The Game Awards 2021: Best Fighting Game Winner

All things considered, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a Melee fan project, first and foremost. It’s got the cute Nick paint thrown on it, but the fighting is what you should come here for, even if the cartoon characters had you hooked in the first pl


But, in NASB, while it does look clunkier, none of the characters have this jumping startup, meaning that those couple of frames saved can be used to unleash attacks faster. Again, it doesn’t make a huge difference, but utilizing this does make short-hop attacks and wavedashing feel better over


So, keeping all that in mind, there’s a lot of little mistakes people are making when playing this game that they’ll most likely figure out given a week or so. Here are just a few mistakes addressed to help beginners get the hang of things in Nickelodeon All-Star Bra


And while NASB isn’t exactly on the same level as Melee it does have combat speed comparable to it, which immediately drew longtime fans of the Gamecube fighter to this new platform brawler, which is why character tier lists seemed to come out so shockingly f


Basically, this game has a lot of projectile Specials in it, and, in Smash, the way to get around this is either by rolling through them, jumping over them, shielding them, or just absorbing them with specific charact


In Smash , knowing which way the player character is facing during chaotic combat moments is a big hurdle people have to slowly adjust to. But, in NASB , players can use Strafe to moving backward while throwing projectiles forward or any variety of other useful tricks. Again, it seems small, but even the smallest features can massively change the way a fighting game "feels" to play, which plays a big part in how long people keep playing


Fighting game may not be the most mainstream or contentious award category for The Game Awards , but 2021 was a surprisingly good year for some of the niche corners of the fighting game community. While mainstays like Street Fighter and Tekken are still going strong, despite being well into each game's lifecycle, several excellent new fighting games released in 2021 as well. Particularly for fans of anime or anime-esque fighters, games like Guilty Gear -Strive- and Melty Blood: Type Lumina reinvigorated some of the most popular and long-standing franchises in the genre, even if they were at one time considered obscure to the mainstream audie


Fast Falling, as it’s called in other games, is the method of making a character fall down faster in a platform fighter like Smash by tapping down an extra time in the air while falling. It has its uses, both for dodging attacks and for unleashing new o


The funny thing is, while the speed of NASB’s combat is wildly different from Smash Ultimate's , it’s actually similar to another Smash Bros game , Super Smash Bros Melee. SSBM is still an incredibly popular game that sees competitive play even in worldwide tournaments, and a big reason for that is the high skill-ceiling thanks to the fast-paced combat. In comparison, both Brawl Stars star powers and Smash Ultimate feel a lot more "floaty" with lighter gravity and weight behind attacks over


Probably one of the biggest changes Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl makes in comparison to other fighters, both 2D and 3D alike, is the fact that players can actually counter projectile spam ( a classic trope of the fighting game genre ) incredibly easily, either by hitting them back at their opponent or by catching them using the "Grab" m


Guilty Gear Strive is certainly not perfect, especially in the competitive balance department (a point of contention for fans), but it's easily the best and most popular new fighting game from 2021. Arc System Works' latest anime fighter is a landmark achievement on multiple levels; from its incredible online match stability, to its unique and flashy visual design. Guilty Gear Strive is an easy contender for the best fighting game experience released in 2021, and would make sense as the winner of the aw


In Ultimate , players can shield, then spot dodge or dodge roll in any direction, giving themselves a decent amount of I-Frames to avoid any incoming attacks. This also allows them to use their shield as a feint, tricking enemies into getting close before they spot dodge out of the shield and attack. Both the "Defend" and "Shield" mechanics in these games obviously have a lot of thought behind them, but NASB's does take a bit of getting used


Once again, this comparison is entirely unfair, and another example of why is the fact that NASB actually has a relatively acceptable level of Story Mode content. Usually, in fighting games, an Arcade mode is the baseline players can expect, with some standout games like Mortal Kombat or Guilty Gear adding an overly expansive or innovative story mode into the


Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl admittedly doesn’t come with a lot of ways to play. Everything I’ve just spoken about comes from my time in the online lobbies - which run fantastically - because single player, while fun, is incredibly barebones. This is easily one of its major failings as a Smash cl