Skullgirls is genuinely a great game. The music is an absolute jam, gameplay is enjoyable, the humor is lovely, characters are fun in every way, and the art is beautiful. This is one of the biggest vibes I've had the pleasure of experiencing in a fighting game. If you like jazz, 2d fighting games, and don't shudder at the sight of a woman, give Skullgirls a try. The only reason I leave a negative review is because of censorship, followed by a lack of foreseeable support.

After the original dev team broke apart due to horrendous management following the attempted removal of the lead designer, Hidden Variable Studios & Future Club were to take control of Skullgirls and keep it afloat. These new devs added additional paid characters to play as, but proceeded to censor content that has been in the game since a decade before.

Various references to and depictions of sexual content, race, and fascism were removed in 2015 (following the rebranding of Skullgirls as 2nd Encore) & 2023.
In 2015, some animations were changed to obstruct visible panties, and Lab Zero Games promised no more censorship afterwards.
In 2020, ownership changed. In 2023, the game was censored as a whole.
Some of these changes took form in sprite & art alterations: changing the colors of undergarments, removing a comb from an Italian character's head because her burst animation turned her hair into an afro (this was in the name of removing racial stereotypes, but her brown clone still has the comb for some reason), replacing Valentine's cross imagery with shurikens (blame the actual Red Cross organization for this, since they copyrighted the medical symbol we all grew up with) ,and removing Nazi symbolism from the Black Egrets (the villains). Much of the art from the downloadable artbook was removed in line with updates made to the game itself.
In terms of actual content, multiple voice lines, voice packs, & lines were removed; some were sex jokes while others were references to other games, the story, or the community (two examples are the "Barely Legal" 18-hit combo rating, and Big Band's "Cheen" line from his voice pack). Story panels related to the police brutality & sexual assault suffered by Big Band & Filia, respectively, were removed entirely. Gallery art was altered in the same way as all the other changes.

The only way to experience the game with its original story and art is to download a pre-censorship patch and replace your game files. Or you can got to Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> entercode 'ireallyfearchange' and select that build from 2016.

Development for this game has also ceased in the wake of legal disputes between the devs & publisher, forgoing future content additions and leaving the censorship as is, unless the development team(s) shift again. Online play still works, though, so its worth buying if you want to play with a friend on another computer.

My only other complaint is that the men aren't as sexualized as the women. GIVE ME EQUALITY DAMNIT!

After playing this game for only two sessions, I can proudly say that for my first Steam purchase for a 2D fighting game, this is excellent! The characters are lovable and memorable, from the sadistic nurse Valentine to the more fascinatingly designed characters like Double or Filia.

The stories are rather simple, but they have the charm needed to keep the player invested. The OST is just fantastic, and there was no point where I was taken out of the game.

As someone who hasn't played many advanced fighting games, I really appreciate how balanced this game feels. In a lot of fighters, like Killer Instinct, you can sort of just button-mash your way through. Here, mashing won't work—your inputs need to be intentional—but the game handles it so well that it never feels overwhelming or too difficult to pick up.

Keep in mind that in story mode, you will actually have to unlock some characters like Valentine by playing other characters' stories first, though she is unlocked out of the gate in free play. Also, Fukua's story mode is actually on some bull. The final boss has 300% health, and even cheese strats make it difficult!

Finally, for the more controversial censoring, don't worry about it-you're playing a fighting game. I never really noticed anything since I'm too focused on the *fighting*. Additionally, the developers let you rollback to previous versions of the game anyway via Steam betas, which are uncensored. So even if you are pissed about it, it doesn't make much of a difference to the actual package.

A solid 4/5 game.

Look, the game is really great, but I find it irritating that the devs go through such effort to take what they consider offensive out of the game, (like the Russian announcer which was obviously a gag and I doubt offended anyone), but think it's fine that Parasoul wears an upside down cross around her neck.