The newest installment in the Under Night In-Birth series has finally graced us with its presence, and although it’s releasing during a time of very heavy competition it definitely has enough merits to put up a fight against bigger fighting game franchises that have seen releases in the last year.
Although the development of this new chapter of the Under Night In-Birth saga has been known about for quite some time, the game has seen a fairly short window from announcement to release with its first official unveiling being at last year’s Evolution Championship Series tournament. With a heavy focus on pleasing the already existing fans, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes does a lot of things right but also has several areas where it can be found somewhat lacking.
One of the hurdles Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes faces is that visually it’s very similar to the previous titles in the series, so it might be difficult for people to tell that this is even a sequel. Sprites are reused across the board, though to be perfectly honest the highly detailed pixel graphics of the series is such high quality that it feels like it would’ve been a shame not to reuse all the hard work they’ve put in.
Doing nothing notably new on the visual front can definitely be seen as a drawback and while it definitely makes it feel like more of a revision than a sequel, the game does still look gorgeous in 2024 with some of the best sprite work we’ve seen in the fighting game genre.
There’s also a lot of room to express yourself via your characters’ visuals, with over 40 colors for each character available right off the bat, including just as many for the brand new characters Kaguya, Tsurugi and Kuon. If these 40 aren’t enough for you, there’s a full-fledged color customization tool as well to allow you to make your own colors for all of your characters, with 5 custom slots available per fighter.
Another area where the game definitely shines is in its music and sound design. Although the tracks for returning characters are largely the same, they have been re-recorded and remixed somewhat, giving a new flavor to the already existing masterpieces of music.
In short, the game looks and sounds quite similar to what previous versions did, but it’s hard to dock any points for this considering just how high quality the materials they already had are, and as someone who is fairly inexperienced with the Under Night In-Birth series none of it really feels outdated in 2024.
As mentioned, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes is very much a game that appeals to players who were already fans of the series and with that comes a whole plethora of various systems and terminology to try and get used to. The game has a very large tutorial to try and help you do this, explaining the game’s various systems and functions in detail.
The tutorial does a very good job in some aspects, such as when it helps you with fighting game essentials and matchup knowledge where you practice hticonfirming or how to approach the zoner Vatista without taking too many hits, but there are also several areas where it just feels like the tutorial is talking at you about things like the Grid system and it’s hard to feel engaged in the information that’s being thrown at you.
I can definitely appreciate the work that went into the tutorial, though, because it is definitely a very large compendium of information and even repeats itself with some essential areas, which I didn’t mind since I’d rather have repetition than seeing it skip over parts.
The tutorial areas are also divided up neatly into categories ranging from absolute beginners to very advanced players, so there’s stuff in there for players of basically any skill level and you can easily navigate to the area that fits your skill level best.
Combo trials, an absolute staple of the fighting game genre at this point, are present and quite fleshed out, featuring a varying amount of trials for each character which range from just teaching you the basic footsie buttons all the way to very advanced combos.
As is often the case with trials it’s hard to tell how practical they actually are for competitive play, but they do a good job of teaching you the basics and some simple routes to start or end your combos with as you explore the intricacies of your character more.
Outside of these training areas, the game is very bare-bones in what it offers in terms of content. Even though it’s billed as being a full-fledged sequel as well as the story climax for the so-called “Hollow Night” storyline, the story content is presented through arcade mode playthroughs with each character and gives absolutely no explanation as far as character relations, terms that are used or even a general story outline.
As such, any newcomer would feel completely lost trying to grasp any of what’s going on or where allegiances lie for the varied cast of players in the game’s narrative. Even just a glossary or encyclopedia where you can read up on past events or character’s backstories would’ve gone a long way, but nothing like that is present in the game.
Outside of this, there’s the basic fighting game staples such as Time Attack and Survival as well as a Gallery mode where you can unlock system voices, various artwork that’s been produced through the Under Night In-Birth series lifetime, but it feels relatively empty as far as modes go.
It’s pretty clear that the main focus of Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, perhaps as it should be for a fighting game, is on playing matches against other players and very little else.
Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes retains the core mechanics of the previous games in the series with the tug-of-war like GRD gauge being the central focus of a lot of the game’s expressive tools. That said, the game is also equipped with some new mechanics to entice even returning players, including Creeping Edge which is a roll to try and avoid danger at the risk of your GRD gauge.
Since the GRD gauge is an important tool which gives you access to many of the core tools of the game, such as combo cancels known as Chain Shift, it’s not something you want to risk lightly, but using Creeping Edge effectively can definitely give you the upper hand if you have the right read on your opponent.
There are a lot of systems present in Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes and it can feel somewhat overwhelming if you’re not used to them, but even playing at a simple level and going step by step feels very engaging and is honestly a great time.
I spent most of my time with the new character Kaguya and even though I’m not a well-versed Under Night In-Birth player, I definitely felt like I was grasping more and more of the system just by playing the game and slowly understanding more and more of how to use the GRD system and all of its intricacies.
The game’s system allows a lot of freedom of expression where you can string together moves from various situations and extend your combos even from stray hits, but it’s also a quite fast game so if you enjoy high-paced action this is definitely the game for you.
Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes features two new characters besides Kaguya as well, Tsurugi and Kuon. Both of these fighters feel quite fleshed out and definitely offer variety from what’s already a quite diverse cast of characters. It feels likely that anyone can find a playstyle that gels with them if they sit down with the game.
As for the main improvement of the game that everyone’s been looking forward to, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes comes equipped with rollback netcode which is a stark upgrade to the netcode previous versions had.
While there weren’t too many people online to practice against during my review period, I did find a decent amount of matches and kept my eye on the milliseconds delay and rollback frames.
Matches where the milliseconds were around 25-30 were of course very fluid, as one would expect from basically any netcode, but to my surprise even games against opponents which were up to 150 milliseconds of delay and hovering around 3-4 rollback frames felt perfectly fine and I honestly had no bad experience with my online matches while trying out the game’s online modes.
It’s worth noting that I am far from an expert when it comes to Under Night In-Birth, so I wasn’t exactly throwing out multiple one-frame link combos or anything like that, but I have a lot of experience with fighting games and am notoriously harsh on online play in particular, so for me to say that the online was very stable is definitely a good mark.
At the end of the day, it feels like Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes is a game crafted to give the fans what they’ve been asking for in the form of a massive netcode upgrade and with a bunch of bonuses, such as a slew of new characters, thrown in with it.
I can’t quite see why this is billed as a sequel rather than a version upgrade, because it doesn’t quite feel like there’s enough here to call it a second game, but it’s a game that very much builds on all of the already strong parts of its predecessors.
Lastly, I want to point out that in today’s gaming landscape I very much value a developer that goes out of their way to cater to their existing fanbase rather than throwing them to the side to chase an entirely different playerbase and I hope that their efforts are rewarded by both their loyal fans as well as new adopters alike.
• Visual presentation still feels fresh in 2024 and fills a cool niche that other fighting games have moved away from.
• Very good amount of cosmetics for your character including a color customization feature to put your own flair on your favorite fighters.
• Enjoyable gameplay that feels rewarding both at low and high level.
• Very solid netcode.
• Some of the best music I’ve ever heard in fighting games.
• Very low amount of modes or content to play around with outside of just basic versus matches.
• No explanation of the game’s story or terminology, meaning that new adopters will have a hard time understanding what’s going on.
• Tutorial is a mixed bag with some areas being very interactive and easy to understand, while others are just a lot of words that kind of overwhelm rather than teach.
• Doesn’t quite feel like “Under Night In-Birth 2” as much as a new version similar to how Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] and Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] were.
This review of Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes was conducted on PlayStation 4.