Learning - Under Night In-Birth 2 Sys Celes.
2025 March 23The Steam Spring sale came and went last week, I wasn't planning on buying anything; I hardly even bought any video games last year, but my curiosity on a few games got the best of me on a few games so I splurged a bit. Of those games, I'll mainly be talking about 2 fighting games I picked up, I've been trying to re-acquaint myself with the fighting game genre as of late, I've been booting them up fairly regularly, It's been fun! So I thought, why not, I'll buy the 2 French-Bread(Aka FPan [Aka Furansu Pan]) that I didn't really give the light of day when I was actively playing fighters. Under Night In-Birth II: Sys Celes and Melty Blood Type Lumina. I'll be talking about the former today.
I like Fpan games, well, I've only really played 2 of them-being Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code which anyone with a remote interest in fighters has played, and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax IGNITION which is genuinely one of my favorite fighters, that I can never talk about. Ever. Though Under Night, their original fighting game series, I never really cared for. My apathy for Under Night kinda confounds me honestly, It's kinda no different from all the other anime BS I play, but I was never big on any of the character designs, the general aesthetic, or even the story (yes, I do care about fighting game stories to an extent), the music was always kickass though. I only really bought the sequel cause I know people really like it, some people in the FGC treat UNI2 like It's the second coming, so why not, my tastes have developed since I bought UNICLR back in like, 8th grade, so maybe UNI2 has something for me now.
I know through osmosis that compared to other anime fighting games, this game is alot more grounded, to the point where some would call it "Anime KoF(King of Fighters) with the level of commitment there is to jumping and attacking in the air, to further bolster that claim; You cannot block in mid-air without using the shield mechanic atleast, so there's alot more risk/reward to take into consider in regards to air approaching.
The defining mechanic though, is the GRD Gauge which is a tug of war that plays out over the course of the match, characterized by the diamonds on the bottom of the screen (P1 being Magenta and P2 Being Blue). It rewards you for being the aggressor in the match, such as approaching your opponent, recovering after being hit, proper use of the shield mechanic, or simply taking the time to manually charge your GRD. On the contray, you lose GRD by being passive, such as retreating, or taking damage.
In the center of the GRD Gauge is a constantly repeating circle that acts as a timer, and whoever has the most GRD filled by the end of the timer cycle gains the Vorpal State which gives you a 10% damage boost, acess to a canceling mechanic, and enables the respective characters
Vorpal trait, which enhances their existing moves/mechanics.
That was a bit of a mouthful, and I don't quite understand all of the unmentioned nuances that this mechanic has, but I find the mechanic interesting, and very different for the genre. I view It as a comeback mechanic that isn't as extreme as It's contemperaries in other games, and Is always in play as opposed to popping it while in dire straits, so players always have to be very conscious about it. You want to be the agressor, but you also don't wanna become predictable.
Characters Interest
My biggest qualm with Under Night back then was really that, no character really grabbed me, and speaking of grabs, people always expect me to pick Waldstein, the big hulking grappler of this game; the archetype of character that moves slow, but has high health and damage with their grabs, and I always have to tell them "I don't really vibe with Waldstein."
I'm typically all over the "Brick Shithouse Grappler" archetype of character design, and I typically play as them in other Fighting games, but no, Waldstein doesn't do It for me. I know he's supposed to be the "Big Dude with a Heart of Gold" kind of person in canon, which is a character trope I deeply enjoy, but design wise, I dislike him. Too monstrous for my liking, I may love grapplers, but I still take design into account, and no command grab can ever force me to enjoy a character.
So for Under Night, I have to dig a little bit deeper to find a character I enjoy, and Unlike other games where I pick one guy I like and disregard everyone else immediately, I actually have somewhat of a character crisis here, and I'm curious
who I'll be comitting my time to truly mastering.
Mika
"She arrives. She escapes, unfettered, from her tedious routine. She flies through the sky, swims across the ocean, and climbs over mountains. Her travels are undertaken in earnest, so as to never lose her beloved friend again. Her desires are expressed in fists, which she swings with all of her might as far as she can reach."
When I can't play as the calm and collected, hulking grappler, I guess my brain was immediately attracted to the really small and annoying girl with big fucking fists.
Mika is very much on the opposite spectrum of character designs I like, but I think she's very cute. Her huge gauntlets were also a major selling point, along with her "energetic" personality. Also, she goes XD alot, and I'm a sucker for funny anime faces.
Apparently in her story, she got locked up by her organization for breaking a vase, escaped by digging a tunnel with a spoon, stole a plane, crashed said plane, then built a raft and headed towards Japan, and got past the coast guard with sheer force. Cool!
Mika is a rushdown character, with a bit of emphasis on her command grab specials. It would be wrong to call her a grappler, but maybe psuedo-grappler would be more like It? Maybe even quasi-grappler would be more fitting.
Her specials are cool, apart from her command grabs, she's able to zip across the screen using a variety of specials, and essentially "jumpscare" you whenever she pleases, she can also just, naturally run very fast. So her ability to approach is (to my understanding) second to none.
Characters in this game have a unique trait, for Mika, she's able to destroy projectiles with a few of her charged moves, though this doesn't seem as useful as It could potentially be, since multi-hit projectiles can just blow past through.
She's fun, I'd be content if I were to keep learning her, and If I main her, It means I get to use this gif I've seen for years with real earned valor, and that's the most important part.
It's also cool to play her in the sense that It's something more outside my comfort zone, since I'm not playing grapplers, I actually have to think when decisionmaking during a match.
Enkidu
He suffers. Both what he seeks and the path he takes are born of desperation. His body shows no change as he searches for worthy adversaries, treading the path to creatures of far greater power. His well-trained fists smite darkness and in his name resounds calamity. All for the sake of fulfilling his promise to a long-lost friend.
Enkidu looks badass, I love the wandering warrior trope, and I'm deeply entertained by playing as a grown ass man who punches shit in a roster of mainly anime weapon wielding adolescents.
Enkidu plays more a midrange game compared to other characters, doesn't like to play from afar but doesn't wanna be too close either. Rather, he want's to weave in and out of the opponents space, and take advantage when an opponent makes a mistake and deal biiiig damage.
He has alot of moves that deal aforementioned biiiig damage, and he also has a low execution barrier (though that does not automatically make him an easy character.) This is at the cost of playing a much more linear game than other characters, and not having as many tools as them aswell.
His Mizuumi Wiki page says: This character is for people that wish to be challenged in the realm of decision making, rather than in terms of their execution or raw game knowledge. So sure, why not.
He reminds me of Akira in Dengeki Bunko, minus the Bajiquan, though he still has tons of super badass martial arts moves I'm a sucker for. Stuff like palm strikes, dive kicks, rising kicks, parries, and the ever classic Tetsuzanko. His moves are very satisfying to use, and supplement the fact that Enkidu preys on mistakes. You will feel like a genius and your opponent will feel like an absolute dumbass.
Enkidu's unique trait is Havoc, where if he hits an opponent in a recovery state, the opponent is dealt extra hitstun and damage, resulting in pretty devastating combos.
I think I'm more likely to play as Enkidu rather than Mika, I find the former more up to my style of play, while the latter I find more interesting to play. But time will tell who I devote more of my energy to once I become more intimate with the mechanics and facing other characters. Under Night feels like quite the unique game compared to the fare I'm used to, so I wonder how long It'll take for me to become "good" at It.
This is probably a good time to talk about the aesthetics of the game; I'm still not huge on it, the stages are a bit too dark for my liking, but I guess I don't know what else I was expecting from game literally called "Under Night". There's a nice and pleasantly pink cherry blossom stage though, which you can see in the videos above, but no other stage really does it for me.
Music still kicks ass though, and they did new mixes of all the previous Under Night character themes, and they all sound anime and twangy as hell. My favorites being Mutual Situation, Gallant Girl (Sora yori Nagare, Hasiru Kaze), Blood Drain -Again-, and Kaisen -Again-
Oh, and this game actually has a palette editor, which is pretty damn cool, It's a little bit annoying since you can only choose colors from existing palettes, but I managed to make colors I really like for Mika and Enkidu
Momoko-Chi!
After all these years of being unfair to Under Night, the series has finally woo'd me, Congratulations Fpan, but if you make another game akin to Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, My life will truly be yours.
Sion Eltnum Atlasia (from the hit game series Melty Blood) truly takes the words out of my mouth though in regards to how I feel:
Speaking of, I'm excited to talk about Melty Blood: Type Lumina when I don't feel lazy, I think I like that game a little more than UNI2 personally, and I can talk about the characters I like in that game the same way I did for the UNI characters on this page. I also like playing as a little girl who goes XD in that game too.
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