Arcana Heart 3

Arcana Heart 3 is a 2D versus fighter with an all-female cast. Japan has a problem: planar rifts which appear all over the country. Rumour says that powerful Celestial Stones can be found within these rifts. The 23 fighters, all using varied character designs (e.g. a ninja, a clown or a witch), try to get their hands on a Celestial Stone and of course clash against other...

The basics are similar to other games of the same genre: both fighters try to beat each other by depleting the other's health bar. In the process, the players use both regular and special (activated by pressing button combinations) attacks. The two specialities of the fighting system is a dedicated button for air-dashes, with the result that much of the action happens in the air, and the 23 Arcanas. Those are demons which can be freely chosen and activated during the match. Those have their own set of special attacks which can be combined with the character's for a bigger effect. Each character has a bar separated into three parts and depletes when using special attacks: one quickly regenerates and the others fill up with successful attacks from the player or the opponent. When more of the bar is full, more powerful attacks can be launched. The available playing modes are story/arcade (seven regular and a boss fight with banter in between), versus (single fights against the AI or another player) and score attack (one fight after another for high-sore hunt).

The console port adds voice acting during story mode and online multiplayer.