You should try Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax Ignition

7/16/2024

I don't play fighting games nearly as often as I used to back when I was in High School, though the genre as a whole is still wholly important to me and partially melded me into the kind of person I am today. It was during say 2019-2022 where I just threw myself at whatever game was accessible to me, and I just happened to have stumbled upon an arcade dump of Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax: Ignition, which very surprisingly had becomes one of my favorite fighting games. It's one of those Fighters I reminisce on often, I quite enjoyed the mechanics, vibe, and general game feel.

This game is also very notable for being something I cannot get any normal person to play with me, woe. But In fairness, If someone told me to try this game out with them blind I also probably wouldn't touch it with a 10ft stick, so that's why I'm talking about this game I think, so whoever reads this and happens to take an interest in fighting games can go "wow this game seems neat I'll give it a try" or "wow this games look ass and I'll never once consider the thought of picking this up." Choice is yours.

What the hell is this

Anyways, this game is a strange crossover between Dengeki Bunko, a light novel imprint, and Sega, like Sega. It was meant to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Dengeki Bunko, in fighting game form for some reason. It was released in 2014, and the updated version, Ignition, was released the year after.

This game was Developed by French Bread, of Melty Blood and Under-Night In Birth fame, this is probably my favorite FPan game honestly.

Despite being a Sega crossover aswell, the playable characters mainly consist (entirely consist in the first version) of characters from Dengeki, notable Dengeki works are like, Sword Art Online, Toradora, Oreimo, I think those are notable Dengeki works.

I really couldn't care about much of this roster, honestly, while I do recognize some of these series, none of them particuarly peak my interest much. Though I do think its nice that whenever I show this game off to friends, they recognize some of these characters, and reminisce on watching the anime when they were younger; for better or worse.

I only played one character, Akira, whom I talked about extensively in my Page about Akira in this game See Here. But despite not having interest on a surface level about most of these guys, they are admittedly still pretty dang interesting.

Oh yeah, this game has assist calls aswell, which is one of the things I deeply enjoy about this game, as theres alot of variety and interesting things these assist characters do.

controls and Mechanics

I like how this game has quite a simple control scheme, and combos aren't too hard, I feel in games with "simple" controls, the main challenge with combos isn't execution, but timing. But I always considered this game to be pretty easy to get the hang of, especially if your already familiar with Anime Fighters.

This game I also think leans heavily on the mechanics, theres alot of cool things to unpack. For the sake of time I'm just gonna go over the big ones

Power Blast

The Burst system of this game, there are 2 other kinds of "blasts", but Power Blast is the type of burst you get when you do it "raw". It gives you a 15% damage boost, 15% passive health regen, and 1 bar of meter (2 if you actually land the blast.) Incredibly important for momentum, that you should always prioritize getting. It's safe on block and you can also use it in combos in certain scenarios, Round start burst is a thing you can do in this game and I think that's very funny.

Trump Card

Big, unique, fuck you reversal tool, very powerful, but a limited resource, as you only get 2 per round, only regaining 1 trump if you lose a round. Landing/Whiffinf it puts you into trump state, which gives you Reverse Beat, All Normals being Jump cancellable, No assist call animation, and Assists don't use up assist gauge.

Assists

Assists are cool as hell in this game.

I like how the assists are more used for support and utility, or other interesting gimmicks, rather than just combos as commonly seen in other fighters with assists. While a majority of them aren't exactly "viable", they are still cool as hell to mess with, and hey, worlds your oyster if you wanna experiment. I'll showcase a few of my favorites.

Holo

5S is a Claw Swipe that sends to opponent upwards, great range, and fast, though not a very strong move as a whole since Opponents recover before hitting the ground.

6S, Holo hops forward and summons a small field of wheat, being in the prescence of the wheat field gives you a status buff, 15% health and white health regeneration, and an 80% meter gain, the initial hop is also an attack and puts the opponent in a hard knockdown state.

Boogiepop

While 5S is a fairly standard assist that simply pops the opponent up, 6S is very cool, Boogiepop whistles a song, and after some time, the screen goes black, and deals a full screen, heavily damaging attack, the timing, and the screen going black can setup unblockables, and other interesting gimmicks. It also gives 65% meter gain.

Uiharu

Very Interesting assist, 5S is a gunshot blast that locks onto the opponent, and afterwards, Uiharu tells you to fulfill certain requirements to activate subsequent attacks, the 3 activations are denoted by an icon, and are Waiting, Knocking down the opponent, or hitting the opponent 4 times.

6S, Uiharu is summoned and looks very cheery, being in her prescence gives a small health regeneration, and extends the duration of power blast and trump state slightly.

Maou

Initially, both Maou's 5S and 6S are a weak, forward charging punch, however, if he lands the punch (or whiffs twice) his next assist will be in his Demon Form, becoming much more powerful and useful. 5S becomes a downwards angle beam that tracks the opponent, and 6S unleashes multiple beams across the screen.

Iriya

The strongest assist, and arguably, the best character in the game, Iriya is a very commonly seen assist in this game for good reason.

5S is like a minigame of sorts, you summon Iriya while she eats a bowl of food, Protect her at all costs, after she eats, you can hit her plate/bowl which can be used as a projectile, hitting it with an A normal tosses it forward, while hitting it with a B/C normal will send it off screen, falling a little bit later, letting her eat 2 bowls of food gives a status buff, and letting her eat all 3 bowls of food will trigger a full screen explosion thats Air Unblockable, theres many unblockable setups you can do with Iriya

Her 6S is alot more standard but still plenty useful, she appears from the other side of the screen and runs the opponent down on a scooter, solid full screen poke, can be used for combos.

Ryuji

My Favorite assist, I explained it extensively in my page abour Akira. See Here.

Game feel

This game always just felt very nice to control, and I loved the pacing of matches, and the energy of using Blasts/ Trumps/Assists, etc. Game always made me feel cool, the stages are from Sega Properties and they rock, alongside the music, my favorite stage/track being the Nights Into Dreams Stage. Also, I really love the theme that plays when your on game 3 of a match, which is an instrumental version of iD, from the opening, it gives so much energy to the final match,

Final thoughts

I think everyone whos really into fighting games has their one "weird" or "niche" fighter that they enjoy alot, and It was that thought that made me wanna write about this game.

Thanks for reading through my rambling about this game, give this game a shot if your into fighters, it has a rollback netcode caster for online play and training, you should Certainly Not Contact Me If You'd Like to PLAY this GAME.

game rocks, dude, ill play it with you, maybe.