Commonplace

Sonic Battle

I actually think this is a pretty good game, very ambitious for its platform and not quite replicated as far as I know. Where it doesn't succeed, I think it struggles against the limits of its technology, some repetitive play and some very corny story bits.

It's a fighting game, played in a sort of top-down Mode 7 view, often with a few brawlers on the screen at once; the closest thing is probably Power Stone 2.

But as a portable game, the devs know it's not going to get as much multiplayer as a typical fighter. Instead, there's a fairly extensive campaign and a relatively rich move collection / character customization element. I remember play being kind of like the process of learning a character in Smash Bros, but continuous as the moveset would keep changing.

I'm also a fan of the art style in this game, and played around with the colored-outline characters in my own art for bit.