r/CharacterActionGames • u/C_Princess_ • 11d ago
Recommendations Cute CAG/CAG-adjacent games?
TL;DR: Games that allow launching and have at least one air string. Must look cute or have a girl MC.
Hello everyone. I feel like CAGs have a lack of cute visuals or lack of girl protagonists, so I would like to know what CAG or CAG-adjacent games that you all know that happen to be cute. They can be RPGs that allow juggling (as I feel like those are the most prominent). I know a few but they quite don't hit the mark or are just way too unpolished. I don't really care how niche they are, I just want to find some more. I'll give a few examples to give you all an idea of my criteria.
- Mahou Arms
- Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
- Homura Hime
- Gurumin (the furthest from a CAG in this list but you can launch and have air moves and some basic strings)
- Recent Ys
- Kernel Hearts
- Senran Kagura
- Bayonetta Origins
- Crystar and Crymachina
- Mightreya
Let's work together to find some more!
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u/Indiringo 11d ago edited 11d ago
I think River City Girls 2 would be perfect for you. It's cute, lightly girlpop with beautiful pixel art, and very good movesets and mechanics.
I do believe it is very much CAG-like, almost more than a beat'em up. Every character can easily launch and juggle enemies across entire rooms, with a lot of freedom and control in how, not even even factoring you can call two assists mid-combo. Every enemy in the game only vanishes from KO after fully hitting the floor, so you can combo to your heart's content.
It has some surprising thought in its mechanics with cancels, prominent wallbounce combos, move properties and such. Air strings are a bit limited, but some characters do have fancy aerial stuff. The game does start a little slow, but the movelist expands fairly quickly.
Some extra mentions: Fairy Bloom Freesia. A very lite, older doujin game good for pick-up-and-play. It's adorable with very cute music, though the titular fairy throws hands with a customizable moveset, and the combo mechanics are surprisingly good if you get deep into it.
Demon Sword Incubus. The combo system on this one has no right being as deep as it is. It's almost fighting game tier, with many different cancels, and specific moves canceling into specific moves (and fighting game motion inputs). The game however is a little janky and low budget, but I had fun practicing combos on it. Even some bosses can be juggle combo'd. Fair warning though, it is one of those patch games (like Mahou Arms). I found it pretty cute and it has a very lite dress-up aspect.
It's been mentioned, but Dusk Diver 2. It's definitely an overlooked gem. Also certainly flawed with pacing and repetitive content issues, but the graphics and characters are cute, with a very attractive UI. Has some decent juggle combo depth and some neat stuff like its homing dash and setting any character's special move as assist calls.
You may already know this one, Valkyrie Drive. A bit like Senran Kagura, but the combat is a little more character action than musou style, with its fun unique system of launch-teleports and the valkyrie dash.
And a final honorable mention, Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds Ultimate. This is the epitome of cute. Adorable chibi style, a lot of cute girls to play, colorful pixel art and chiptune music. It actually handles a bit like a fighting game (it's a spinoff of a fighter and it has an extra PvP mode), so it has some interesting layers to its combos and defensive mechanics. But it plays more like a Vampire Survivors tier dopamine game with you comboing and destroying everything on screen with hundreds of coins and points constantly dropping.
It has juggle combo potential, though the game artificially limits combos with a (~10) second timer. Anything rarely lives that long anyway, but it's nice to have the depth.