Fantasy Strike is now free to play. The term “free to play” has a wide range of meanings and we’re excited to tell you that we’re not talking about “one character is free, please buy the rest for $5 each.” No, we mean all characters are free.
All Characters Free
Specifically, you can play all characters in online casual play, online ranked play, offline practice mode, and offline “single match” mode against AI…completely free.
Also we are also adding two new characters: Chancellor Quince and General Onimaru. Everyone gets these characters for free, too.
Two New Characters
To learn more about the gameplay of these new characters, check out their character spotlight videos, narrated by our game director, David Sirlin:
Quince Spotlight Video
Onimaru Spotlight Video
This is something we wanted to do all along. We know that it’s a huge benefit to the playerbase, not just in that they can play for free, but also in that it attracts a ton more opponents for everyone and helps vastly expand the community. The problem for us was always that in order to make the game free-to-play, we have to develop a bunch of other stuff to actually sell. Well, we did that. And we’ve been careful to keep the game completely competitively fair in the process.
Things You Can Buy If You Want
There are three broad types of things people can buy.
First, the core pack: this gives access to five additional game modes: Arcade Mode, Survival, the awesome powerup craziness of Boss Rush, local versus, and online friend matches (founders who already bought the game already have and will retain all these modes). Next, there’s a lot of new cosmetics. Players can buy (sensible!) alternate costumes as well as alternate (non-gameplay) animations such as intros and win poses. Finally, there’s an optional subscription called Fantasy+.
New Cosmetics
Fantasy+ (optional service)
First, Fantasy+ gives you access to our new replay system. We tried very hard to give this feature awesome UI and usability. You can save replays of your own games, watch replays of others, and you even get four new “channels” in our Netflix-like video screen that are all devoted to replays.
Next, every character has a special Master Costume that’s like their ultimate progression. These costumes can’t be bought in the item shop. They are only available to Fantasy+ members, and even then, only if you are level 20 or higher with that character. Fantasy+ members also get an XP boost to cross that threshold faster. (XP does not give any gameplay advantage.)
Finally, Fantasy+ members get their names in green in the game to show their support. Every time you see someone with a green name, you know they are supporting more development of the game.
To everyone who already bought the game, we want you to know that you lose nothing and you gain 2 free new characters to play. We also want you to know that for other people to have all the game modes you do, they’ll have to buy the core pack. And that our founders already have 60 additional costume colors that free-to-play players don’t have.
Get Ready to Dive In
Don’t miss the huge wave of new players that will come with this change. Get in on the game now. While it’s designed to be a deep game for experts, it’s also the perfect “second game” for everyone in the FGC because you can learn the basics so quickly and get right to the strategy. It also happens to be a great game for anyone wanting to try out fighting games for the first time.
For experts, we have a one-year anniversary tournament coming up on Saturday, July 25th and we challenge you to see how well you can do in this simple-seeming, but brutally difficult game.
Welcome to the community!
Discord chat: discord.gg/FantasyStrike
Twitter: @FantasyStrike
Patreon: www.patreon/sirlin
Bug Fixes and Other Patch Notes
CHARACTERS
Rook
--Jump forward/back A (the splash) has smaller defensive boxes on his feet, so that he can more easily jump over projectiles with this move.
--Air C has narrow defensive boxes on the back part of the move, so that he can more easily jump over projectiles with this move.
--C throw has slightly more range. About the same range as “the old throw range plus walking forward for 3 frames”.
Valerie
--Fixed a bug with some of her hit reactions that caused her hand to spin her paintbrush around in a strange way.
Setsuki
--When doing Starlight Tumbler (C button) then doing her air super in the middle of it, the B+C command to do the super now has the same slop factor as all other supers, rather than requiring B and C to be pressed on exactly the same frame. (Simply jumping and doing air super already had the standard slop factor, this fix only applies to doing air super specifically during ground C.)
--Fix: Setsuki’s air parry super now correctly triggers against Argagarg's bubble shield pop.
DeGrey
--Sometimes wall bounces (most notably DeGrey’s counterhit B,B (Tyrant Crusher)) would seem to not work. This is when the wall scrolled over a microscopic amount right as the opponent touched it. Now it bounces when it looks like it should.
Midori
--Fixed Midori back throw not doing damage to Rook.
--Fixed a bug with Midori ground super involving a “kara cancel.” It is correct that when the B+C macro is enabled, pressing B then 1-2 frames later pressing C (or vice versa) cancels the very beginning of the special move and starts the super move. The bug was that Midori could do this after cancelling from a normal move. For example, A cancel to C then 1 frame later press B should NOT perform the super. That’s a stupid kara cancel trick that’s disabled for all other characters, but was accidentally possible here. There is some advantage for Midori to use this, which would force everyone to enable this macro for competitive reasons if we kept the bug.
Geiger
--Fixed the exact same kara cancel bug with Geiger’s ground super that was explained above about Midori’s. This had no practical use for Geiger, but it’s fixed anyway.
--B (and hold B) gears no longer knock down opponents who get hit while jumping. They land on their feet. This prevents him from getting a 2-damage combo when hitting in this situation and prevents his air super from being able to juggle for 3-total damage all the time.
--B (and hold B) have +3f recovery.
--Time Stop (ground super) now automatically ends with a Flash Gear attack, rather than in neutral. This means a successful Time Stop will net him 1 damage total, rather than 2 damage.
Lum
--Fixed a bug with Lum’s fireworks which for the last few months has caused them to track LUM rather than the opponent when the players switch sides after the rocket is summoned. In practical terms, this made the fireworks do nothing in this case, rather than be very powerful as they are supposed to be. The fireworks now work correctly again, the same way they worked for years before this bug was introduced a few months ago.
Tutorial Fixes
--When Midori demonstrates his yomi counter, it will still work (rather than do nothing) if the player 2 controller is doing inputs.
--Fixed a bug in a recent patch that prevented the tutorial dummies in lesson about throws from doing yomi counters when they should. You’re supposed to strike these dummies anyway, not throw them, so it was minor. But now if you try to throw them, they yomi counter correctly so you learn that that’s what happens against opponents who let go of their controls.
--Fixed a bug with the tutorial dummy who must be beaten by jumping S that accidentally allowed it to sometimes also be beaten by ground B.
Online Fixes
--[Windows] When you get an online opponent ("Here comes a new challenger") and the game application isn't in focus, we now flash the taskbar button for the game once, to attract attention.
--Fixed a bug that caused invites to watch to not show the name of the player inviting you, which somehow broke 17 months ago.
--Fixed an issue with players profiles that caused their “best boss rush” to show incorrect data.
--Fixed an issue where characters in menus and gameplay appeared as pure black silhouettes. This could happen as a result of online play loading wrong lighting settings when a game ended.
Misc. Fixes
--Walking left and right now feels more responsive. This does not affect gameplay in any meaningful way, just the feel. When you stopped walking forward or backward before (meaning you let go and returned to neutral specifically), we used to have a short transition of about 6 frames. This transition period was NOT recovery, so you could block instantly, yomi counter instantly, etc. But if you just let go and waited, your character would appear to keep walking for those frames. We’ve eliminated that and now rely only on animation blending to make it look good. The net result is walking and stopping will feel more responsive, yet not allow you to do anything faster than you could before.
--Characters in a blocking pose now continue to have a slight animation if they stay in the blocking pose for a while. Before their animation would freeze if they blocked for a while. (Very minor, doesn’t affect gameplay.)
--When the music volume is set to 0, the music is now actually silent, rather than very quiet.
--[Steam] Fixed a bunch of UI elements disappearing if you launch the game in a very tall aspect ratio (heavily letterboxed).
--[Steam] While the VS screen is loading, pressing Tab to get to your friends list then clicking on the profile icon would cause you to be stuck on your profile screen. Now fixed.
--Fixed sometimes being unexpectedly thrown into a "Single match vs CPU" after quitting another 1P mode such as arcade mode.
--[PS4] If you boot the game while holding down a direction on the gamepad, it no longer messes up your directional after that.
--Fixed bug where projectiles would spawn with the wrong offset after side-switching when a previous projectile is still on the screen. For example, Geiger air S (Cycloid Revolution), opponent switches sides, then Geiger does B (Time Spiral) and the Time Spiral would start offset from Geiger’s character.
--When opening the button config screen, the input focus now starts on the "Done" button rather than on the first assignable button (Jump). That means going to button config then immediately pressing the “back” button will now leave the button config screen, rather than set that button to be jump.
--[Switch/PS4] The button config screen now lets you go to a separate panel called “other controls” that allows you to remap the buttons for frame step mode (to turn it on/off) and frame advance.