What Koihime Enbu is
Koihime Enbu started life as an arcade fighting game and keeps that heritage intact: fast combat, tight controls, and clean 2D visuals. It's a ground-based fighter with 13 playable characters, so matches stay readable instead of turning into a mess of air dashes and screen-filling gimmicks. The roster is drawn from the Koihime Musou visual novel, which reimagines the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with most characters as girls. Expect anime-styled fighters and a story backdrop that leans on that setting rather than on original lore.
How a group plays it together
The core of a session is versus play. You can go online for ranked matchmaking and climb the ladder, or keep things local with the versus mode for matches against friends on the same setup. Remote Play Together is available, which lets someone join your session over the internet as if they were sitting next to you. Between matches, Replay Mode is there to save your best bouts and to review the ones you lost, so a group can watch a round back and see exactly where it went wrong.
Systems worth learning
The Fatal Counter system is the mechanic that defines the game's combo structure. Certain moves trigger it, giving those attacks different properties that make combos easier to start and longer to extend. Because almost every attack is punishable, the game rewards precision over mashing — you get punished for throwing out unsafe moves, and you get rewarded for knowing which of yours are safe. The Tactics Meter is the resource you spend on special moves, EX special moves, super moves, and ultimate moves, so meter management matters as much as your neutral game.
Before you start
Training Mode puts you against a dummy to work out punishes and combo routes, and Challenge Mode is where you test those routes under set conditions. Between the 13 characters and 7 assist characters, there's a lot of strategic variety to sort through before you settle on a team. The game carries Steam Achievements, Cloud saves, and Trading Cards. It's tagged with Nudity, so keep that in mind for who's watching over your shoulder.