14 DAY TRIAL // 
Reality Fighters on the PlayStation Vita is a mix between a classic fighting game, an augmented reality experience and a virtual doll management game and only the first part of the experience is solid enough to keep gamers engaged in the long term.
Reality Fighters was created by Novarama, a Spain based studio that is best known for creating titles for the older PSP from Sony, and is a launch title for the new Vita, one of those experiences specifically created in order to show off the abilities of the device.
The game allows players to create a fighter, using a number of pretty limited options (the most amusing of them is the fighting style, where ballet is a necessary first choice), that can then be used to play a number of solo fights or to engage with friends, colleagues and enemies in multiplayer.
To begin the process the player needs to take a photo of himself and then create a player body linked to it. The editor also includes 50 weapons and 400 piece of clothing as the game progresses, most of them unlocked as the player gets experience via battles.
Reality Fighters allows gamers to practice and learn the best moves associated with the style they picked, using a mode where the computer can gradually be taken from easy to hard in order to see what kind of moves it can deploy.
Then it’s time to tackle the ladder of enemy combatants in Story mode, with Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid fame (voiced by Pat Morita himself) offering short stories about the opponents and hints on how they can be defeated.
The gameplay is pretty fun and learning combos and special moves is engaging to all those who have spent time and enjoyed something like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. It’s also simple enough for newcomers to understand quickly, even if they choose to button mash rather than deploy any kind of strategy.
The big twist here is that any kind of surface can be used as the battle space, which is really impressive for a few fights, but the gimmick cannot remain interesting in the long term and I quickly found that using one of the predetermined backgrounds became the norm for me.
The hardware of the Vita, the two sticks and the buttons, are well suited to the game experience and there’s also an option to guide the player character using front and back touch, some of the most impressive features of the handheld.
I found this unique Vita mechanic interesting but it’s much easier to just use the classic control theme, especially when it comes to performing combos and playing against truly competitive opponents. I never felt that Reality Fighters missed any inputs when using classic controls.
There’s a lot of variety when it comes to computer opponents but Reality Fighters is designed to be a social experience, with leaderboards and Friends lists supported and the ability to engage other Vita users using the NEAR system.
Reality Fighters looks very good and moves smoothly but at times the graphics can become a little tiring, with their abundance of bright colors and cartoonish traits for the characters.
It is pretty clear that neither Sony nor Novarama tried to build a hardcore fighting game with Reality Fighters and that their stated aim is to create an easy to pick up experience that gamers on the Vita can quickly understand and play.
The game largely succeeds in doing this while the more hardcore crowd can wait for the Vita version of something like Street Fighter x Tekken crossover from Capcom in order to satisfy their needs.
