Melty Blood ~ Act Cadenza

Based on the game and anime series Lunar Legend Tsukihime, Melty Blood is a one-on-one beat 'em game series that's been around for a while if I'm not mistaken, and there's even a new arcade game coming out based on this game.

The first thing you'll definately notice about the game is the 2D graphics seem similar to Guilty Gear or Street Fighter Alpha, with it's anime style look and wild combo attacks that can have the characters flying all over the screen. The characters look detailed like their anime likenesses, but their animations do seem a bit stiff, and the character sprites also seem a little small. And despite the majority female cast, there's almost zero fan service as far as that goes. The girls are all fully clothed like everyday people should be ^_^.
The voice acting is good (it is Japanese afterall), though it does get repetative after a while, and the background music is ok as well.
Gameplay is rather easy to get into since everyone seems to have the same joystick/button motions to pull of their special moves and supers. The only problem of course is that using the standard PS2 analog controller can blister up your fingers rather quickly.
There's incentive to play through the single player modes multiple times to unlock all the hidden stuff like hidden characters and character art, but whether you feel like going through essentially what feels like the same thing over and over again is up to you.
Overall: Fans of the series would definately enjoy it, as well as 2D fight fans who enjoy games like Guilty Gear. I think what would have helped make the game better would be a little more speed.

Ratings:
Graphics – 8
Sound – 8
Gameplay – 8
Lifespan – 7
Overall – 7