SNK Gals' Fighters review by Paleface

What's this? An original NGPC fighter? And a chick fighter at that? Let's just call it love at first fight. That's right, I said Love. She may be crazy, fickle and a little easy but this Gal has me completely beguiled. I'll admit it, I'm one of those pansy-boys who always picks the female characters in fighting games. This game knew I was a hopeless sucker; it leads me around with one slender finger and has its evil way with me whenever it likes. And I like it like that.

Yumekobo stepped up to SNK's portable to show off a new trick or two including *gasp* a new playable character, the largest active screen size and the fastest action of any fighter on the system. Did I say fast? Throw in a couple handfuls of female fighters from SNK's King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown and Last Blade franchises, crank the speed up from the default 2 to the max, 4, and you've got a pure blizzard of fists, feet, knees, knives, giant fans, whips, birds, Kyo dolls, and assorted other surprises with which these little ladies slap each other silly, all moving at flawlessly smooth, blinding speed. The flails fly so quickly in a Whip vs Whip match that you'll probably want to check and make sure your eyebrows are still attached to your forehead afterwards. Be warned: after playing this game you're going to think of all other fighting games as just a tad bit stodgy.

And in more than just speed. Gals Fighters brings a warm scented breeze of fresh air to the overly-serious genre with a shamelessly hot pink interface, very amusing and unique fighting moves and trash talk, including catty pokes at various SNK males. Athena uses Kensou as a shield. Leona throws mini Heidern bombs, amongst other oversized projectiles. And the final boss, Ms. X... well, let's just say ''she'' is one of the most hilarious bosses in console fighting history. The ''Queen of Fighters'' story amounts to the usual ''fight for the big prize'' but each character has a full ending sequence all her own and well worth the effort of unlocking.

Not that it'll be all that much effort. Even at the highest speed and difficulty setting I don't struggle much to bust my way through to the final curtain. That's not to say it's an absolute cake-walk, but you're looking at a guy who usually gets his head handed to him at medium difficulty on the average fighter. Curiously, this ease comes despite a tricky AI which never allows you to connect with cheap supers and ramps up its own difficulty dramatically as the match goes on: you've got to stay on your toes against these girls no matter how close victory may seem as they fight like wildcats when cornered. Still, you'll find yourself thrashing your way through the somewhat small eleven-woman lineup in relatively short time.

Short, but sweet. The gameplay itself does not disappoint. Each Gal comes loaded with a full rack of special moves and Supers which, despite their frequently hilarious nature, feel quite comfortably satisfying when executed with the NGPC's thumbstick. Yumekobo also loaded on another technique, the ''Pretty Burst,'' an easily-executed quasi-Super with unusual semi-mystical effects: for instance, if Whip connects with her Pretty Burst, a large spiky speech bubble filled with what appear to be Playstation button symbols, her victim will find themselves unable to use Super moves for some time afterwards. Still not enough for you? How about winning various collectible trinkets and gewgaws along the way which you can use one at a time for minor bonus effects? Admittedly many of the prizes, some of the Pretty Bursts and even some Supers are fairly useless in practice but they make up for it in variety, humor and hand-held eye candy second to none on the system: many of the moves fire off screen-filling color flashes and enormous sprites and, should you manage to take a gal down with a Super, you're treated to a nifty slide-show of full-screen character artwork in the background while they fall down, as if their life is flashing before their eyes. And oh the combos, children, the combos! The Gals engine proves quite juggle (and jiggle, in Mai's case), chain and cancel friendly, allowing even mashers such as myself to bust off 42-hit maulings with the new girl, Yuki. Silly? Well yes, it is. And that's rather the point.

Despite the staggering feature selections and ''serious'' gameplay of SNK's superb NGPC fighters such as Match of the Millenium and Last Blade, I still find myself drawn back again and again to Yumekobo's brilliant bubblegum pop. Sure most of the ''unlockable'' items are worthless. Yeah you've only got standard single-player, two-player and a well-done practice mode. True, the backgrounds don't sport too much detail. So what? Ridiculously cute, blindingly fast and packing some stunningly fresh moves, Gals Fighters will make willing thralls out of all but the most stubborn fighting fans.

Score: 8/10