Vanguard Princess

Vanguard Princess is a 2D tag-team fighter developed entirely by a single person, Tomoaki Sugeno, and that fact alone should reframe every criticism you level at it. When one artist builds a fighting game from scratch, you stop grading on the AAA curve and start paying attention to what actually shows up on screen. What shows up here is a roster of hand-drawn female fighters, each with distinct move sets, an assist character system that lets you call in a partner mid-combo, and a visual style that sits somewhere between early-2000s arcade fighters and doujin anime art. The storyline involves a government experiment gone wrong and a young girl whose awakened power touches off a chain of events that gives each fighter a reason to be on the stage. It is not a sophisticated plot. But it is a plot, drawn with intention. The fighting system is the real reason anyone sticks around. Each player selects a primary fighter and a smaller assist character, and matches play out in a 2v2 framework where timing your assist calls matters. The assist characters are not full fighters, they are tactical tools, and learning when to deploy yours versus when to hold it shifts matches from button-mashing into something with actual read-and-react texture. Combos feel satisfying to land, the sprite animation is noticeably fluid for a solo project, and the hit effects have that clean, punchy snap you want from a 2D fighter. If you have spent time with games like Arcana Heart or older KOF entries, this will feel familiar without feeling derivative. Where Vanguard Princess struggles is in content depth. The roster is small, the single-player modes are thin, and there is no built-in online multiplayer to speak of, which in a post-rollback era is a real limitation for a fighting game looking to build a competitive life. The mixed Steam review score reflects that gap between what the game is technically and what modern players expect a fighting game to provide. Story mode is short. Survival and versus modes cover the basics without expanding on them. If you come in expecting the structure of a fully-staffed release, you will bounce off the edges quickly. What Vanguard Princess rewards is a particular kind of player. Local multiplayer sessions with a friend, exhibition matches against the AI to feel out each fighter's personality, and genuine appreciation for craft produced under serious resource constraints. The soundtrack carries a quiet, melodic intensity that suits the mood without trying to oversell the drama. The pixel art in the backgrounds has real detail if you slow down and look. This is a game that was made because someone loved fighting games enough to build one alone. That origin story does not excuse its content gaps, but it does explain the unusual care baked into the parts that matter most to the genre: movement, feel, and visual clarity during a match. If you are a fighting game collector, a doujin enthusiast, or someone who specifically wants a couch versus option with a niche aesthetic and no subscription required, Vanguard Princess earns a genuine look. If you need ranked lobbies, a deep tutorial, or a story that runs more than a couple of hours, you will need to look elsewhere. It knows what it is, mostly, and it delivers that with more craft than its obscurity suggests. Kai, Scout Team