izigame.me

I was very excited for this game after its announcement since I never got the chance to play vanilla Versus, so I spent the months leading up to its release hyping it up. Now, I can't in good faith recommend this to anyone who has played other fighting games before.
I could write an essay on the character balance and the system mechanics and what kind of play the game incentivizes, but I think it all can be summed up one way: The game is completely unaware of its own BS, and as such, it gives you no recourse to counter it. The biggest offenders are by far the aforementioned system mechanics, specifically dashing light (66L). If you don't know what 66L is, let me explain it in a sentence: It is a universal, meterless, far-advancing, plus-on-block combo starter that has 8 frames of startup (i.e. completely unreactable).
In short, 66L is everything. It's your neutral (since you can't whiff punish it on reaction), it's your pressure (in many cases all by itself), it's your defense, even, since you can very easily do it out of block to instantly take your turn back after various normals or specials. This one singular move alone completely centralizes and simplifies everything about the game. It makes some characters unbearable to deal with, instills poor offensive and neutral habits in players, and turns many interactions that would require finesse, strategy, or *thought* into what amounts to gambling. Some characters need it to function, and other characters have aspects of their kit completely invalidated by it, which ties into the detriments of Brave Counter and the Brave Point system (which I will not be addressing for the sake of brevity).
There's so much more I could talk about, but I'll just give a brief synopsis instead:
If you're looking for a fighting game that rewards player and skill expression, as opposed to being a 1v1 beat-'em-up with extra steps, you're in the wrong place. The character balance is consistently awful; the system mechanics are a complete mess; the risk/reward the game has is incredibly skewed towards the aggressor, leaving the defender at a major disadvantage that is almost insurmountable in many cases absent a meterless reversal or using a Brave Counter (which makes you take more damage the more you use it). This can be doubly or even triply compounded on itself depending on the character you're using or fighting. As such, the game is a mess when you try to play it with any sense of competition in mind.
TL;DR, If you're completely new to fighting games or someone who isn't competitive at all, you may find some enjoyment in this game. It's extremely easy to pick up and play (albeit you still need to learn some basic fighting game fundamentals), and doesn't require as much of you as other games due to its volatility and simplicity. That said, if you're an avid fighting game enthusiast or even an intermediate player looking for a new game to test yourself against others in a strategic battle of wits, this game was not made for you.