you a bit of a challenge; Medium for when you have a bit of gaming experience, this difficulty will give you a bit of a challenge; Hard is for those who want a challenge with tougher enemies, this difficulty also gives you better drops than the medium setting.

This first mission is a great place to learn how your team members attack and the amount of damage they can inflict. You learn the controls and how to fight by attacking the scarecrow dummies. Once on Bird Planet, you can swap between your team members quickly by tapping one of the shoulder buttons; this is very useful for when one of your team members is taking a lot of damage or when someone has an attack that will be more useful, like Mercury, since she can use her bow and arrows to do distance attacks against the enemy.

I am playing Go Fight Fantastic on the Steam Deck and on my PC using an Xbox controller, though there is the option to play with a keyboard and mouse. On the bottom of the screen, you see a portrait of your characters; besides that are little icons that show you the four moves that character has and what buttons you hit to use them, like Dark Matter, where the left face button (X) is to slash, the bottom face button (A) is to teleport, the top face button (Y) triggers three lightning strikes to hit the nearest enemies, and the right face button (B) focuses on a target that you lunge at and attack with your daggers. Mercury has a variety of different weapons she can attack with. Bow and arrows are great for distance attacks; the top face button lets you target a large enemy and hit them with a large hammer. 

Each attack you use has a cooldown period before you can use it again, so you won't be able to spam the same attack over and over. Some have a short waiting period, while others, like Dark Matters lightning attack, will take a bit of time to recharge to get ready for use again. While you are waiting for your powerful attack to charge, keep switching between all the different moves that you have available. If you manage to sneak up behind the enemy and attack, you will do extra damage with this backstab move.

It is important to remember that while out on Bird Planet, everyone can revive a downed player, but the healer does it faster than everyone else. Once revived, the character will have full health and be ready to hop right back into the fight. If the whole team is downed, it is game over, and you will have to restart that mission.

An alien ship shows up, and The Empress announces that they are there for the people. They go after the weakest first, which are the children — hatchlings — of the village. The enemies run into the forest to avoid being caught, and then, once they get deep into the fortress, they jump into a portal with their prisoners.

While exploring, which you do a lot since there is no map, you will find items on the ground. These are used to recover health, give you a barrier for protection, or even music discs to unlock new songs. You also find Meteorites to give your character stat boosts and special abilities when you equip them back on the ship.

You will encounter a variety of enemies during your travels. Some are a little more realistic, like spiders, while others, such as muscular slime monsters, are a little more out there. Don't forget the slime alien velociraptors that run around the screen; they are actually pretty cute! Since a lot of your time is spent on Bird Planet, there isn't the greatest variety of smaller foes here, but the boss battle at the end of that mission is a nice change.

You are looking for the remaining aliens in the forest; General Poi is one of the first to fight. She dispatches the Boss Froggy to fight her battle against you. It has multiple forms, so don't think this is going to be an easy fight! Once you beat it, you will get a large, rare Meteorite that is more powerful; the ones you find while exploring are smaller and less rare than these ones!

When you complete the chapter, there is a stat screen that will show you which chapter you completed, the amount of time it took, and how many kills you got. They also break down stats for each character on your team: the number of kills, the amount of damage dealt and taken, how many times they revived their teammates, and how many times they were downed.

After this, you make your way back to the ship. Captain Bowie informs you that the enemy seems to be a hyper-advanced jelly species. The ship also has an area where you can upgrade your characters by filling the three empty slots that each has open with the Meteorites that you have collected during your missions.

There are eight different Meteorites to select from, each modifying their powers and abilities. Some include Battle Tempo, which increases your attack speed and temporarily gives you haste when you kill an enemy; Blitz, which increases the amount of damage and speed of your Basic Attack; or Valour, which speeds up your health regeneration and, if you are at half health, may give you extra Damage Resistance. Here, you can also forge your meteorites to level them up, making them stronger. The cost ranges from 50 to 250 depending on the one you select. 

The Shop lets you purchase Meteorites, Skins, Decorations, and Music. There is a huge selection of new “space rocks” to buy, but they aren't cheap: prices start at 600, going all the way up to 3,500. It would be worth saving your money to buy the ones that you feel could help you most while you are in battle.

The visuals in Go Fight Fantastic are pretty nice, especially the anime-style character designs for our four heroes. I like how they have one pose when you are looking at characters for your team, but it changes once you select them. But there is one thing I noticed: what the heck is up with Mercury's shoulder? It looks seriously dislocated or something! Oh, and be warned that the default screen resolution is set wrong, and the text on the left-hand side of the screen gets cut off on both my computer monitor and the Steam Deck, so you will have to go into the game's graphics settings and adjust the resolution to make it fit.

The game's music is good with lots of guitar; it's upbeat and high-energy, but it is the same song for the full chapter, so if you are there for a while, it does get a bit repetitive. There were times while I was playing when the music totally cut out. I'm sure this is just a bug that will be patched soon.

I love that you can play multiplayer with up to three people, especially local co-op, which I always appreciate. Though I found that after playing for a few hours solo, the gameplay did get a little repetitive, I did find playing with others added a lot of fun. If you get tired of the Story Mode, there is a Horde Mode available to try out, where you try to get on the worldwide leaderboard. 

In this mode, you will fight enemies in stages. When you complete a stage, you will get to select an upgrade, like an increase to your stamina or movement speed. Try to clear as many stages as possible to set a high score and get on the leaderboard. For some reason, there isn't any music here, so you will play in silence, which is very odd.

Go Fight Fantastic is a fun hack-n'-slash title with cool characters and a fun upgrade system with the Meteorites. It's okay when you play solo, but I feel that this game is best when you are playing with friends.