Pocket Bravery [Review]

Pocket Bravery is a beautifully presented game that has a lot of love poured into it by Statera Studio and published by PQube. Starting Pocket Bravery players are greeted with an anime-style opening with classic 80s rock music playing in the background, getting players hyped for the battles to come. The artist they chose for the music reminds me of 80s groups such as Queensrÿche or Dragon Force. From the get-go, this game's inspiration is crystal clear. Street Fighter Alpha 2 and the Neo Geo Pocket, with a little bit of Pocket Fighter sprinkled in. Right off the bat, before I start this review, I would like to call out some color palettes that I’ve noticed that I’m pretty sure are supposed to be nods to different characters in the gaming and anime industry. 

Nuno colors:

Goku-dragon ball

Terry Bogard- fatal fury

Spike Spiegel-cowboy bebop

Akira- Virtua Fighter

 Mingmei colors:

Hsien ko- darkstalkers

Chun li-street fighter

Kimberly colors:

Samus-Metroid

Mary-King of fighters.

Arshavin colors:

Hulk-marvel

Sebastian colors

Wolverine/Logan-marvel

Vegeta- Brandon ball

Scar-Fullmetal alchemist

Little Mac-punch out 

Daisuke colors:

Virgil-devil may cry

Dracula,-Castlevania

Cowboy bebop

Dante -devil may cry

Trunks-Dragon Ball Z

Ximena colors:

Morgan- darkstalkers

Poison ivy- Batman series

Mystique -X-Men series

Hecotor (once you earn him)

Joker- Batman

Akuma-Street Fighter.

Unfortunately it was very hard to find reference pictures for the characters costumes online so I only provided a few examples above. Just from the character select screen, this game has so much love poured into it. I’m sure there are many more references, just in character colors, that I haven’t even noticed. I never in my life cared about anything like this before in any game, and I am thrilled to see that this is the first fighting game in my 25 years of playing them where I care about color palace swaps. Kudos to these guys for developing a game that made me care. This game is a standard fighting game and plays like any other—regular quarter circles for special attacks. Any Street Fighter fan or King of Fighters fan will be right at home. The presentation for this game is phenomenal, especially since it is pixelated. The stage intros are very cinematic and well-animated, and every character's sprite animations are very well-detailed and have several frames. Not many Pixel games have this much detail in their movements.

The closest to compare it to is the Rumble Fish series.  Pocket Bravery is doing a pretty good job of making Modern gaming companies, with the exclusion of Tekken look bad in terms of content and teachings in fighting game terminology in their tutorials. Rather than just having a baby mode for new players, they are properly teaching newcomers how to play their game. One quick note, this game starts its difficulty at a 4, and it should be at a 3. Players will get beat down very badly with it at a 4 from the start. You have been warned. Also, graphics-wise, I personally like the film grain turned on. It makes the pixels look a lot nicer. Pocket Bravery offers various modes, such as story mode, arcade mode, versus mode, online play, and regular tutorials where they teach you the terminology and how to play. Training modes, a combo factory to help you hone your skills, a shop to buy more characters with in-game currency, along with stages, character colors, and art.

Also theres a mode called extra mode. extra mode has survival mode, Time attack, trials (Trials are 10 challenges posed by each fighter in the game), rainbow edition mode (awaken the magic plus in you and play the game from a new perspective), and lastly hot pursuit mode (Take control of the character Daisuke in his endless quest for revenge) As stated before, this game is loaded with content and has plenty to do. There is lots of replay value and bang for your buck. Pocket Bravery is by far one of my favorite fighting games to release in 2023 on Steam, as it is finally coming to consoles in the West on November 11, 2024. At least that's what's planned for the moment. I will absolutely be buying it on Switch and PlayStation 5. A demo is currently available and I think anybody that is into fighting games should check this game out!