Team Four Star, Creators of DBZ Abridged, Making a Video Game

Today via Twitter, Team Four Star announced its first original video game, titled Super Knockoff! VS. As the title suggests, the game features elements that fall under the rules of several different cheesy tropes that are regularly found in anime and video games. Created in collaboration with Action Panel, Super Knockoff! VS looks like an old school rollback of Smash Bros, with a few hilarious Team Four Star additions that long-time fighting game fans might enjoy. Check out the trailer below:

Up to four players can take each other on at a time, with characters who serve as a mish-mash of nerdy heroes from the early 90's and 2000's. So far, players have been introduced to magical girl Miyuki, mysterious ninja Tachibana, would-be Newtype Jiro, and sports legend Judai. The characters are purposeful cut-and-paste parodies of classis heroes like Card Captor Sakura, Kakashi Hatake from Naruto, Amuro Ray from Mobile Suit Gundam, and basically anyone from Prince of Tennis. With a Smash-like stage set, the game feels like something of a love letter to those of us who sat in our friends' living rooms during the early 2000's, yelling at each other over a dirty combo or botched match.

Team Four Star is known for creating homage-parodies to classic anime shows, most famously their re-dub of the Dragon Ball Z series titled DBZ Abridged. They've taken on a few more recent titles like Sword Art Online for parody purposes, but now it looks like the studio is ready to venture into more serious game development -- or at least as serious as they can get.

It's unclear whether more of a cast will be added to this one, but for now, the game has been listed for preview on Steam. As of right now, no official release date has been revealed.