Recent reviews by FinalLemon

It's good. This is an actual monster collector that genuinely understands the genre, which is really refreshing. Does a bunch of cool stuff with the element system too; tying a bunch of status effects to it rather than just being a flat damage increase, which the battle system explores to its fullest.

This is simultaneously the best source of survival horror and slapstick comedy I've experienced in years. Best played with friends, and ideally blind. Technically uses procedural generation but it's not annoying about it, it basically just shuffles rooms around so you can't budget for your entire play-through ahead of time, and as such still creates a really focused experience.

Cool game. Shame it's been broken for like a year now.

Literally perfect. I'd leave this box blank if I could because there is straight up just nothing to comment on other than "X aspect of game is good" 20 times in a row

Rollback is coming to Xrd baybeeeeee

Solid game overall, especially for the price of free (though it's worth mentioning that a season pass and unlocking each of the 5 extra mechs through premium currency will run you about 60 USD). Really tightly designed gameplay with abilities that consistently feel great to land in clean connections, and the universal movement options allow a pretty interesting dynamic of resource management both when rolling out and in combat. Two big things can hold it back at the time of writing though, most prominently is the game is very unstable and prone to crash somewhat frequently (penalizing you during matchmaking). Additionally, text chat censorship is comically overblown (infamously "have fun" becomes "h**e **n"), making it nearly impossible to communicate without external voice chat. The latter issue is somewhat alleviated through a really convenient tag/callout system which can at least provide competent teammates with a decent idea of the current state of the match, but any hope of coordinating a push with randos is completely out the window. If you're remotely interested I'd give it a shot though, it's definitely worth the novelty if nothing else.

This game is what happens when you try to make mad science but substitute the science with some extra madness you found in the back of the fridge

Little man carry big sword. Sword go bonk. Get stun. Feel good. Drop combo. Die.

This is a well-established and underrated classic that has received top notch emulation, and as of late, netcode. The game itself has a wide cast of very diverse characters, all of which have very well delivered hints towards rather deep character arcs. The art is all beautiful, and the music is very memorable. The actual in-game mechanics are also quite deep but very accessible, you could reasonably pick this game up in a dozen hours and be able to get some enjoyment out of any given player matchup. Neutral is very footsie heavy and most characters gain access to some very strong tools for creative and explosive pressure. The combos are mostly fairly short with a moderate amount of damage, however there are plenty of advanced combos utilizing very advanced mechanics for lab monsters to sink their teeth into. The main attribute that makes this game so unique are the different stances, very akin to Melty Blood moons. Without going into too much detail, there's power stance to reward solid neutral and forcing favorable trades, speed which enables very elaborate blockstrings for any given character, and EX which more or less combines the two in exchange for a steep defense penalty.

As for the emulation, it's based on the AES release of the game, granting access to the hidden boss character and a fairly solid training mode for the time. The movelists are a bit wack in terms of both notation and translation errors, but they'll get the job done and function well to direct new players to hidden content such as the secret characters and EX mode. The matchmaking is via a very basic lobby system, but the games all run on some very well implemented rollback netcode that will fail due to unreasonably poor connections long before the netcode itself becomes intrusive. The main issue is that there are no spectator lobbies, and no stage selection. The former is a nuisance but has work-arounds, however the latter is a legitimate gripe I have with the port. This is due to the fact that a lot of the stages are known for causing frame drops (none of which have been patched out to any capacity), meaning that certain matchups will always make combos and set ups arbitrarily more difficult and inconsistent. It's not even as though that would preserve the legacy of the game, as the original AES releases all granted access to a stage select screen. Beyond that, I cannot stress enough how incredibly well this port runs from a technical perspective, so overall you could very viably get into this game even without access to locals this way.


TL:DR
If you haven't played LB2 in any capacity, I would highly recommend the game as its a very unique title which has aged incredibly well. If you're a veteran looking to see if the port runs well, the short answer is "yes" and has good net to boot.

P.S. This isn't samsho, don't come in expecting any similarities beyond an emphasis on footsies and the traditional aesthetic.

Well, no point writing an essay long review for a game this old...
TLDR: novel concept, great feeling combat and free-flowing combo system, great visuals, amazing music, but a little rough around the edges regarding diversity and balance. Also, no netcode, which is a shame...
All in all though, if you like platform fighters, and have a yearning for a good single-player campaign, this is worth the purchase.