Injustice 1 & 2

Its DC fighting time!

This fighting game is like Street Fighter, except with characters from the DC roster such as Superman, who has become a ruthless dictator, and Batman who is running the insurgency against the Kryptonian. In the second game, Braniac comes along to mess with things but in both cases the stories start and end strong but have lots of "filler" in the middle, looking for any excuse to fit as many one on one fights as they can. 

Right on target!

The graphics and controls are ok (though both are improved in the second game) but some of the fighting stances are strange and the power hits make for hilarious moments where someone like Catwoman can single kick an opponent like Doomsday UP and THROUGH multiple floors of a building! Or even, Catwoman can just face tank punches from Superman. Things like that.

Outside the story the first game has an interesting STAR Labs trial mode which challenges you with various game play modes and/or outright unfair situations. The second game drops this in exchange for a leveling and loot end game system which is basically a stock standard series of fights. That's maybe the only part the first game did better for me. Anyway, if you like DC characters and want to watch them pummel each other silly then these games are right up your alley. 

Behind the Frame and Them's Fightin' Herds

Games with excellent animation.

Behind the Frame

This very short and relaxed game is all about painting and puzzle solving. Despite the "painting by numbers" portions that let you brush paint everywhere, the art is really good with its anime style. Thankfully the puzzles are pretty easy to let you focus on the excellent story which will put a knife in your feels I enjoyed very much. Highly recommended, if you enjoy something that is more of a narrative than mechanics.

Them's Fightin' Herds

It's is like Streetfighter for My Little Pony, but the smooth animation and cute critters are very well done! There's also a story mode that plays a bit like an RPG Maker game interspersed with both jumping puzzle and (many) combat segments which is pretty cool, but the difficulty ramps up rather quickly and boss fights become a chore. It's a different one, that's for sure.

Dusk and DNF Duel

Two old-school but fun games!

Dusk

This Quake style FPS starts off with you in a room with a number of chainsaw wielding cultists and only gets crazier from there. While the graphics are indeed dated, the game play feels pretty smooth with the maps being well varied and nicely designed while populated by a large list of enemy types, including bosses. I also appreciate the ability of dual wielding weapons should you find duplicate versions of them and the finale was quite a nice surprise. Very old school but I quite enjoyed it.

DNF Duel

This button mashing one on one fighting game is an offshoot of Dungeon and Fighter (which I've not tried) and plays much like the well known Street Fighter or Samurai Showdown series with over twelve smooth moving characters to pick from each with their own fighting combos and little story lines (most are pretty similar to each other though). The art and action is pretty good but if you aren't a Dungeon and Fighter fan I'm not sure why you'd pay for this one. Definitely try nab it for free though!

Samurai Shodown - NeoGeo Collection

Big swords, big hair, big damage.

Containing the first five Samurai Shodown (aka Samurai Spirit) games, this collection lets you experience this mostly sword duel game against other players online, or against NPC opponents.

That's when he used to be OP.

Now I'm not really an expert in fighting games, but this one strongly features weapons that can be clashed and disarmed, and also they really effing hurt - being able to take off almost half your life in a single swing!

To this end you can't really go randomly button mashing, but luckily the move set for each character is spelled out for you in a handy menu (and in most cases, each character has two move set "load outs"). Still its not a genre I really enjoy so I give it two Poppy's out of five.

Insight: I always cheesed with Galford in the earlier games where you can send his dog AND do a jumping attack. The enemy can't block both, much to Juris' dismay! He does get balanced out in later games though.

Aztez

Can you change the fate of the Aztecs?

In this mostly black an white game with stylized art, you play as the Aztecs who are trying to change their fate against the Spanish invaders. Interestingly, there are two parts to the game.

The overland map plays much like a board game, where you are trying to strategically expand the empire to earn more resources that provide boons that can nullify negative events that pop up. Lose the capital and it's game over.

You can trap the conquistadors forever with some luck and some ruins!

The second part is a side scrolling brawler where you can send your chosen warrior(s) - the titular Aztez - to sort stuff out; Violently. This part is much harder and losing all your Aztez also results in a game over.

This makes for an interesting blend of strategy and action, and thankfully the game provides a training arena where you can practice your brawling skills against any enemy you've encountered. Some are really tough and none of them ever come alone.

It took a bit for me to get into this, and I did need to practice a bit in the arena but it is a pretty fun little game to occupy a day or afternoon. Just want to point out it's also rogue like, so don't think you can load a save game when things don't go your way. I give Aztez 3 festivals out of 5.

Insight: Always check the price of losing  a mission as warriors are not very easy to replenish.

The King of Fighters 2002

Brawling for the sake of brawling!

Instead of having any story whatsoever, this fighting game instead has 42+ characters, which is a massive line up. Each match is 3 versus 3 (apart from the boss fights), has mostly well animated sprites and generally has good, blood pumping music for each round.

I'm not sure about the fighters being "balanced", as the hit boxes are quite spot on and the time limit of 60 seconds per round makes it tough to be aggressive with the fellas who have shorter range or more defensive moves.

My sparkles are better than yours!

Fortunately for rookie button mashers like myself, defeat/continue gives you a choice of options to make your next time slightly easier after your score is reduced to 0. Maybe your power bar is always full, or the enemy AI is dumber, or the enemy only has 1/3rd of their HP. That's a pretty good system for player enjoyment I think.

Definitely fun but also definitely short if you are just going for the "once through" like I am. There is obviously more replayability if you are a hunter of secret moves and such. I give it 2 evil android guys out of 5.