Combat Practice 2 is an upcoming crossover fighting game developed by Studio RGB-Newt and published by The Fishal Project. It features characters by artist The-F0X, who made an animation titled The First Fairytale: Combat Practice, which further inspired the game's name, logo, and certain character choices.
Additional characters were chosen from other animations and projects where The-F0X's characters have engaged in combat practice with each other, including Don't Fry Your Friends and even an untitled animation test .gif, providing the game's initial main playable roster of 10 characters. Gameplay is traditional fighting game style: players must use differing attacks to lower their opponent's health to zero. Characters have a variety of unlockable costumes/skins, and can also have a companion pet fighting with them, if their player desires. Various stage hazards and props can be picked up and thrown, along with the ability to break certain side barriers or floors of stages, revealing another traversable part of the stage.
The game features a variety of gamemodes, including a Story Mode, Versus Mode, and a special Gallery Mode where you can walk around a museum of art related to The-F0X's characters from a first-person perspective. Planning for the game started with the discovery of @Achilleon_UE4's Unreal Fighter 2D starter template project, and development commenced in July 2019, with the first released media related to the project being an audio recording of 129 The-F0X character names read in the Announcer's voice.
Music from the game is based around the soundtrack from the original Combat Practice animation, composer Josh Pracy's two collaborative music pieces made with The-F0X inspired by some of the characters chosen to appear in the game, and other music by artist Thimblewood, arranged and remixed in different styles/genres. The rest of the soundtrack was composed by the game's developer, Darien Brice Dickinson.
Amber, a bondemi, whose attacks are heavily melee-based. She's super fast, and focuses on attacks that use her claws and teeth. She can summon shadow arms for longer distance swipes, but these are much weaker compared to her "cripplingly OP" close-up moves. In defense, she can quickly dodge around, and as a natural shield, raise her sharp scales temporarily to block certain non-magic attacks. They also have the bonus of damaging the opposing party if they are up close during the raising of the scales.
Carin, the demon kitsune princess of House Abaddon, usually has her companions Drake and Kitty fight for her, but she isn't completely defenseless. She can summon thorned shadow tendrils from thin air that can act as a whip or spiky floor, and temporarily put up a magic shield orb around herself. Generally her arms will be holding onto Kitty or be busy directing her magic. In a last resort, she'll unsheath the claws on her wings and strike out with those. She tries to protect her real tail which is under her shadow tail from being hit in crossfire.
Cecilia, a harpy, has abilties that include a singing a sweet-sounding Siren Song, which will heal herself. It can also be used offensively as more of a screamed screech that sounds a little less than human, temporarily disorienting the opposing party by reversing their controls. Buried in her warm feathers are cinders that she's able to fire at her opponents in small directed bursts whilst flapping her wings. She can also increase said cloudy bursts into a larger tornado of hot ash and flame, depending on the surface she starts it up from. The cinders will also set alight anything in the nearby area that they touch, including: dirt, debris, and stage objects. Her melee attacks involve her kicking out her legs similar to a secretary bird. For a more charged melee attack, she can flap up into the air before striking down with with her claws.
Harper, a selkie, carries a spear that she can throw, stab the opposing party with, or block attacks by spinning it fast enough (including magic ones). Harper can also sing a charming song that will temporarily cause her opponent to not want to use any offensive move for a while (though they can still use defensive moves, such as healing magic.)
Katherine, a demon stage magician, has enough control of the her ribbons on her costume that she can allow them to do things such as lash out at her opponents, damaging them, or help her gain a bit of height. Most of her moves involve grabbing enemies or grappling onto things with the ribbons. Alternatively, she has moves based on mundane magic tricks, such as shooting cards out of her hat. She can also whack people with her magic staff or use it to block nearby magic attacks.
Keiko, a dragon, likes to have fun! She can shoot a massive beam of fire energy out of her mouth, and uses her long tail for everything else combat-related. Bunched up in front of her, it can be used as her shield, or it can whip out at people.
Luna, a kitsune, can melee with her shadow claws like Amber, but with a little less speed or frenzy, making more calculated strikes. Her black/blue fox fire magic can manifest into ranged attacks such shadow arrows and fireballs, plus a wall of fire to keep enemies at bay. She can dissipate her form momentarily to dodge an attack, and can light herself on fire to act as a temporary shield. As a holdover from her appearance in the original The First Fairytale: Combat Practice short film which this game is named after and other artwork of the character, she can also use a variety of sickles and scythes.
Nala, a regular young adult human, who can temporarily copy the abilities of the opposing party. As a child, she was adopted by the dream weaver Kiarie, who specializes in space-time magic.
November, a faun centaur, is a highly versatile melee fighter, with incredibly powerful kicks, and she is an impressive archer with a summoned bow and arrow for long-range attacks.
Peter, a half-fae obsessed with altering his DNA, is not afraid to get his hands dirty, but to showcase how edgy he is, he will always keep one behind his back at all times, defaulting to two arms behind his back for his idle pose. His magical abilities manifest itself as red lightning, which can be ranged. Only if someone gets too close, will he bring both arms out and suplex the opposing party.
Sylvia, a pirate captain shapeshifter, has claw-based melee attacks, and can block attacks with her arms, even if a weapon is striking her. She can use her rapier for a larger attack range, but her claws alone are much faster. She can periodically project an image of herself forward, and if an opposing party remains close to the projected image, it is revealed that Sylvia was there all along and she can get a pummel in, before snapping back to her original position.
Wendolyn, a vampire, can use her crossbow as a long-ranged attack, or to shoot down long-ranged attacks from an opposing party. Otherwise, she can just use standard punches and kicks, which are stronger than they look.
Yin, the dark one, is the final boss of Story Mode, and the reason characters from all of The-F0X's universes have been brought together. Gameplay of her stage takes place on a giant version of Yin herself in dragon form, with her minions acting as companion characters, flying in from all sides and shooting fireballs at the player. Once Yin is weakened enough, she shrinks down to a more humanoid form that you can fight normally. One of her powers including forming dark holes that drag the player towards a sphere which takes more damage the closer you are to it, and another involves starting fires on the ground in patterns that the player can't step on. Her sharp tail also stabs, slices, and snips.
Other characters designed by The-F0X are also set to make an appearance. For example, in Story Mode cutscenes, those who are related to the main cast, such as Carin's family (including Ruca, Cari, and Ruca), Katherine's brother Fetch, and Keiko's sister Chi, also appear for plot-related purposes. Chest Cough's character, Aria, makes a secret cameo in the background of Sylvia's stage, cheering Sylvia on if Sylvia has been chosen by any player.
Additionally, the Announcer (voiced by Darien Brice Dickinson, Gemma Rickers[note 1], or any other custom voicepack[note 2]) is considered a separate, though unplayable, character.
↑The default voice for the Announcer; Gemma Rickers previously voiced Wendolyn in The First Fairytale: Combat Practice, where she acted as the announcer of the fight featured in the short.
↑Whilst Announcer voicepacks could potentially be modded into the game, for official inclusion in the game, voices can be sent to the developer. They are only accepted if character names are pronounced correctly, and will use another voice as a fallback if a certain line isn't found, or submitted in time before an update to the game which adds additional voice lines.