First of all, for those of you who were going to get this for two reasons, here you go to save the trouble:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839598
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839632
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808839667

As for the rest of you, yes it's a pretty cool fighting game. Recommend an arcade stick since some moves are finicky with a controller.

But this comes with some caveats. First of all the single player modes are completely useless for most normal people. Every single player mode is on the level of a classic coin-operated arcade machine scam where every boss just gets more power than you. You're not going to have any fun playing single player, it's just purely challenge, every single one of them.

Then you hop on Network mode to find someone to play with, and it's empty because no one plays online on a PC version of a fighting game. You need friends to play this with.

So unless you have multiple controllers or friends online who have this game, don't bother. If you're dead set on challenging all the single player modes, you're a masochistic freak.

Arc System Works delivers by bringing another God-tier anime fighter to Steam. Uses the netcode they used for Under Night In-Birth and the other Guilty Gear games they published and the added meta from picking arcanas to mix and match with fighters makes it feel like fighting game alchemy with the hype going over the roof everytime your friends find out some new set-up that you guys will have to defeat and the cycle goes on. Grab your buds, some beer, the arcade fightsticks and get ready to throwdown in an airdasher that PC hasn't seen before. Hope this game's fighting game community becomes massive on Steam.

Behind a silly title, there’s an innovative and exciting fighting game for enthusiasts of the genre. This is Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! in a nutshell. The game lives up to its hardcore reputation and brings new mechanics and a lot of depth to the table. If you can pass the “cute girls” aesthetic, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here.

“But what makes Arcana Heart so special?”, you might be thinking. Two things: the homing mechanic and arcanas for the characters. The homing mechanic consists in a command to fly directly to your enemy from anywhere in the stage. You can throw your opponent up in the air, press the homing button and start a combo there. Arcanas, on the other hand, offers 23 elementals choices to complement your movelist. Add this to the cast of 23 characters and you have a total of 529 combinations (!!!!!) to try out.

It’s worth mentioning that Arcana Heart is heavily focused on air combat, like a good air-dasher should be. Ground based combos don’t have much impact here. With a screen up to about four times vertically, the matches generally get extreme on the air, flying up and down, with each fighter following each other, performing fast inputs and cancelling combos.

Is Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! worth the price? In my honest opinion, totally, but just for experienced fighting games players or enthusiasts. There’s no tutorial, and even if you’re a veteran of the genre, you’ll need to look some guides and wikis to learn its depth and its unique mechanics. There’s a lot of modes to keep you occupied and having fun.

+ Innovative game with original mechanics
+ Exciting and fast paced gameplay
+ 23 unique characters with 23 arcanas, resulting in a total of 529 combinations
+ Tons of stages and great soundtrack
+ Challenging and almost unpredictable AI
+ Hidden “VS CPU” mode – Just play VS without selecting the second player/controller
+ Works with a variety of controllers, fighting sticks and keyboards (all options have rebindable buttons)
+ Devs keeps improving the game with regular patches

> Netcode is delay based and it's great only with people near you
> The aesthetic (cute girls theme) can make some people miss a great fighting game. It’s a love or hate kind of thing

- No Arcade Mode. Really…The closest option is Story Mode
- The last boss from Survival Score Attack (Kamui) is the cheapest boss of all time. You can barely move. SNK’s bosses looks like child’s play compared to her
- No true widescreen option (without sidebars). Vanilla Arcana Heart 3 had this feature
- The fantastic soundtrack is not included with the purchase, unlike the majority of Steam releases published by Arc System Works

So far so good. The game runs great and is a huge step above ASW's last release with Battle Fantasia. Let's get this minor thing out of the way right off the bat. There is something odd that makes the game backgrounds, menus, text look more pixelated at 1080p. Keeping it at 720 looks crisp on a 1080p monitor. What ever it is that is upscaling the image and making it look that good must be black magic.

I've just hit up training mode and had a few online matches and the game is running without any hitches and the online matches that are of decent distances are played pretty damn good. I don't know if there is a region select in the menus, but that would probably help with people finding smoother matches. That's probably asking for too much since that would fracture the already small player base that this is going to have. Even so, the matches I've found so far have been from tolerable to excellent. The netcode is more than adequate, the problem is finding people who don't live 2,000 miles way from you.

I will update this review later with more gameplay and mode impressions after spending more time with the game. Those worrying about performance and connectivity should purchase this without any worries.

-First off, how's the port?
I've experienced no detrimental problems in my time with the game. No slowdowns, crashes, or anything for me. Game natively recognized every controller I threw at it (x360, ps3 stick, even a gamecube controller), and I was able to rebind everything. And I highly reccomend using some kind of controller for this game.

-Okay, so the game runs. What about the gameplay?
So far so good. Game is REALLY fun. REALLY REALLY fun. Especially when you get the hang of the homing system. I've had multiple times when playing something happens, and I just say "You can do that? THAT'S AWESOME!"
All the characters are really unique and feel fresh, and all of the arcanas are really neat. (I can stop time? Yes please)
Music is pretty good.

-Now: The netcode.
From my experience so far, it works very well. Matches have ranged from BUTTERY SMOOTH to slightly rough. Sometimes the worse connections can take a few seconds to get going, but once they do it's completely playable. You can't expect to to have smooth matches with people from out of the country, or if they just have a bad connection. No amount of netcode wizardry will fix that.

Oh yeah it's also got cute girls
You like those, right?

TL;DR
It's good. Buy it and come play with us.

If you like 2d fighters with very good gameplay and do not mind an all female cast, this game is a must for hardcore 2d fighter fans as myself.

This is a short version of the game.
The full version is "Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX SIXSTARS!!!!!! XTEND"

Super fun game with unique mechanics, but you should just buy the latest version, AH3LM Six Stars Xtend. Look it up on Steam. Only reason to buy this game is for the funny mech boss and just to see how wack older AH3LM was.

Don't tell my friends I play this game.

Edit:
I felt bad, so I'm gonna write a bit about this game.

It's a good fighting game. Very unique, doesn't really play too much like Arcsys fighting games like GG/BB. Very deep, there is a lot to learn about it. The game feels a little clunky at first until you get more used to the homing button, but after that it feels great.

If you can look past the art style and are looking for a breath of fresh air in the fighting game genre, this is it.

This game came out in 2015 and it's now 2021, don't buy this version, Xtend is the newest version and they both cost the same price for some god forsaken reason.