Does this mean we'll have Act Cadenza for PC? I wish I could read Japanese.

I've had Melty Blood for a couple years. It's good but nowhere near the level of GG and SF.

Never liked SF at all. GG is great, style, graphics, music, but after GGX stuff got overcomplicated. Isuka was downright unplayable, Slash seems like GGXX with some extras from GGXX added.
MB is faster and yet less hectic - at every given moment I completely understand what's going on (apart from the story, that is). Not so with GG. Also combos are more intuitive.
Another thing - while characters from MB lack style (yeah, a girl in a skirt and sweater can't be compared to a scythe-wielding crossdresser style-wise), they have more personality.

Actually the gameplay and characters are the thing I have trouble with most on this game. The characters are bland and uninteresting and I've never found much personality in any of them. The gameplay gets very monotonous and dull, not feeling any real satisfaction from the moves and combos and no desire to continue for too long. Theres just nothing about the game that really stands out as being anything more than above average like the masses of fighting games that appeared on the 16 bit consoles during SFII's reign. Though I probably got more enjoyment out of it than most of SNK's games (cept MotW and Last Blade) but it's certainly not a game I ever found myself wanting to come back to often and it made no impression on friends of mine who also love fighting games (one of them owns several arcade machines of SF and KoF).

Street Fighter Alpha 3 and to a slightly lesser extent Guilty Gear X are just far superior in gameplay as well as everything else to MB.

And Isuka is not unplayable at all, it's actually one of the most played games between me and my buddies when we want a good fighting game tournament (usually with cash prize incentive). Fantastic times playing that.

Personally I think this is one of the best fighting games that no-one has heard of. It's got an incredibly deep system, it's easy to pick up, it's visually really awesome in a retro way, there is excellent portrait art and excellent music, and (if you care to investigate it..) a very deep and entertaining back story. There is a whole anime dedicated to the series (Tsukihime) as well as some risque visual novel games that will probably never be translated. Anyway. Melty Blood has a very solid feel that most other indie fighting games haven't got - and testament to that there is a wonderful arcade and PS2 version of this game. I can vouch for the excellence of the PS2 version, really good with a bunch of like-minded friends.
Oh, plus a ton of the characters are super cute~ :D

It's almost import time yet again...

I liked the recent Street Fighters, but to me there's always been something missing. I like some of the characters, but a lot of the game seems inconsequential to me. Guilty Gear looks great and plays incredibly well (Most balanced 2D-Fighter ever? I've heard it thrown around a lot), but the story is interesting, almost every character has some kind of fascinating back story or just great quirk about themselves that affects their fighting style. And the music... has music in a fighting game ever been this good? Has it ever been beaten since?

Melty Blood however seems to nail the battle system perfectly for me. I've been playing Final Tuned for a while now (Ciel of course is my weapon of choice. Those knives are beyond devastating) and I just enjoy it so much. It's fast, but never too fast. You don't feel entirely overwhelmed. If someone hits you with an EX-Attack you never once think '******* cheap AI!', you hate yourself for it. You know the game is perfectly executed, and it pushes you into reacting that little bit faster, maybe shielding the attack next time, countering or even taking the offensive. It reminds me of Space Tripper in the way. If you want to do better it all comes down to just fighting more and more.

My only gripe is that there's a story mode that I don't understand. And again, that's another flaw of my own really rather than the games. Damn you Melty Blood. I'll be seeing you soon...

Actually i find this game to be quite interesting. Indeed this game features some of the most diverse set of characters and personalitys i have seen in few animes and games alike. And like yokaze said this game is based on tsukihime which was actually translated by mirror moon not long ago. And if you want to know the story for melty blood you can probably find some fan translated
melty blood manga on beast lair forums.Btw a english patch for melty blood will be out soon as revelove translations are nearing their end of the patching procces.

For the game it self i think the combos system has been balanced out since final tuned, now my friend can no longer pull his infinite combos with sion when i play hime online. I have not played act cadenza yet but i hope it comes out for PC. This is one of the few games i enjoy playing online with my friends, the other being your typical fps games.

It's a great game but the combos are way too easy to execute. I mean come on I got like a 30+ hit combo by button mashing. The character designs are dull but the fighting system is great. My fav character would be Nanayo Shiki. Even though he's a generic anime school kid we a knife he still owns.

Well to all the other non-believer's below, you obviously don't know the game mechanics, I don't see how the characters are bland if you've used all their ARC specials you can see the uniqueness between all the characters. There are repeats of characters but this is no different than the Drk. Ryu / Ryu shit that goes on in SF. The shielding system is incredibly complex and provides way more diversity in redirecting attacks and start-combos, bring into effect Blood Heat and several multi-stage specials per character and you're getting a intensely complex fighter. Boring? Hardly. Go watch the Arcade League matches for this game and its incredibly intense. GG is more of a button masher than this game FYI. Skilled players will ALWAYS beat button mashers.