SECOND F(r)IGHT
Enjoy and Read on!
As hinted, Fatal Fury 2 refuses to thread further along the path it started to solidify on via the first output, instead it goes for the SF2 appeals up to the point that there are Specials present in the game invokable as you would play with Capcom's dominant title, even results are identical. A good example is Kim Kaphwan's Flying Swallow Slice, this is the exact trick Guile from SF2 is famous of. Thus, though it would be utterly incorrect to suggest that Fatal Fury 2 would lack its own tastes and unique attributes, this doesn't keep the output from claiming radical liberty, re-introducing solutions offered- and popularized by its inspirator.
This re-introduction of certain, though focal SF2 elements is a very smart move from SNK when you start to think about it, and here is why: SNK copies portions off of Capcom games in a deliberately shameless fashion. What would be Capcom's likely reaction to this? Can they give an answer of sobriety at all? SNK assumes its adversary to follow this particular train of thought:
They Stole From US, So We Shall Start Stealing From THEM, Too!
SNK clearly, cleverly provokes the arcade giant Capcom to do so, inviting the firm to start copying elements the smaller company invented. The moment Capcom falls in for this trick and starts to re-introduce solutions- and features you have seen in previous SNK games, IS the same moment in which Capcom admits that it considers SNK a now-bitter rival and an adversary worth learning from. Something that SNK admitted of Capcom already via copying elements. Now, would you return this "favor" and admit that you are in a serious struggle, or would you move on and redefine the genre once again on-and with- your own fresh inventions?
- WHAT are you DOING here??
- I am TRULY BAD at Philosophy.
The game is set in the same fictional universe as Art of Fighting, though the aforementioned title - AoF, that is - tells of events that took place a decade prior the start-off developments of the Fatal Fury series. The game brings in the magic numbers SF2 relies on. You have eight playable characters, some of them are the original fighters from the first installment, while the others - amazingly enough - are fresh additions. The magic numbers prove to be persistent, as usual, (not to mention that there are NO numbers that are NOT magical) thus Fatal Fury 2 brings you four Boss characters to collide with once you have proved yourself against the playable protagonists.
Let us notice how a development of the future unfolds silently by this point: Capcom will indeed set a foot in front of SNK with Street Fighter II Champion Edition, a title that lets you play as any of SF2's four Bosses. Whether SNK will have a reply to this, remains a question to be answered at a later occasion.
The button layout is a little bit funky on this one when played on MAME - nothing too serious, just a mild mixture here that might claim some time to get used to. Basically, you will find a Kick where you would anticipate a punch and vica versa. The game has two kinds of strikes and two kinds of kicks, while simultaneous pressing of those AND respective directions do give a wide palette of executable Basic and Command moves to the fray. You can even perform Strong Attacks by invoking the Stronger variants of your offensive maneuvers together, this results in a third Basic attack that knocks the enemy to the different Plane than the one you kicked her/his sitorgan on. As you might have guessed already: the Plane system is presented- and offered once again.
Basic attacks and maneuvers are dependent on the Plane system, the trademark delivery this effort kept from its predecessor. The method still gives you two spatial setups to play on: as in the original Fatal Fury, you have a Front Plane and a Back Plane, thus, if your character is on a certain Plane, then certain Basic and Command moves are accessible, while others are not. This method weighs in as a decent minigame to entertain the eyes and the hands, even better, it still remains a reliable way to escape temporarily and re-plan your opposition during this period. All these features were already accessible in the first episode, yet now the Plane method sports an increased tactical potential, giving you the green light to Charge across different Planes. You have respective "Cross-Charge" movements against your rival's respective body sections, thus Fatal Fury 2 certainly delivers fresh sensations as far as the core gameplay mechanics are concerned. And let me tell you this: those are heavily concerned once MAME Review rampantly emerges to ruthlessly scrutinize.
There are maps you won't find a second Plane on, though you will find obstacles on such backgrounds. Maneuvers that will knock your opponent to the opposite plane will drive her/him unto an obstacle on single plane maps.
Fatal Fury 2 lets you interconnect certain Basic- and even Special attack moves to form quasi-combos. These maneuvers can be interrupted any time by blocking the attack, thus, these are not exactly combos in the classic sense of the word, but they are very useful both to pressurize your rival, let alone how happy you will end up as if the quasi-combo quasi: lands, right?
The primal additions you will be shocked by considerably are the Desperation Moves. Especially when I tell you that those additions are present in the game. These Specials are only accessible once your Life reaches its Critical point, an occasion the flashing Lifebar will inform you of.
While Specials are rather straightforward to pull off, the game also makes a versatile use of the mere contexts the game might have to count with. I realize it may have sounded a little bit weird, so let us pick an example for such a context: the game inspects if- and when a character is under attack, and encourages you to do the same - you have Counter moves especially designed to punish an unsuccessful attack, while your Strong Punch will be a Taunt if you perform it while standing far away from the enemy. Taunt does not seem to have any relevant effect beyond the animations though, unfortunately.
Fatal Fury 2 is also among those rare 2D Fighters that let you crawl forward in an utterly inept ducking position, though this may prove useful against certain projectile attacks - just don't believe it will.
The output suffers but from a couple of minor flaws, even those are of presentational nature. Like - highly subjective - inconsistency in the impact certain backgrounds will likely have on you, as some of those are totally neat, while some look - surely, it is highly subjective - somewhat crude, not-particularly cared for, even rudimentary, in my opinion. My personal favorite is the Parallax Swamp on Joe's stage.
Now, if THIS is not a WTF, then TELL ME, what a WTF is.
Apart from this, or, even better: with THIS included, the game emits considerable charm and sports quite a few fresh elements to weigh in as a more successful effort than its predecessor, especially once their mutual primal agenda of rivaling the Street Fighter franchise reveals in its alarming persistence. SNK took a reliable and solid step with Fatal Fury 2 that remains an easy, safe retro recommendation to date.
- YER turn ...
- ME turn...
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Fatal Fury 2 Guide
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Fatal Fury 2
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Street Fighter II Champion Edition
BOSSCOLLIDER
Enjoy and Read on!
It is no stock wonder, neither a puzzling occurrence of an ever-lasting mass hypnosis that Capcom's game characterizes the 2D Fighter genre with a granite fist. The SF2 system offers extremely well balanced gameplay mechanics that heavily relies on sobriety and related awareness of the opponent's strengths and weaknesses - traits you need to rigorously consider in spite of your chosen warrior, as well. The output seemingly introduces a quite unorthodox controlling scheme, giving you three types of punches and kicks. A rather rich basic arsenal, naturally available for all participants. These elementary maneuvers are categorized by their effectiveness: you got Weak, Medium and Strong assaults both in the punch and the kick class, a method that delivers more serious punishment when the fierce assaults are invoked, yet those demand more time to execute, thus having an increased risk factor to utilize. Weak and Medium maneuvers claim less time and related animation frames to complete, but those deal significantly less damage factor on contact.
The Street Fighter II system heavily relies on the Charge method to invoke the nifty Specials. The Charge solution is quite intuitive: you need to push towards a certain direction, then you are to hastily unleash the appropriate combination to introduce the intended maneuver. It is quite easy to thoroughly familiarize yourself with this fluent structure, as I can not think of any other directions for the required Charge maneuvers than the Back and Down perspectives. Thus, the majority of these Charge Specials do concern a certain Charge motion and a combined button smash of either the Forward or Up direction, supported by an attack button. It doesn't matter which of the available three attack buttons per- assault type you give in, what is important though is to rely on the appropriate class. Confused already? Either way, let me deliver an example: Chun Li's crazy ass Helicopter Kick requires you to Charge towards the Down direction, then you are good to set it off via giving in Up combined with either Kick you prefer, OR happen to find during the execution period. Be sure to notice Chun Li's legs. Good skies, those are some slightly serious calves, wouldn't you agree?
- PUNK!!
The game surely knows and offers Specials utilized by the common, comfy solutions of giving in quarter- and half circles as well, with an extra Special of the Russian Wrestler Phenomena Zangief, who possesses the most brutal move in the game, though executable only by a full circle motion. This Amazing Spinning Pile Driver That Crushes Puny Non-Comrade Skulls To Strawberry Jelly is a moderate PITA to pull off, yet the resultant effects are absolutely worth chasing, going and practicing for. As a general rule, it seems to be a good idea to start your whole circle in the air, thus you can greet the opponent by finishing the move off when you land beside her/him.
!EXTRA! Mamereview offers scientific scrutinization of the arcade game picked by the first person who finds out what PITA is standing for.!EXTRA!
As hinted, the game gives you nice Throws as well. You absolutely must love those maneuvers, in my opinion. Guile's Greco Roman Suplex is a retina stigma you'll stuck around for an eternity if you ever saw that, surpassed only by the Real Deal Thing demonstrated by Dan "The Beast" Severn in THIS particular video. As natural, Throws occur by the comfy, traditional way: you want to approach your opponent for a rigorous nose rivalry, then you are free to deliver the Throw by giving in the Forward direction, combined with a Punch button. Even better: most characters know different kinds of Throws, invokable by - amazingly 'nuff - different punch buttons.
Interestingly, the core Street Fighter II system and this heavily related direct proprietor of it are based on a rather straightforward structure which does not (YET) exhibit all that much supportive gauges and elements you need to be aware of. It exhibits a ZERO, even SIRO number of those, to be specific. All this resultant clarity though definitely does not weigh in as a hindrance, quite the contrary: a simple, yet flamboyant system you witness and invited to play with that urges you to focus on one particular bar, yet THAT bar is a quite rigorous, precise representation of - to put it simply, yet, quite frankly - what is up.
- GRAAAAAAGROOOOOOAAAAAGGHAA!
- YEAH! I'll NEVER question YOU, Duder!
This immense straightforwardness that characterizes the output in the most essential way a human mind is currently capable to conceive lefts a reviewer in a hard position, nevertheless. This particular difficulty ensues as you can not help but recognize that the game simply begs to be played, and does not deliver anything else than strong, well balanced, simple elements to support it's eternal, solid aspiration.
Naturally you can not avoid the segment in which you absolutely must account the game's trademark character roster. These warriors are primal representatives of this robust genre, and, while pretty much all games do possess one or two characters you will keenly play with and relate to, I think it is safe to say that every single fighter the SF2 universe offers are masterpieces. Don't forget to play with them, as they will never ever grew tired or old in a good fight, and THAT -
Believe You Me.
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
Street Fighter
UNDER-CONTROL
Though Capcom's 1987 effort possesses significant chance of being interpreted as a massively coarse fighting experience when examined today, - and sorry, we missed the chance of examining it yesterday, or, did we? - it actually defines trademark focal solutions that do solidify further in consecutive games. Little if any doubt is present though that future 2D Fighters are more subtle, more sophisticated and more sane than this prime originator is. I tend to think that sane is a proper word in this case indeed, as, though Street Fighter starts the fray off, rudimentary controls and limited playability make this classic both an essential retro output AND a mild pain in every sitorgan.
Enjoy and Read on!
Street Fighter gives you two characters to play as: Ryu, or Ken. Though, by default, only Ryu seems to be selectable. If you would like to play as Ken, then you need to challenge and defeat the Ryu Player. In case she/he exhibits no interest to insert coin again, then you can go on to demonstrate your Street Fighter skill set against the CPU. And a skill set, you WILL need, Young Padawan.
Street Fighter dictates a quite furious pace that forces players to develop universal defense- and attack strategies. This might include inserting keyboard/control pad into monitor for bonus fireworks and related smoke effect. Once these "specials" are properly sought out and mastered, then the game reveals its coarse charm to you. Distance from the enemy is everything in Street Fighter, the mere factor that determines which one of the furiously paced attacks will connect. It seems same 'nuff of a bet to back off from the CPU, which has a tendency to attack rampantly and constantly, so there is quite immense potential in countering.
As you will see, three, tops four attacks easily do weight a KO herein, especially if you score these hits by introducing one of the Specials the game is aware of and offers. We will see into those later. Considering the speed of the game which desperately tries to conceal the rudimentary animation, the pace of the rounds is furious. Also fast. Though rigorous distancing from the enemy is your best friend herein, that particular factor changes dramatically with all the intense jump-around the game usually exhibits. That is: either you or the enemy will jump. Ducking and relying on Specials are always better solutions then forwarding up to your opponent to deliver basic ground attacks, as speed is so senselessly swift that even Terence "Super Snooper" Hill would need TWO coins to kick the CPU's butt in pure standup. And, let me tell you that this circumstance suggest a difficulty level that requires skill levels well beyond Godlike proportions.
Worths a try though, nevertheless: check how long you can last against the CPU on the ground, if you do play a game of - khm, khm - concept and - khm, khm - strategy. As a result of the supercoarse animation and pairing speed, you won't have the chance to block upper and lower level attacks consciously. This is not what the creators anticipate from you, either. You can usually get away from those situations via attacking the lower section of your rival quite cheaply yet systematically, but, if you stand up with him - no precious creatures in this here game - then sooner or later he will bash your blob in, trust me. Let alone that there are characters in the game you do not want spend a moment against with your head kept in normal, standup-height position.
Street Fighter invites participants to jump around like crazy to soften the rival up by airborne attacks, and/or to duck and unleash low level attacks towards incoming or approaching opposition. Yet, organizing yourself to defense on the ground is a ritual to commit risk free suicide - HAH! - in this game.
Since animation is rather far from being extremely fluent, the game conceals this particular deficit with the well developed speed we already hinted at. Amazingly, Street Fighter's system is both ruthless and rudimentary enough to punish you with pretty much instant KO in case you made two mistakes in a row. Third mistake? Forget about it, as those who make a third mistake in this game, won't have much to worry about anymore. All in all, it is totally possible to be flattened out in the blink of an eye, which I think is OK and funny, yet, especially when you first play the game without prior experience of it, then the CPU can be very effective at cornering you into a rather dire situation where it spanks a Win on your butt with ease. Those are the moments you should start inventing your countering methods in, though.
As you may have guessed already via the image above, the game has bonus sequences and there is an impressive amount of enemies to batter up or to be battered by, too. If you are a Street Fighter II fan, then you will see very familiar faces apart from Ryu and Ken. If you are a HUGE Street Fighter II fan, then you surely do lie to me now as you should play SF2 this very moment.
What I find rather unfortunate about Street Fighter is the implementation of the Specials. These maneuvers are extremely circumstantial to invoke. They may seem to demonstrate a truly rhapsodic behavior, yet, in reality, it is more about the exact precision of the timing they do require. The timing of the proper directions and button push, that is. I could perform the three Street Fighter Specials of Ryu: the Dragon Punch, the Hurricane Kick, and this trademark projectile attack. I don't think he has more, though I am keen and ready to be pleasantly disappointed. In case I am wrong, please educate me and benefit other visitors, too.
Though Guides to Street Fighter seem to be as rare as pink elephants with quantum dissolving capabilities - that means: I could not find one - the Street Fighter II commands for Ryu do seem to work herein. DO SEEM, I sorrowfully cite. Remember that the required precision is truly unnecessary, so you will probably end up doing those Specials by your particular way. You know, the way it seems to work for you, for most of the time. Yet the SF2 Ryu moves are useful guides, no doubt. As for Street Fighter Ken: his capabilities and related Specials are an amazing treasury of ancient puzzles and enigmatic mysteries, eager to be thoroughly explored and subtly solved by the dear mamereview.blogspot.com visitor. Hey, ever saw a useful link before?
At the end of the day, one must admit and conclude that Street Fighter has a certain humorless, grouchy charm to it, though it is rather improbable that the game will digest your unconditioned devotion to it with keen appreciation. Which is a shame, because the game could have been - I truly do not worship "could have been"s - a rather stable, though vicious game if it would have exhibited a responsive, user friendly control method to invoke Specials, let alone the absence of a full, playable character roster. I sure do realize that the game comes from 1987, a time in which a full character roster was an implausible mental invention. Now, was it? No, it was not. As, in fact, Street Fighter delivers you a full character roster. Yet, it delivers you a character roster only to bash apart, and not as to play as its components.
With its exceptionally intense and semi-coarse flow, the game delivers massive early deficits, as balance was not yet a major consideration of a genre that just been born with this effort. Thus, as mentioned previously: sometimes it is but a blink of an eye, and someone flattens out. In a terrible world without mistakes, you would certainly say that Street Fighter manages to offer its deficits as charms, but this is not exactly the case this time around. It remains good fun to combat the CPU, but the incapacity to play as included characters is always a hurtful condition to die with. Let alone live with.
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Friday, June 27, 2008
Fatal Fury
FI(R)ST IMPACT
As SNK's first major attempt and major failure to compete against Street Fighter II, the game takes you to the same fictional universe as it's later, more successful sibling, Art of Fighting does. Fatal Fury is certainly notorious of some of the latter things, as well: 1. this is the first game to introduce famous SNK character Terry Bogard, 2. this is the first game in which your character might select her/his outfit on a per-gender basis, thereby propagating peace, love and understanding towards transsexuality. Either way, this 1991 effort definitely has the Blood Sport heritage incorporated into it, handling the skirmish-oriented culturemix to you via a gameplay which puts intensity to the table and demands both quickness and relentlessness in return.
Enjoy and Read on!
Fatal Fury starts off by exhibiting an early SNK trend which will get even more strait in Art of Fighting. In case you had a guess, then you probably guessed correctly: in Story mode, Fatal Fury lets you select only between three fighters of it's character roster, while the Two Player mode delivers a 2 on 1 experience in which two human players emerge to defeat a more precise and aggressive solo CPU. This is not too fruity, but at least gives you desperation.
My personal opinion is that SNK strived to derive from the era's Capcom traditions by any ways conceivable, thus, delivering a more strict, dare we say: one dimensional narrative with two or three selectable characters certainly suggested that the Japanese firm has The Balls to ignore the classic solution Capcom invented. It is though a definite case when you try to sell out your special deficit as a special appeal you are able and ready to sport. As Capcom's tradition is superb and should not be tinkered with on the "let's take away from it!" path. The tradition itself is this: each and every character SHALL and thus, WILL have her/his Unique Ending. To be honest with you, I tend to think that SNK simply did not want to put the effort/time/money or either, or all of these to deliver unique endings for each character, thus making the majority of Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters semi-faceless screen-fillers. Giving pretty much identical End Sequences for selectable warriors, to me, is more of a bigger letdown than an excuse.
Sounds harsh enough? Then let me ask you this: who, why and how would develop a major, steep-enough liking for characters if and when they can not win against the CPU with the warrior in question? Never forget that such End Sequences and/or quotes tend to imbue a massive character to the - sorry about that - character, something SNK will be a Master of later. Just check the Samurai Shodown quotes, those are instant classics and tell precisely, thoroughly of the protagonists. I think SNK itself felt bad about the lack of playability of the early characters in Story mode later on, as, as we will see, the firm certainly changes a whole lot about these unfortunate early practices in the future to come. More precisely: in the future that had cometh. Nice is the world of retrospection.
Enough of the good old ranting which gives you cancers on places a decent woman never ever heard of though, let us observe what Fatal Fury brings to the table, instead. Interestingly enough, the game sports highly original basic solutions to operate, though you can not exactly call this classic title the most gauge-and-meter filled 2D Fighter you ever had chance to play with. To be more specific: there is a Life gauge, and that is about it. OK, I lied: there is TWO Life gauges, as your rival has one, as well. Behold below, and keep your eyes on it!
Now I certainly do hope that you have a rug or something to clean the slime of your eyes off of your monitor. The game boils down to the utilization of the proper Specials in the proper Moment, thus seldom are the times when the output's sophisticated Base structure could dramatically influence the outcome of a round. These structures basically give you a distance dependent attack system which is sensitive to- and aware of- of the following conditions: naturally, the distance you are from the enemy, in addition: the Attack State you are in are both of focal importance. Let us observe what all these actually mean.
Fatal Fury knows a Close-Up, a One Step Away and a Far distance, measured from your rival. Characters have a unique attack mode to each distance, let it be Punches or Kicks. But this is not all yet, as here is where what I call Attack States do come in. Once you attack, you make a Normal attack. Now, if you manage to land two Normal attacks - landing means they can not be blocked, mind you - then your character switches to his (no her option in Fatal Fury) Alternate attack form. If he manages to connect with that as well, then a cycle of one Normal - one Alternate WOULD begin until your attacks are either blocked or do miss. The reason for the aforementioned "would" is this: what we have witnessed so far is but the basic theory, yet the game seems to be rather unpredictable about when, and where give the Alternate attack form in.
My experience is that Fatal Fury keenly, and massively tends to interchange only between the two Base attacks, thus, as I noticed, you need to adjust the distance after the two Normals in a very precise fashion to go for the Alternate. When the enemy is moving away from you, this becomes almost impossible of course. If he comes too slow and too fast: then it is close to impossible, as well. When you do have the Alternate, though: those attacks usually knock the enemy down which leaves little chance for Combo-like attacks and thus takes away our "would" quite completely, as well.
The Most Emotional and Best Written Ending in Video Game History
- OR - is it an Ending at All??
As such and as hinted, times are scarce when this promising, though not too steadily predictable structure claims a huge chunk of the game for itself. It is more likely that the enemy will block your forwarding assaults or simply will counter with a shot before you could connect with your follow-up Normal, which leads us to the conclusion that your best bet probably is to more profoundly rely on Specials and airborne attacks, let those direct forwarding attacks be a quick method to greet an air-to ground enemy, reaching Mother Earth beside you. Deliver some old fashioned Enlightenment to him!
The game relies on a rather unorthodox supportive concept as far as it's basic flow goes. Fatal Fury divides some of the game environments to Upper plane and Lower plane. Not all backgrounds use this method, though: when planes are absent, then obstacles you shall face with, sometimes: quite, quite literally. Granted they are delivered and utilized, you can move through the two planes simply by jumping to the Upper from the Lower, or rolling down to the Lower is an option - in case you happen to be on the Upper. Cool, yes? In reality, not too bad, but does not exactly reinvent the steel, either. Gives some chase-around quality to the output as characters on different planes must engage each other on the same plane, while you should be aware that there are certain moves, even attacks that are accessible and inaccessible depending on what plane you are on. For example, jumping and ducking are movements you must live without when you are on the Upper plane.
Fatal Fury's selectable characters are nicely/bluntly - take your pick - balanced, to the point from which on it is OK to say that Joe Higashi has a very slight reach advantage, and maybe Terry Bogard is a tad bit swifter than the other two protagonists are. Apart from that, general usability and behavior of the player characters are heavily reminiscent, even Special moves are easily interchangeable. Under such circumstances nevertheless, it is nice to see how SNK did not intend to sell out essentially identical moves as different maneuvers, thus the majority of the trademark Fatal Fury Specials are invoked by the same commands. Let us make no mistake, though: animations are different of course, and one must admit, they look quite cool, I especially dig the superswift charging kick attacks, though I remain not too fond of the hurricane punches. This is something I could always sleep well without. But now we can never be sure of this, anymore.
The most notable aspect of the game remains it's nicely diverse enemy roster. Every rivals have their tiny weak spot(s) to them, surely, finding and exploiting these are of essential importance. Check out this here concluding Fatal Fury screenshot below which will wrap this here review up, and heed my words: this screenshot is a result of me smashing Boss character Geese Howard's hideous ass to the ground in a rapid fashion, jump beside him, grab him, smash him. While he recovers: jump beside him, grab him, smash him. While he recovers: jump beside him, grab him, smash - mmmm, something tells me that either of us do start to get the idea, which should be enough to start experimentations off.
All in all, Fatal Fury actually weights in as a quite integral effort regardless how it could not rival Street Fighter II when this first major SNK 2D Fighter Bomb essentially failed to detonate in US arcades back in 1991. You must admit that the animation is very coarse and semi-inept: notice how some of the characters do more of a hovering (!) than stepping. And still, amazingly enough: this deficit gives evident charm to the output. Such an abstract circumstance is a rare commodity to greet, mind you I. To wrap this up, let us conclude by pointing out that Fatal Fury might have failed to gain instant success and recognition in the US, yet in it's home country Japan, it enjoyed rampant popularity right away which remains intact to this day. Not to mention how the title reigns in worldwide cultdome since then. As the delivery that had chance both to see and to define the ancient times of the genre, and as the title to cautiously project the coming of SNK's King of Fighter series - notice Fatal Fury's subtitle at the Main Screen - this classic output surely defines and surely deserves a significant place in 2D Fighter History.
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Fatal Fury Guide
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Art of Fighting
INFO POUNDER
Enjoy and Read on!
Art of Fighting is the first game to rely on the character designs of Shinkiro, the artist with Za Mad Skillz, Brada'! who creates an excessive amount of designs for consecutive SNK games, though he will be employed by Capcom later on. Art of Fighting boosts truly hilarious presentation values via giving you the absolutely classic "B-ninja-action" mood and the hihgly sophisticated plot arch. OK, let's call it moderate instead, still hilarious, nevertheless. Noticed the subtitle yet? Indeed, an Info-Pounder. That is exactly what Art of Fighting is: the protagonists do gain blatant recognition that someone superclose to them has been kidnapped, so there is little left to do than choosing your warrior, then beating the hoile crap out of every single person whom are aware of 1. either of the kidnapper's identity, or 2. of someone who knows the identity of the kidnapper. It will shock you considerably that there are quite a few characters you need to tear through before you could do battle with the enemy who is aware of the Final Boss's identity.
A highly usual criticism towards Art of Fighting is that the game's story mode offers but two selectable characters, a deficit which, I think, is acceptable considering the plot arch, but the main problem I do see about the matter is that the game exhibits incapacity to give you the chance to play everything out of it even in single player. Let me explain: in Versus mode, players can select all of the eight characters and as such, surely do battle via any lineup the output can introduce, but you won't ever have the chance to control Jack's monumental ass to destruct an AI controlled Ryo Sakazaki. I think an even simple implementation of "1 Player Skirmish" would have been a must, regardless how I dislike "would have beens".
The system is rather fluid, combining nicely utilized base methods with ideas no one ever saw before. As for the base methods, Art of Fighting partly relies on a control scheme reminiscent to the system utilized by the majority of the first five Samurai Shodown games. The effort gives you a Punch, a Kick, a Throw and a Taunt button. While smashing the respective attack buttons together you can invoke an Uppercut Punch or a Low Kick to the shins, the Strong variants of the basic punches and kicks will be invoked by the Throw button once you simply declared what kind of maneuver - punch or kick - you plan to currently rely on. As this might sound a little bit confusing at first, let us clarify this for good: if you are close to your opponent and press the Throw button - a throw will occur. You might need to move towards your enemy at the same time to accomplish a throw. If you throw a punch - SIC! - or a kick THEN press the Throw button from the distance, then either a Strong Kick or Strong Punch occurs, depending on what maneuver you just buffered to the button. I truly hope now your confusion is either totally absent or complete. Blocking happens by the usual way: just move towards the direction your opponent is facing, and don't forget to keep the direction by the moment the attack connects.
We must account on a funny-ass basic maneuver the game knows of and invites you to utilize: this is an off-the wall "off-the-side-of-the-screen" jump kick, usable by most characters. Dodging and dashing are available by the usual, respective double directions.
The most notable feature Art of Fighting grew quite popular by is the implementation of the Spirit gauge. Special moves do cost Spirit Power in Art of Fighting, the more Spirit you have, the more damaging your Specials will be. If you lack the required Spirit energy to introduce a certain kind of Special, then your character either will do not perform it at all, or there will be not much thanks in it. As we do see, the Spirit gauge is of essential importance, as are the methods of keeping these gauges as full as possible if it is ours, and to drain them ruthlessly if it is possessed by a rival in the opposing corner. Fortunately, Art of Fighting does support a very nice minigame concerning these gauges, indeed. Here are the rules: if you want to fill your Spirit gauge, all you need to do is to stand still and hold one of your attack buttons. Your vulnerability is of course will be increased during this brief meditative period, but your reward is either a fully or a partly refilled Spirit gauge.
Taunting is the method to drain the rival's Spirit gauge down. These are funny little animations with occasional tiny remarks to them, each exhibiting excessive cockiness, actually, enough to drain the viewer's Spirit gauge. First and foremost, the method makes "Special Spamming" impossible, I refer to the method if and when a player chooses to utilize the same maneuver in a repetitious fashion, yet, we must certainly account this integral solution as a significant element of tactics and good fun, reigning intact, grateful, solid in the game's system.
Special moves are learned along the way, in a quite nicely presented fashion. Art of Fighting delivers bonus segments that have more impact on the gameplay than pumping your score up. There are three types of these - notice the quality redundancy here: - little minigames in the effort, all of them influencing your character in one way or another. While chances of increasing the length of your Spirit gauge will be offered on two occasions, you will be even presented with the opportunity to master the Highly Illegal Secret Technique!, coming to you as a nice Special you can rely on for the upcoming bouts. Oh, do not believe me: if I am not mistaken, you can use all Specials from the very start, please correct me if I am wrong. While the prizes you earn by a successfully accomplished Bonus attempt do not exactly redefine the standards of RPG excellence, they surely do manage to add nice and proper flavors to the core experience.
There are some secret Specials/Desperation moves available for some, though definitely not all of the characters. Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, the selectable 1 Player contestants both do have such a maneuver, yet you need to fulfill various, strict conditions to be able to unleash your Desperation Special. See the linked Guide for details.
Beyond a system that frequently delivers rather swift rounds and tends to exhibit rampant aggressivity when combating the CPU, the game rewards a cautious gameplay with a strong focus placed on awareness of WHEN to throw a Special at the enemy. These moments usually concern long range ground-and airborne attacks, offensive segments you want to throw a Special in to counter the intended assault. Keeping opposition away initially seems to be most fluent with the use of projectile Specials - as long as either the enemy does start to come forward or your Spirit energy empties. Now it is your choice whether to risk a forwarding yourself or to set the pace for a period of countering. And never, ever forget about the throw: throw that throw instead.
With it's integral presentation values Art of Fighting remains among the 2D Fighters that managed to enrich the genre by delivering fresh solutions, thus creating a more flamboyant experience than the era's average 2D Fighter could or even ever aspired for. Not to mention to introduce Ryo Sakazaki. Never ever would occur to you that Ryo is a mixture of two highly popular Street Fighter characters, Ryu and Ken, right? Never ever would occur to you that it is just: NATURAL to look Caucasian with blond hair and blazing eyes, still possessing the name Ryo Sakazaki. Unless I am not in some fatal misunderstanding, then these are among the little vibes and traits that certainly give extra appeals to Art of Fighting, in my opinion. As hinted, the output marks a significant milestone in SNK's history as well, as Art of Fighting was their first delivery that could gain massive and devoted attention in an era excessively characterized by Capcom's Street Fighter II. And the ENDING, what a tremendously, hilariously and amazingly bad ENDING it sports!
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related recommendation:
Art of Fighting Guide
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Saturday, May 24, 2008
Garou - Mark of the Wolves
SIGHTS THAT BITE
The Japanese word Garou translates to hungry wolf, an entity the game gives you 12 metaphorical variants of via a character roster composed of subtly diverse personas. While the number of protagonists is not exactly the highest you had chance to witness in a fighting game, this deficit allowed SNK to include more frames for character animations. The results are exceptionally fluid motions, combined with a very steep attention devoted to detail work. With true eye candy 2D presentation and a new system it introduces and proudly relies on, many regard Garou as one of the most enjoyable fighter experiences ever to date. Now it is time to scrutinize this work superclosely.
Enjoy and Read on!
As mentioned, this SNK effort was an answer to Capcom's Street Fighter 3, a title that finally hit the arcades when the firm no longer had face/courage/guts/place to add any more words to the Street Fighter II title AND release related variants as completely fresh outputs. How about Super Street Fighter II Turbo? While a Super Street Fighter II Turbo Special and a Super Street Fighter II Turbo Special 2 also would have been nice, Capcom instead chose to release a brand new episode back in 1997, a highly successful statement that probably shaped the creative powers and motives to fuel this here trademark delivery.
Garou brings essential changes to the table when compared to the previous Fatal Fury statements. The focal alterations do concern an increased degree of instant accessibility in certain aspects, while the final name of the game is the massively complex structure the entire system is built and offers exceptional - sorry about this - depth upon.
The T.O.P. gauge you need to set in on your lifebar once you pick your character represents your Tactical Offensive Position. Once your lifebar reaches the T.O.P. portion your character deals an increased damage when connecting, her/his health increases constantly and the special T.O.P. attacks do become accessible, too. T.O.P. assaults are mainly consensual attacks, invoked by the same command. This customizable period a character can exhibit increased efficiency by gives an extra tactical touch to the game, something which is spiced up both by the "common" specials each character has a decent set of, let alone Super and Power specials which are available once the corresponding meters on the bottom section invite players to unleash ruthless efficiency.
Super moves are mainly consensus commands with but a few exceptions to them on part of certain characters, as far as Power moves go, they are accessible once a protagonist chooses to build up a maximized Super gauge - now the possessor is ready to score a Power attack in, similarly invoked by consensus moves with but a few exception to this direction. As you might have guessed and probably guessed correctly, Gauge increasement occurs when you manage to connect, though taking assaults in has a tendency to offer some Gauge power as well. All characters possess a decent selection of these rampant delicacies in their arsenal, while the common specials and the subtle, integral core system Garou supports these focal elements with do invite us to taste a fighting experience which essentially begs to be invoked. Let us elaborate on these gameplay methods.
Garou heavily relies on the brand new Just Defense system when compared to previous SNK and Capcom efforts: a Just Defense maneuver occurs when you block an attack in the last possible moment as opposed of blocking offensive moves all the while. Successful Just Defense is Good News: it gives back life to you. Unsuccessful Just Defense is Bad News: you will suffer the harm intended without any block to damp the punishment down whatsoever. Just Defense is a truly nice implementation which invites you to demonstrate not just a safety-based, but instead a skill-based defensive game. Via the health increase a successful Just Defense worths and a flawed one tolls on you, the system becomes a focal factor and an element to imbue tactics into the flow when two great Just Defenders meet. Actually, the game features an invisible gauge which we might regard as the Guard gauge: if you eat in too many attacks in a short period, your Guard will be effectively crushed, leaving you pretty much helpless against consecutive attacks for a brief period.
Guard Cancels are reliant on the Just Defense system: certain kinds of special moves - for the Impatient: Special Command Moves, T.O.P. moves and Super Moves - can be transitioned and utilized as Guard Cancel moves, granted you Just Defended an attack. Time is both little and precious to introduce these cancels though, as you will have but a little more than a moment to state your special from behind the Just Defense you - naturally - just exhibited.
Feint moves are new, and pretty cool, too: the commands for these moves are consensual ones, while the moves themselves look different on a per character basis. Feints are both nice decoys and gateways to delicious parts of the system's depths. When you throw a Feint, your character will mimic one of her/his trademark specials by introducing the first few frames of the related animation, yet you are free to turn the Feint into an instant assault against an enemy whom is hopefully got misled by the Feint itself. This subsystem offers firm possibility to form combo chains by Feinting out from certain normal attacks, something the game allows, even invites you to do. Now it is up to the player to construct and develop longer combo chains that are incorporating both the Feints and the consecutive attacks.
What about Break moves? Each character has one or more Specials that can be broken up by a consensus command, giving opportunity to make your next action via any direction you want after splitting this particular special. These Break moves can be incorporated into combos, which of course is a yumi, yumi. Normally you can implement one Break move per combo, though you will see that this directive is but a directive indeed, not a rule which reigns intact and permanent. Successful Countering can open pathways to multiple Break moves. A Counter hit occurs when you manage to connect on your rival prior she/he could finish an opposing move that she/he was busy introducing. Garou likes Counters immensely, thus also delivers a rather complex and balanced subsystem to incorporate them.
The following sentence might sound a bit complicated, as it will concern move buffering. A quite nice thing about Garou is that it remembers movements and recognizes once a complex command have been both started and then have been finished, regardless if some additional command and its related move have been given and executed in between starting and finishing the more complex move which is incorporating the simpler move. Hey, thanks for still being here. This ability of buffering commands is naturally opens up nice additional perspectives. Garou also offers complex evasive maneuvers via upper body and lower body variants, yet each character have only one kind of main evasion form - upper or lower - available for them.
Throws are implemented nicely with a pair of related minigames to spice this here subsystem up further: you can escape throw grips if you use the consensus move with the right timing, while an underlying roll structure gives the players opportunity to decide how and when to roll - if to anywhere, that is - when knocked down. A swift forward roll might very well earn you both a grip on your rival and a successful throw, or a knee in your face which is not necessarily the result you were hoping for, yet an unsuccessful attempt at least still does remain an attempt, yes?
Garou still weighs in as a very integral and flamboyant 2D fighting system which remains supereasy both to recommend and to develop an immense liking for. But a final tip remains before you are advised to punish some Garou butts: if you want to face the Final Hidden Boss - and hell, you WANT to face the Final Hidden Boss as this is the only way to see your character's end sequence - then you do not necessarily want to score lower than an "A" Fighting Rank during the bouts, especially be sure that you do not lose a round against Grant, the great Sub-Boss Garou introduces. Kain awaits you, and it is Kain who waits for you, indeed.
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related recommendation:
Garou - Mark of the Wolves Guide
Garou - Mark of the Wolves System
Read more!
Friday, May 9, 2008
Samurai Shodown V Special
ISSEN HISSES!
Samurai Shodown V Special is the last statement for the NeoGeo platform from SNK, a piece naturally introducing massive relations with its direct predecessor Samurai Shodown V. The game presents a very impressive hero palette, offering even the trademark Boss protagonists as playable characters, while an elegant blend of the established Samurai Shodown traditions do form a supersolid basis here just to be spiced up sanely by fresh elements you never had chance to witness prior to this statement of elegance, integrity and significance.
Enjoy and Read on!
At its innermost soul - nice oximoron, no? - Samurai Shodown V Special seems to be a sober blend of the classic, simultaneous buttonmolesting-direction of the series, while keeping the more furious pace introduced from the third episode on intact. Every single method, feature and/or solution you love in the previous games are implemented, thus Samurai Shodown V Special first and foremost unravels as a robust statement to contain all the charming traits its predecessors have brought to the table, yet with the quite complex, combined structure it claims and proudly exhibits via filtering elements from previous episodes results in a highly flamboyant system that has a massive amount of content in store for us.
Now that the previously established gameplay mechanics pretty much all have been implemented, Samurai Shodown V Special definitely does NOT come up short of all the cute gauges we had exquisite chances to familiarize ourselves with, let alone the highly complex relations these meters are affecting each other by this time around. The basics have been altered as well, now we have a button specifically assigned to perform various dodge maneuvers beyond the classic evade attempts that are still available. These new basic movements allow you to roll back and forth, also swift jumps can be utilized, giving players increased potential to escape both from airborne and low ground attacks. The same button you use for the new dodge maneuvers triggers the Meditation function if you stand still and keep pressing, a feature coming back to the game after a brief absence, also a feature we will account on later.
Basic blocking still happens via the classic method of pulling your character towards the opposite direction good blessings and assaults do come from, yet the system now exhibits a rather elaborate cancellation structure underlying beneath which allows you to effectively counter opposing maneuvers out once you unleash the proper antidote-move to the incoming strike. This particular aspect weights in as a supportive, quite elegant subsystem which is rather interesting to explore on a per-character basis, yet seems to operate at the highest frequencies of the game. A definite offering for the hardcore player you witness, and what you witness here is none other than a definite offering for the hardcore player, say that I herein.
Additional extras as far as consensus movements are concerned include Pursuit maneuvers that do come in two different variants, each is quite suitable to greet an opponent who is about to get back on her/his feet, also some crazy-ass triangle jumps can be mastered to confuse either the enemy or at least yourself. A basic Surprise Attack is also accessible in each hero's skill palette, swift moves to connect on multiple occasions when properly executed, giving you a recoiling opponent and a chance to take a deep - yet swift - breath.
The essential gameplay mechanics surely do concern the massive amount of gauges you see on screen, in fact, you can't pick any favorite from a previous title and end up lackadaisical seeing that it's missing. Trust me, it IS there. The Rage meter still fills up when you eat strikes in, also the Rage Explosion is still available as comfy, cozy gateway leading to excessively aggressive behavior. You can pass through this gate once your Rage meter is full and choose to trigger the Rage mode via the consensus move. When enraged, you deal a blatant amount of damage to All Flesh Opposing, even better: when in this state, the timer stops counting back, letting you claim ruthless punishment without time limitation as long as the Rage gauge has some life in it.
A catch is present though, also, a clever one it is: you can use ONE Rage Explosion per match. I do not mean the round, I mean the entire match. As we will see, there are sober decisions to be made about when to use up this ability, as keeping it to the second or the third round is an absolute MUST if you plan to punish your rival with radical elegance. My personal observation is that it is generally seems to be unwise to trigger the Rage Explosion in the first round.
Let us see into the cause of this suspicion. Samurai Shodown V Special comes with the Mu no Kyouchi state implemented, this translates roughly to State of Nothingness. You can enter into this mode only when certain, strict conditions are fulfilled. These are as follows: you must have had lost a round already, AND you must be close to release your soul for the Eternal Hunting Fields by the time you are allowed to rely on this mode. Meaning you can trigger the Mu no Kyouchi only if your Life gauge has turned to Blue. This occurs only if you have access to the Rage function yet - surely, whether you do or not is revealed clearly by the accessibility or the absence of the meter in question. In case you Exploded in the prior round, you won't do that in the current, as the Rage gauge itself is absent. You see why it was unwise to trigger Rage in the first period? Haha, or you might as well see that you do NOT see.
As for the Mu no Kyouchi state: granted that conditions are fulfilled you trigger this special mode via a consensus command, and a pace of slow motion you find yourself in. The Rage gauge turns to Blue, counting back quite hastily: the amount of time you can spend in Mu no Kyouchi is massively dependent on the time you spent with Meditating prior triggering the state. You will see a tiny triangle above your Life gauge, - granted you are kind 'nuff to point your eyes to the hinted area - the further it is, the more you have meditated, and the more time you will be able to spend in state of massive focus and concentration. Let us clarify matters further: each character has different starting relations to pretty much all the gauges, meaning every hero will have their respective benefits and hindrances towards each gauge. Some gets Enraged further, some does not need to Meditate all that match to be able to spend a considerable amount of time in Mu No Kyouchi. The basic idea though, is this: if you spent no time whatsoever with meditation then chances are that you will only have time to execute the Issen move while in Mu No Kyouchi. The Issen move is the quite vicious strike we had chance to witness in Samurai Shodown IV by the name RAGE Strike - now accessible only through the State of Nothingness, while the resultant effects of successful utilization remain as satisfying as ever. Mu No Kyouchi also has an interesting trait to it: connecting strikes into a combo is quite easy when in this mode, you can even abuse your enemy in mid-air if you prove to be skillful enough to prevent her/him from falling. Perfect care, cool design.
We are to elaborate a bit on the Rage gauge yet, as a maximized Rage meter gives you access both to the Weapon Flipping Techniques and the Zetsumei Ougi delicacies, these latter group being the class to contain those tender, controversy-ridden Fatalities. Weapon Flipping Techniques are essentially the same elements that were the POW Specials in Samurai Shodown IV, yet now these moves do guarantee that your opponent will be disarmed when you successfully utilize these particular Specials. Weapon Flipping Techniques are blockable assaults, yet you are allowed to attempt them as long as your Rage gauge looks alive - once you succeed, the meter drops to zero, leaving you in dominant, your rival in desperate situation, as weapons are the most precious friends to keep close in the game.
- before -
- after -
A little side note here: the output features consensus commands to disarm the opponent while you are unarmed, even better: you are free to drop your instrument yourself as an act of taunting your partner. Killing yourself is still an option, as well. And great fun, too! Not to mention that you could rely on the feature in a tactical context in case you would go for the Mu no Kyouchi or the inherent Issen, as these, remember: require one lost round out of you. If giving away a session to your rival is too bitter of a perspective, then throw the round away by your own hands, and never forget to unleash the Ultimate Special, the Forbidden and Highly Secretive Five Note Song of Revenge Technique!
Goes like THIS, though takes LIFES to master:
MUHAHAHAHAHA!
The Zetsumei Ougi moves are accessible only in the rounds in which you could get away with the W, meaning either in a second round that follows up a FIRST in which you emerged triumphant, or in a third round following rounds with one win to go for both participants. You will need to be after a Rage Explosion to trigger the Fatalities, also it is required that your opponent's Life gauge have turned to Blue, giving her/him the chance to enter concentration mode and surprise you with the Issen. What though if your rival's Life gauge no longer can turn to Blue because she/he lost the Rage gauge by using up the Rage Explosion? Can you still unleash the Zetsumei Ougi? Be sure to comment if you could. A side note yet: the Zetsumei Ougi is blockable.
Kusaregedo (right) is a delicately silhouetted notability of modern day mixed martial arts.
Samurai Shodown V Special weights in as a robust statement to simultaneously record, contain and offer the great gameplay mechanics that were culminated during a whole decade to solidify unto the worthy output this piece proudly radiates as via every single seconds you spend with it. The excessive character palette and fine tuned presentational values conceal robust inherent content ready to be explored, yet let us conclude this review with a quite practical advice: if you want to see an Endsequence in this effort then you have to kill, KILL, absolutely !KILL! the first three Bosses the game puts you together with. Rely on the Issen or on the Zetsumei Ougi. For the forth Boss: you decide.
Giving the Issen to Amakusa?? SURE, we do that ALL DAY LONG!
If you enjoyed this here article, check out my comic: Planetseed
If you are to circulate magnificently pleasant vibrations: Buy me Beer
related recommendation:
Samurai Shodown V Special Guide
Samurai Shodown V Special Notions
Read more!
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