Having played a wide variety of fighting games since their origins back in the arcades, it’s always wild to see new developers come to the table with new takes on the genre. This many decades in, I was beginning to think that I’d seen all of the variety the genre had to offer, with new contenders simply having their own look and flow but not necessarily reinventing the wheel. Yomi 2 does just that though, moving the familiar elements of fighters you’ve loved over the years into a more strategically-based endeavor.

The idea here is that Yomi 2 is a character-based deckbuilder, replacing the traditionally very active gameplay with a more turn-based take that’s more methodical, but still retains the same basic concepts. You’ll have cards for different attacks, blocks, throws, specials, and more, and depending on how you’re able to match your opponents moves every turn you’ll have the opportunity to pull off powerful combos as well. The tutorial tries its best to equip you with the concepts and elements you’ll need for success, and at least while you’re working through each step, and learning the ropes, it all at least makes sense to a degree. The good news is that if you’re able to get the hang of things there’s a pretty impressive roster of fighters who each have their own general style, one of which will hopefully suit you. The bad news is that unfortunately, outside of the confines of the tutorial, I found that I consistently struggled with how best to deal with my foes.

Granted, playing these games in real-time involves almost all of these same decisions and tactics, but I really had a tough time latching onto how to be successful. More often than not it felt like my initial move was little more than a rock-paper-scissors exercise, where I’d be hoping to get an opening that would then allow me to get some momentum going. Unfortunately, more often than not it really felt like the CPU had a leg up on me, so every match started to feel like a losing battle since even when I would make the right move, it felt like I couldn’t get the cards I needed in place to productively follow up. Perhaps if you plan to play with friends locally or online it would be easier to get some traction, but against the CPU this just felt like there wasn’t enough juice here for the squeeze to be satisfying.