SkyScrappers (PC) Review

SkyScrappers feels a bit like a passionate love letter to early 90s fighting games, and the cartoons that influenced their aesthetic. The big pitch, that each encounter takes place as the fighters climb collapsing buildings with climbable debris, presumably lit up the eyes of every developer present instantly, since they were probably born and bred on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and an abundance of other arcade fighter series, but also, likely influenced by shows like Dragon Ball Z, which found grandiose stages for encounters and gamers would have loved to have seen in a series. Should SkyScrappers have been a title back in those days, it surely would have been immensely popular, even though it explores just one concept, rather than running with the general idea of crazy fight stages.

To win, the player must either KO all their opponents or make it to the top of the building first. It's a simple concept, but very chaotic in practice, since everyone needs to dodge and jump from debris, keep up the rate of vertical climb, as well as fight and defend. It's even possible to strike objects towards opponents, so when the scale starts shifting, on top of all the above-described elements, things really do get intense, and feel truly coin-op arcade spirited. Some people will find this to be an appealing quality, though in the current climate of fighting games, it's also going to mean this is automatically not some other people's cup of tea.

At least SkyScrappers leaves those people on the pavement very quickly. It's easy to know whether you'll get on with the game within a few minutes of playing. While there's hardly any deep underlying combat or platforming mechanics to uncover, it's still a significant challenge, and it does take some time to perfect a decent understanding. Just like those 2D arcade classics, the emphasis is on fast reflexes and being as reactive as possible to the fast-paced environmental changes. This means that there's an intensity to each game, and even though the combat is so simple that button mashing is more than likely to occur, there is still a sense of skill overall, since these phases are intertwined by jumping, dodging and throwing oneself about.

Aesthetically, this seems more Street Fighter-derived than anything else. It ends up seeming more indistinct than anything else, too, not striking up any particularly distinct tone or sense of character, with a weak range of fighters to choose from, in fact - just four. The arcade mode sees the player traverse a game map, and after each battle, they are shown a somewhat uninteresting cut-scene, which hardly feels like much of a reward. In this sense, SkyScrappers is far too barebones, not offering anything beyond local multiplayer and the single-player arcade experience.

There's a case for adding significant online multiplayer components to the follow-up, but it should have been there in the original. The fact it isn't there works much to its detriment, since there's hardly any replay value regardless. Simply a time attack mode, survival mode, or anything else that would have added something to the experience would have helped, but without that it's hard to see anyone getting much mileage out of such a cool and promising concept.