Pocket Bravery

11 February, 2024 - 2:24 pm by Drew Sherratt
About 11 mins to read
Reviewed on: PC

In my youth (yes, I was young once), I was a pretty big Street Fighter 2 guy. One of my earliest gaming memories was throwing pound coins into the arcade cab at the local fairground with wanton abandon, trying to master all of the moves laid out on the control panel, looking on, doe-eyed, at the older kids who could rattle off move after move with ruthless precision. I’d eventually get the console version and play the hell out of it, and would maintain a certain fondness for fighting games that lasts even to this day. Enter: Pocket Bravery, an indie project from South American developers, Statera Studios – striding out as a fresh competitor in the fighting game arena, and I was keen to see if it had what it takes to mix it up with the big boys.

Honestly, in the early goings, the answer to that is a pretty resounding ‘Yeah, it can hang alright!’ I think fighting games benefit from having an ‘easy to play but difficult to master’ feel, and by going with a traditional control scheme and familiar fighting styles, Pocket Bravery invites just about everyone to snatch up a controller and give it a go. There are move lists available, of course, but I initially just went through my repertoire of SFII button combos and came across a good percentage of the moves as I went. Now, that’s not to say this approach made me any good at Pocket Bravery, because that would be a flat out lie – I was getting pretty heavily mauled by the CPU early on, but I enjoyed that old fashioned ‘Hold on, let me figure out my moves’ thing we all used to do as kids, despite getting consistently hammered.

At A Glance

POCKET BRAVERY
Positives	+ Slick, combo-building action + Nostalgic Neo Geo-inspired visuals + Great tutorial and combo improvement sections
Negatives	– PC online player count almost non-existent – Story Mode isn’t very engaging – I found the controls a little tricky (but I do suck, so…)
Overall	6 /10
Played On	PC
Also Available On	Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X\|S, Xbox One
Find out about our scoring policy here.

So what makes Pocket Bravery different from other fighting games out there? In a world of super high-definition graphics, I point to the throw-you-all-the-way-back-like-a-German-suplex visuals, where the 2D pixel art style knocks you straight into the 90’s, to the heyday of 2D fighting games like The King of Fighters and Fatal Fury. Not content with the nostalgia offered by their graphical design choice, Statera Studios decided to kick it into overdrive by portraying their characters in a certain chibi style that *screams* Neo Geo Pocket, elevating what would be a decent looking game up to another tier entirely – at least for an old fogey like me. While the arenas might not be quite so impressive, this is definitely made up for by the character and effects animations, which I think are just wonderful.

There are tonnes of game modes available, including the standard Arcade, Versus, Online and Training, as well as some fun alternatives like Survival, where you battle fighters until you drop, or Trials, where you have to pull off increasingly difficult combos with your chosen fighter – a handy training tool as well as a cool challenge. I was also excited to see that the game boasted a Story Mode, which is something I often think is sorely lacking in fighting games. As it turns out though, it’s less of a game mode and more of a story, where you click through page after page of comic book interactions between the characters with only morsels of in-game action in between. It’s a shame that there isn’t a better mix of story and gameplay, as I quite enjoyed getting to know the characters and understanding their relationships, but needed the engagement of more full scale battles to help keep me locked in.

To Statera Studios credit, they have done a wonderful job of catering to fighting fans of all levels, with a tutorial that covers everything you need to know about not just Pocket Bravery, but fighting games in general. Fresh out of the box newbies are walked through the basic controls, various buttons and special moves, before moving on to the more game-specific mechanics like elemental attacks and super special moves. And if you still haven’t had your fill of learning and want to ingratiate yourself a little deeper into fighting game culture, there’s a fantastic overview of various terms and techniques that separate the dirty casuals from the sweaty pros. I had no real existing knowledge about cancel attacks or input delay (and honestly, I still don’t entirely get it all), but Pocket Bravery does a great job at offering insight that players wishing to dedicate themselves to the genre would find incredibly helpful. And for those players who are already custom joystick-wielding aficionados, the practice modes have all the togglable bells and whistles to let you understand the hit boxes, your active and cooldown frames, and all that other wizardry that makes you so horribly unbeatable.

One of the major downfalls of older fighting games offering only couch co-op is that when only one player owns the game, the other player stands absolutely zero chance, usually sapping the fun from the experience. Fast forward to 2024 though and online play offers a much more level field for players, opening up the opportunity to battle folks of every ability level instead of just whipping your buddies over and over again. But this is where the long term prospects of Pocket Bravery takes a nosedive I’m afraid, as I struggled to find many bouts at all, and even that smattering were against players on far-and-away international servers. Taking a peek at the handy Steam Charts, I was saddened to find there’s only a handful of concurrent players (on PC, at least), severely hampering the appeal for more serious fight players who need at least a healthy online community to compete against.

I’m a always a little wary of character design in ‘world warrior’ type fighting games, where combatants are often boiled down to a collection of national stereotypes, and while Pocket Bravery does more than a little of this, I’m willing to give it a pass since the whole game is essentially an homage to the games of yesteryear which unashamedly started the tradition. The characters in Pocket Bravery each have an element assigned to them which they can unleash upon their opponents as part of their elemental and super special moves. From the main protagonist, Nuno, a quite literally fiery and proud fighter from Brazil, to the hulking Russian wrestler (sound familiar?) Arshavin, or Sebastian, the Scottish boxer with the powers of ice, there’s some really fun characters to battle with.

One of the standouts is Ximena, a bombshell sporting Dia de los Muertos make-up and wielding the powers of the underworld from the streets of Mexico – yes, it’s pretty tropey, but she comes across as a total badass. Make no bones about the coolest character though, as the main antagonist, Hector Alvarez, absolutely steals the show. With a snarling grin, broad mohawk, combat pants and boots, rippling with muscles from head to toe, he looks every inch the bad guy who’s ready to stave your head in. He’s portrayed as a suitably horrible dude in the story, but man, he is one cool SOB – even more so when he’s wearing his awesome hound respirator mask and unleashing purple fire all over the place.

I thought the soundtrack to Pocket Bravery sounded really well produced, and brings a real level of polish to the title that can sometimes be missing from smaller indie projects. Laden with punchy guitar riffs and blistering solos, it’s exactly what a fighting game needs. The main theme, ‘Bravura na Alma’ by Miura Jam, is particularly cool and very fitting – a power metal epic oozing with emotive tones that’ll get you fired up to take on all comers and knock out the competition. It’s not all axe shredding though – there’s some fun variety added for the character themes, which again lean into the traditional music styles of the characters home nation. I dare say that I enjoyed the soundtrack even more when I listened to it back on Spotify while typing up my review – it has a few really catchy tunes that I would strongly recommend for those who like to listen to metal and/or video game music.

Pocket Bravery charges into an arena full of heavyweights and manages to land a few convincing blows, proving there is room for the little guy in the land of the giants. The Neo Geo-inspired visuals sock you in the mouth as soon as the bell rings, and the soundtrack and character design land as a flurry of blows throughout too. There’s an impressive number of modes to entertain a single player, including a wonderful tutorial and training mode, but sadly, you may be hard pressed to find any folks to play with online, which severely hampers the long term appeal and hurts my willingness to recommend it, in spite of all positives. Ultimately, Pocket Bravery can’t lift the championship belt, but boy, does it land a few haymakers along the way.