The appeal for GigaBash is simple: playable big kaiju battles that are fun for everyone. To make that, it draws inspiration from a trinity of fighting games: the cult-hit PS2 first-party title War Of The Monsters, the cult-hit Dreamcast 3D arena fighter Power Stone, and the cultural touchstone of the platform fighter genre, the Super Smash Bros. series.

Malaysian-based developers Passion Republic Games has made a wonderful debut as an up-and-coming indie developer with GigaBash. This fighting game packs a strong punch.

Presentation

Passion Republic Games now joins the few game developers based in Malaysia, and from what we’ve observed all these devs have a common trait among them: they make really, really great art and music. There’s a reason why the country is a good source of co-development talents, but given the opportunity to make their own mark, these talented folks can truly make their mark.

For a game about kaijus doing MegaBattles, you’d be surprised that all the characters are originally made for GigaBash. No guest characters here. But even without a household name like Godzilla, King Kong or Ultraman, the cast of Titans (as the kaijus are effectively called in-game) and Heroes that make up the playable character roster not only fills in the expected tropes of a Tokusatsu character, but also have their own charm.

Gorogong, the Ryu of the cast if you will (because he’s the first on the character selection, and has a mean rising uppercut) is both goofy and menacing. Pipijuras looks odd and alien because he is one. The cool and edgy mecha Thundatross is piloted by a less cool but definitely edgy teen (at least he willingly wants to get in the robot).

Gigaman is when mom says we have Ultraman at home, but actually, he’s also a alternate take on PapaZola, a veteran superhero out of retirement and out of shape. Woolley sucks (like how a vacuum cleaner sucks). And why do you need King Kong when you have Kongkrete, a sentient building monster that behaves like a mimic (it can blend in the levels with buildings), chomps you like there’s no tomorrow and can turn into a skyscraper to bring its foes towering down?

The maps you engage in these UltraPaloozas also have a good variety. From seaside towns to hidden temples. From in the middle of a city in Tokyo to in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Siberia. Each map is filled with objects and props to be destroyed, accidentally or not. And seeing a well-packed arena flatten into a pile of rubble and debris sells you on the destructive powers of these kaijus, and that sense of power is gratifying.

The music is fantastic as well. Each map and character have its own dynamic music, and it’s clear they are homaging their source material with some of the tunes you hear here. But remove that context and judge the music on their own merit, these are still absolute bangers that score the HugeFights. An orchestra of instruments are used, but not used in a way to make boring, generic, Hollywood-wannabe music. But rather it’s to provide a little grandiose to the very memorable hooks peppered with various other instruments, including, of course, the gamelan.

That title theme, for instance, goes hard. It sounds like a typical Japanese action show, and then the guitars come screeching and the bass starts slapping. I want to linger in the menus because of it.

Unfortunately, the audio mixing while in gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. The Titans and Heroes do grunt and shout but there are barely audible in the heat of battles. And in the story mode, there seems to be a bug that will cause all sound effects audio to not play, leaving you hearing only the fantastic music until the next cutscene kicks in. Also, the game has no voice acting for its story mode, which is fine to not have given it’s not a big-budget title, but for those looking for it, the game will feel a little bit dry as a result.

Gameplay

GigaBash has 2 to 4 players duke it out for Titan supremacy. It’s a 3D arena brawler in the sense that every character moves around the map in 3D, but there’s only one camera and it’s a top-down view. Very much Power Stone in this regard. But the controls and match format should be highly reminiscent of Smash. There are only 6 buttons of action and you can do tilts and button holds for different attacks.

By default, in each match characters have two stocks (lives), you build meter by doing damage or collecting Giga energy- the pink blobs that scatter around the battlefield. And when you build enough meter you can turn S-Class, become a bigger version of your chosen Titan or Hero, and deal some big damage. From time to time, a big ball with the Gigabash “G” can be seen floating around, like a Smash ball. Smash that and you’ll unleash your character’s ultimate move.

The characters also have mostly symmetrical controls. As in, once you learn one character, it’s easy to pick up the others. As such, GigaBash is easy to pick up and play. Controls can feel a bit floaty, but that keeps the action from not being too fast. But you can figure out setups and sort-of-combos that will keep opponents getting up. And then they can counter it with a wake-up attack, of course.

If there is a nitpick, is that since the camera doesn’t rotate, it can be easy to lose sight of your own character amid the chaos. Even worse when the opponents have gone S-Class and you are a tiny little speck hidden behind them. At least when you are behind buildings, the game highlights your character shape so you can see through them which is nice.

The way the match format works is great. You don’t have a timer, but you can feel that the game saying enough is enough and start throwing those pink orbs willy-nilly in hopes that will turn the tides of a match so that we can end it already. And despite borrowing a lot from Smash, it does not use a damage meter. Instead, you have regular old health bars, easy to understand by everyone.

Matches can be hectic, especially when it’s a full-on 4-player free-for-all. From various environmental damage (there’s a map where a large petrol station sits basically at the center, waiting to explode), to stage gimmicks (how about a robo-mech NPC that just fights everyone until someone takes care of them?). There are so many ways for a GigaBash match to go chaotic. And if you’re playing with a human player, anyone taken out early can still play and influence the HumongousBout, by firing missiles, lasers and other targeted strikes either to get back on someone or just to mess around and add more to the chaos.

A casual match of GigaBash is a ton of fun, and with its easy-to-learn controls, makes it a great game to play with family and friends of various gaming skill levels. Have a GigaBash setup at a BigParty or other social events, it should be a blast.

Especially with Mayhem mode, a local-play-only mode where you compete (and rarely co-operate) to win objectives. Some are quick, silly and fun, though a few of the objectives might not be as much. The Evolution objective in particular can take forever as everyone taking out each other, resetting their meter while the energy ball that should be dropping the pink orbs is only drip-feeding you with morsels of a meter increase. But the mode in general works as a fun collection of little mini-games.

But with the state of our world right now, it makes more sense to play the game online. And playing the game online is well… okay. It doesn’t have all the features that a fighting game enthusiast would expect, but during this launch window, it’s serviceable. Online matches use P2P connection and can suffer from the usual freezing due to connection issues, but not gameplay-hindering levels, from what I tested out (your mileage may vary). It’s a shame the devs can’t work out full cross-play between PlayStation consoles and PC players so all players share the same matchmaking pool.

Content

GigaBash as a fighting game serves a relatively small portion of content, but like a good balance diet, it covers all the bases. You get 10 playable characters (three unlockable via story mode), 17 stages plus 1 training stage, a training mode to lab out combos or learn the characters, the aforementioned Mayhem mode, and a story mode.

The story mode is fine. Presentation-wise it’s immaculate. The camera cuts from gameplay fights to cinematics, and the transitions from using in-game assets to the 2D art animatics are sublime. The story itself is what you’d expect from a tribute to Tokusatsu (and for one chapter, mecha anime), which is predictable but can still be somewhat enjoyable.

But at least the scenarios for the five acts of each of the four story mode chapters are creative. It’s not just “beat this character up” in a glorified arcade mode. It has gimmick fights and also provides proper build-ups and payoffs for each battles. You can feel that effort is being poured rather than this being an afterthought.

The difficulty of the story mode fights can be all over the place though, from “oh yeah I can cheese this fight by doing this one move over and over” to “goodness sake how the heck am I supposed to take out a giant rock if their bread-and-butter attack costs more than a third of the life bar gone”.

Only four of the characters got a dedicated story mode chapter. The story mode content is short, it will take less than 3 hours of play. So don’t expect to enjoy the game only as a single-player experience.

There are character skins, artwork and even music as unlockables, gained from levelling up your profile and each character. It’s not much but it’s there.

Personal Enjoyment

I casually enjoy fighting games, and am completely rubbish at them. So a more casual-oriented brawler like GigaBash appeals to me from the get-go. And the many matches I had have been a blast. Sure, sometimes I lost track of my character. And then got completely decimated by players who know what they’re doing and by CPUs above the default level 3, but it was fun.

And just like my brief time seeing and playing the game the first time all the way back in 2019, GigaBash delivered what that showcase demo promised. Chaotic fun, simple to get into, but with enough depth to get the more serious fighting game players to keep on playing and learn its tricks. It’s something special indeed.

Of course, it should be mentioned that as a Malaysian, I personally have a vested interest in seeing this game succeed. Even if I may be biased in that way, I genuinely believe that if you pick up a copy of GigaBash today, get 3 other people to play together with you, it will be a fun time.

If anything that I can dock points from is that GigaBash does have some noticeable bugs, especially prevalent in story mode.

Verdict

GigaBash’s onslaught of chaotic fun is easy to get into and has enough depth to keep fighting game fans playing for longer. With fun and charming original characters, a striking presentation of amazing visual design and audio delight, GigaBash will make you want to get a group of people together for a bash and have a good time bashing kaijus and buildings.

GigaBash is the MegaHit debut for Passion Republic Games, and hopefully, their future titles continue to wow and impress as good as this.

Played on PC. Review copy provided by Passion Republic Games.