Gleam of Force [小鳩ヶ丘高校女子ぐろ~部] Game Sample - PC/Doujin
Glove on Fight is a doujin game that was made back in 2002 by Watanabe Seisakujo (who is now French-Bread), which was a play on the game "Groove on Fight" (featuring some similar gameplay mechanics) and starred characters from various anime, dating sims, other doujin, and mascot characters. It had a relatively basic fighting engine but was a fairly popular game due to the characters it represented and more technical gameplay.
Over five years later, French-Bread made a sequel to the game known as "Gleam of Force", which is also labeled "GOF2" or "Glove on Fight 2", which is an immense update to the game in terms of audio/visuals, gameplay mechanics, and extra content. Featuring an original cast of characters derived from various flash creations by Shunpu-Tei-Ko-Bo (or Shin-uchi Oouso), GOF(2) is much more rounded and competitive and features enormous characters who duke it out in a boxing match fashion. Characters can parry attacks in a variety of ways (as well as deflect weaker blows with stronger attacks), dodge attacks, block attacks, and close in with dashing tactics while unleashing a flurry of well-coordinated attacks. The game features many good gameplay mechanics.
There are a number of things that make the game shine outside of the fundamentals. One thing to be mindful of is "Invarid" (Invalid) attacks which come up when a combo can be rendered ineffective under ordinary circumstances. Another cool characteristic is the "Infight" feature when you aggresively close in on an opponent. This feature lowers an opponents coutering capabilities and helps reduce their Endurance gauge, but more importantly, you can chain together attacks faster than you normally can, creating combos you wouldn't be capable of by default. Taking advantage of Infighting can lead to substantial combinations and the time of an "Infight" depends on your flow, which is when you fight successfully without getting hit or parrying. Later versions (like 1.3.2) also use "Infighting" and "Outboxing" which grant additional enhancements, but this video uses the classic (old) style as it's an earlier version.
Characters who sustain critical blows can also reach "Heart Break" status, where endurance falls far below zero percent and a character is paralyzed and/or completely vulnerable to any powerful combinations. Characters also have a variety of Super Arts (one that can also be done when below 50 percent health). The most "interesting" feature is the "Measure" system. It's a bar that determines the flow of the fight and grants greater strength to characeters who get pummeled while reducing your own attack. It allows for reversals and can be influenced more with parries... personally, I don't like it that much. Maybe a bit of a handicap is okay, but it can completely allow a novice to turn a match around with one sub-standard blow. Most characters cannot jump and once the mechanics are learned, you can just combo the crap out of the computer regardless of difficulty, so the game is better for Vs. and Netplay (which it supports).
Overall, Gleam of Force is a great doujin game with a decent character roster, a few unlockables, and a refreshingly different fighting engine. We mainly play without data to not spoil too much and fight two simple matches in VS CPU mode (Story takes too long to get started) to illustrate various things. The opening song is titled "Perfect Game". Enjoy.