More than your money's worth
I didn't expect much from Battle High, but what expectations I did have were more or less blown away.
There's no way that the game can compete with the big releases, but in terms of overall quality, it dwarfs not only the other fighters on Xbox LIVE's indy circuit, but pretty much any indy game that I've played on the console.
The game wears its "small-time dev" pride on its sleeve; it's not surprising that it's ported from a Mark Overmars Game Maker game, and ported entirely by one guy at that. However, this may be part of its endearing charm.
Graphically and gameplay-wise, it definitely takes a lot of cues from SNK games. The game's roster is relatively small, but varied enough to where no two fighters play alike. The battle system isn't the deepest ever, but even after playing it nigh daily for about a month, I'm still finding new tricks with each fighter.
The game's story seems to just scratch the surface of an overlying saga, and it provides some interesting character development for each of the title's brawlers. Unfortunately the dialogue is a bit weak, resorting to cliché after cliché, but it doesn't detract all that much.
I'm wholly torn on where the music stands, sadly. Some stages have some epic rocking that are fondly reminiscent of Guilty Gear tunes, while others are obvious generic-sounding MIDIs, complete with loop break. Considering that most of my game playing happens at night or the wee morning hours, when I've got the sound muted, this doesn't bother me too much, though.
I honestly can say that I enjoyed this title vastly beyond what I expected. It took me a good solid 2 hours just to get used to each character and take them each through arcade mode, and considering that it only costs a measly dollar, I definitely can say it was more than worth the purchase price, especially since most $60 games ordinarily only clock in at 10 hours of work. If you want to take a look at a nice indie fighter, you owe it to yourself to try Battle High.