Original fighting games that were poorly executed

A fun topic. What are some fighters you feel are original, and had some good ideas, but the way in which they were executed left much to be desired? Here are a couple of my pics:

Killer Instinct - This game was hella cool. The graphics were badass for it's time, and it had some decent characters, however the combo system sucked in the fact that combo breakers made each person turtle through the match. I like the idea of stringing special moves together to add a new type of combo in, but I wish they didn't do as much damage and couldn't be combo breaked. The sequel kinda made it harder to CB, but there was still much left to be desired.

Mortal Kombat - This game was very cool for it's time, but the gameplay wasn't really all that happening. I have a real dislike for the block button and the way the earlier games played, although MK2 had some cool combos to stumble upon (not like MK3 where you just dial everything). The run button was a terrible idea. Let me block by holding back and run by double tapping and holding forward. It just had an overall stiff feeling that couldn't keep me coming back to it, despite the digitized graphics, fatalities, and other little cool stuff throughout the game.


Just a couple of mine, I'd love to hear what everybody else has to say.

I would say tobal no.1 the graphics were a big turn of to most people. Thankfully they fixed that in tobal No.2

Clayfighters would have been great had they spent more time tweaking the play control. The concept was hella cool, but the moves came out so slowly...very reminiscient of the slowness that was in the SNES version of Mortal Kombat.

Tobal #1
-The story was on the so-so side but I'll give Square points on the character side though. My main gripe with this game is the fighting engine, it was such a damn turn-off to me with the way they where moving around and some of the moves thay could pull off.

Rage Of The Dragons
-I love this game but the freakin' dial-a-combo is killin' me. I so wish they would have worked on this more before they brought it out.

Tekken 4
-I like the tekken series and after what is Tekken 3, T4 had a lot to live up to and thus it kinda failed. I don't like the new jab-kick thing they where doing with by tweaking the engine a lil bit. I'm glad they tried to bring the story back down to reality but that doesn't make up for the lack of characters

KOF

World Heroes.

The character concepts were cool, the way they were designed and executed left a lot to be desired. I'd love to see the people at Noise redo them the way they redid the Power Instinct and Double Dragon characters (I'm only talking about design here, not gameplay).

Make the sprites a little leaner and meaner, a little darker, and less cartoony. Now that would be a 2D fighting game I'd like to own and play.

Weapon Lord had great character and level design but the gameplay really needed an overhaul. They had some good concepts but the execution was sub par. That game would have been great if it didn't play like sluge.

I'd really like to see another Eternal Champions with updated 2D graphics, new character art and animation. Back in the day EC had it all. Great gameplay, great art, great tunes. I'd just like to see it all upgraded by today's 2D standards.

Mike

MegaDrive 20XX:
Karate Champ

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That is a hilarious joke.

chainsawyak:

MegaDrive 20XX:
Karate Champ

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That is a hilarious joke.

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Agreed.

MegaDrive 20XX, what's 'poorly executed' in Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung Fu? Both of them where pioneer games that helped to build the fighting game genre, specially Karate Champ. If at all, both games seem a bit dated nowadays, but personally I still enjoy them a lot.

Anyway, my vote goes for Budokan - The Martial Spirit (Electronic Arts) on Genesis. IMO, it was a very cool idea to make a fighting game which includes real martial arts such as Kendo, Karate, Bo and Nunchaku, and the game was fun to some extend because it offered good 2P action and a comparably big move repertoire, but it was difficult as hell to land a few decent hits in a row because of the stiff controls and weird sprite collision detection.

On the pro side, finding the balance between ki, attack power and effective defense was really a blast, so for me, it's a pity that the game controls so badly, with controls like SF2 SCE or even Dragon Story, the game could have been one of the best early Genesis fighters.

Kakuto Chojin-
Could've been a LOT better if they had just made the fighting system a little more expansive and easy to manipulate. Almost every single worthwhile move is a dial-a-combo of varying length. However the locations and music almost save this game from being an utter failure.

no one mentions eternal champions...

Bushido Blade broke a lot of new ground with its one hit kills, there were flaws though and its dissapointing that they just gave up on the whole concept rather than right the flaws.

Pit Fighter
Street Smart
Time Killers
-BB

tsukaesugi:
World Heroes.

The character concepts were cool, the way they were designed and executed left a lot to be desired. I'd love to see the people at Noise redo them the way they redid the Power Instinct and Double Dragon characters (I'm only talking about design here, not gameplay).

Make the sprites a little leaner and meaner, a little darker, and less cartoony. Now that would be a 2D fighting game I'd like to own and play.

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Agreed. And the C button for throwing opponents is lame. They should have learned that with the first FF. wink

Rurouni Kenshin

This fighter sucked so hard and the fact that SNK was vying for the license to produce this game and lost it is just the icing on the shit cake.

Gan Gan
poor control (it is hard to pull shit off) hurt this game. The big thing helping the game was the reputation around it. A lot of people I knew in school wanted to at least try "ADK" out when they heard about the special moves in Gamepro or EGM. But no one who played it back then gave it another look.

Samurai Shodown IV
It could have been so much better. Instead, they went cheap on the graphics, just stretching out pre-existing sprites. They messed up the control, and dropped a bunch of combos, thereby appealing to the poor slobs who couldn't combo in II or III, and added a dail-a-combo system to raise your rage gauge. If it wasn't for Kazuki and Sougetsu, this game would be trash.

Masters of Teras Kasi... the greatest opportunity ever... why... WHY??? oh_no

inu-yasha

they had such a good liscense to work off of, and then this shit? its so horrible.

Eternal Champions
Mortal Kombat
Black Hole Assault

soul caliber buttrock buttrock

neojedi:
Masters of Teras Kasi... the greatest opportunity ever... why... WHY??? oh_no

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I know--it seemed to be a pathetic attempt at Tekken mixed with a pathetic attempt at Soul Edge. Even the voices were bad, like Arden Lyn's. "You are a... pitiful fighter."

soul calibur was poorly executed?????
are you playing the same game?
it might be a game where button bashers can win the odd match but it is anything but poorly executed.

my picks are
k1 grand prix.this is some kickboxing styles on a similar tip to bushido blade.i.e one hit knockdowns etc.fun to play in 2p but very flawed as a 1p game.

Eternal Champions rocked the proverbial house, have you seen the amount of animation the fighters have in that game? not to mention the QUALITY backdrops and music, and fatalitites!

whoch begs another question. This question comes on a 24Meg cart, and you mean to tell me that a game like Fatal Fury 1 is 55megs? well, what the hell did they do with the extra 31 megs?

Similar comparisons can be drawn with Streets of Rage 2 (16megs) to Burning Fight (54megs)...there's no comparison that practically EVERYTHING in SORII is higher quality than Burning Fight.

meg counts= bullshit

Galaxy Fight gets my vote for a cool concept that got fizzled out due to bad control. The character design and backgrounds were plain awesome, and if you hear the soundtrack on CD it totally kicks ass, but the three buttons for different strengthed attacks sucked. I wish there could be a Galaxy Fight 2 or Perfect that would add about four new characters and fix the controls, but I think I can give up chasing that ghost...

Honorable mention goes to Eternal Champions. Great design for the most part as far as U.S. designed fighting games go, but could've been better. I bought EC CD for about $10 many years ago, and wasn't too disappointed, but it made me think they were trying to ride the coat-tails of Mortal Kombat's popularity with all the needless gore.

Plisken:
This question comes on a 24Meg cart, and you mean to tell me that a game like Fatal Fury 1 is 55megs? well, what the hell did they do with the extra 31 megs?

Similar comparisons can be drawn with Streets of Rage 2 (16megs) to Burning Fight (54megs)...there's no comparison that practically EVERYTHING in SORII is higher quality than Burning Fight.

meg counts= bullshit

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I remember reading that the Neo doesn't compress its cartridges like the other cartridge systems have, or words to that effect. Comparing the amount of data in Chrono Trigger to Fatal Fury, for example, lends credence to it if it's correct.

On-topic, my vote has to go for the Brutal series, hands-down. The premise is kind of original: take a bunch of anthropomorphic characters (like a fox, cheetah, etc.) as opposed to human characters like every other game except Clay Fighter and RotR. The backgrounds were outstanding in some levels (particulary Rhei Rat's mountain/waterfall/temple scene) but the controls...where do I begin?

First of all, the "dojo" system was inventive IMO, and sounded good on paper. It makes sense for your character to learn more moves as he/she gains experience. But the way it pans out in-game is all wrong. You generally start off with some simple, albeit awkward commands (btw, I'm talking about the SNES version, Paws of Fury, here), such as hold the L/R button and make a fireball motion. An on-screen controller graphic depicting the buttons and movements required to do the move help, theoretically. Yet I've done the more complex movements EXACTLY like the demonstrations and end up pulling off everything *but* what's called for. Then you just watch yourself fail over and over again until your time limit for pulling off the move runs out. THEN you can't progress any further, ability-wise, until you pull that one move off. This game's controls butcher the already-stilted gameplay.

The atmosphere is a mixed bag, too. Throwing a bunch of animal/human hybrids sounds like something goofy, yet the atmosphere in terms of sounds and story is somber, if not dull. The on-screen characters are serious-looking and don't convey any sense of emotion (unlike the manual illustrations), yet some of the moves/names/characters are "comical" (like Prince Leon's Jimi Hendrix look and his 'air guitar' move, the Dali Llama). It's as if the developers couldn't decide which direction to move in, so they just sort of threw it on the wall to see what would stick. It should be noted, however, that some of the characters (Thai Cheetah and Foxy Roxy in particular) are very cool, although others (like the previously mentioned Leon and Llama) are just idiotic. It could have been goofy or serious, and one direction should have been chosen over the other IMO (although I would've preferred the latter).

I think the premise, characters, and originality could've made this at least a cult hit of sorts (I'd kill to see this game remade in CPS3-quality sprites with larger characters that look like their OUTSTANDING box art -- seriously, this game has the best box art ever IMO, tied with Sparkster -- and a greater focus on the story). It's just a shame the controls and oblique, somewhat apathetic experience rendered it to mediocrity (honestly, if you think SNK bosses are cheap, try fighting Dali Llama and his cheap teleport attack...yeesh). envy

<small>[ July 02, 2003, 11:14 PM: Message edited by: 2Heed ]</small>