Fighting Force
PlayStation
Nostalgia Factor:
I remember there being a lot of hype for this game when it was released in 1997. Magazine covers, commercials on the TV, word of mouth, Fighting Force was everywhere. I, for one, was very excited for it. I didn't have money to buy anything at the time, so I ended up renting the game for the weekend. I recall being glad that I rented it and didn't buy it, because the game was very short and I beat it in one sitting. I mean, I probably played through the game a couple of times just to get my money's worth out of it, but to be perfectly honest with you I remember very little about my time with it.
Fast forward 22 years later to the year 2019. Aside from seeing this game for sale on the PlayStation Network and being vaguely interested in buying it, I haven't given Fighting Force much thought since 1997. That changed when my friend at work told me that she found a copy of this game while cleaning at home, and asked if I wanted to borrow it so I could review it for my blog. Heck yeah, I'd play it. I didn't remember much about the game, other than it being short and relatively fun. But that was perfect. I've been playing a lot of longer games lately, and Fighting Force would be a nice change of pace.
Or would it?
Story:
My friend didn't have the instruction manual for this game anymore, so I don't really know what is going on with its story. The game itself gives you absolutely nothing. No dialogue, no cutscenes, nada. It just throws you right into the action. Fighting Force is all about beating people up and destroying things, so I don't think the story really matters anyway.
All you do is beat up a bunch of bad dudes until you get to the end of the game, where you take on the head honcho, Zeng. Beat Zeng, and he goes to jail and the game is over. The end.
Gameplay:
The game begins with a character select menu, where you are given the choice of picking between two girls and two guys. Each character has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. One of the characters, based on his size, is clearly very strong but slow at the same time. The other guy looks more well-rounded. The girls are most likely weaker, but faster. I don't know all of their strengths and weaknesses, as I only played through this game twice with two different characters. I intended to give each character a shot, but once you make your selection at the beginning of the game, you can't switch out your character for a new one. Yup, you're stuck with them for the entire game! Most games of this nature give you the option to pick a new character when you die or have to use a continue, but not this one.
As far as gameplay goes, Fighting Force is clearly inspired by classic beat-em-ups such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage. You go through levels, beating people up until there is no one left to beat up anymore. You have your standard punch and kick attacks, in addition to being able to throw your enemies. You can also jump, but I never found much use for doing so in the game. Hold the trigger button and your character goes into a sprint. Hit the kick button as you are sprinting, and you do a special jump kick attack that knocks your opponent to the ground. I found myself spamming this attack more often than I would like to admit, since enemies are constantly surrounding you on all sides, making it hard for you to engage in one-on-one combat.
What sets Fighting Force apart is the ability to destroy things in your environment. See that police car over there? Go up to it and smash the hell out of it. It'll eventually break apart, allowing you to use the pieces to attack enemies. You can pick up barrels and throw them, pull metal pipes off of walls, destroy crates, boxes, telephone booths, and fire extinguisher containers for weapons, and you can even destroy vending machines and drink the soda cans they drop to regain a little bit of health. Make sure you are destroying everything in the environment, as you get bonus points at the end of each stage that can go towards extra lives for your character. You are going to need them! In addition to using the environment to craft weapons for you, enemies sometimes come into battle carrying things like broken bottles, knives, and guns. Knock them down and take their weapons and use them against them!
Every so often you will fight a boss character. These characters take a little bit of trial and error. I found them to be the toughest things about the game, as they can drop your health bar to zero FAST if you aren't on top of your game. The game saves very sporadically, only every few levels or so. It can be very, very frustrating to get killed by a boss and have to reload your last save. Likely, you are going to have to play through the last several levels of the game to get back to that boss character. While this game is relatively short, most of the time I spent playing it was replaying old levels again after I would run out of lives in the boss fights. Very annoying, very repetitive, and very unnecessary. Why can't there be a save point after every level? It felt like a cheap way of artificially lengthening the game, from my perspective.
One thing I should mention before I move on is the fact that this game occasionally gives you the option to choose where you want to go next. For example, one area gives you the choice of whether you want to move on to the Bronx, the mall, or the park. Pick the park, and you miss out on the Bronx and the mall stages. This gives the game a little bit of replay value, as you want to play through multiple times and see what each area looks like. I only had the energy to explore two of these paths, however, as the thought of playing through this very repetitive game a third time held no appeal to me whatsoever.
Graphics:
Most modern gamers will probably get a good chuckle out of this game's chunky, pixelated graphics. But not me. I don't know what it is about this era of gaming, but I just love this graphical style. I find it to be incredibly charming and fun. It is probably because I grew up playing games in this era, when graphics like these were considered state of the art. I know they don't look great now, but I still love 'em.
Not only do I love the game's pixelated graphics, I love its color scheme too. That fight at the top of the office building, with the potted plants and the broken windows and the papers blowing in the breeze? Perfection. The levels with the darker colors aren't as cool in my opinion, but they are still charming. I guess that sums up my thoughts on this game's graphics: charming.
Sound:
I'm pretty sure the copy of the game that I played was glitched, as there wasn't any music playing for the entire duration of the game. I know the game has music. I looked up some gameplay videos online and saw that there was music playing during the stages. But I didn't have any music. It is probably because I was playing a PS1 disc on a PS3. I always play PS1 discs on the PS3 and have never had a problem before, so I don't know what the deal was. Whatever. It happened.
The sound effects for the game are pretty good. All the punches, kicks, smacks, grunts, groans, and explosions all sound over the top and perfect for this genre of game. I have no complaints in this area whatsoever.
Overall:
There is a lot to like about this game. I enjoy the genre. I love the graphics and the sound effects. I like how it is a throwback to when video games were simple and didn't have to rely on complex storylines to keep you entertained. Fighting Force keeps you entertained with its gameplay, and nothing else.
I had some fun with this game. I really did. But as you all know this area of my review is where I drag out all of my criticisms, no holds barred. And unfortunately this game has a lot to criticize.
The controls aren't great. There is a little bit of a delayed reaction sometimes when it comes to you pressing the buttons and your character responding on screen. Animations are clunky and it is hard to perceive depth at times. This will often result in you missing with your attacks and kicking and punching at the air while your enemies walk around you and hit you from the side.
As I said before, enemies often crowd you from all directions, which makes it very hard to engage in one-on-one combat. You'll be in the middle of punching an enemy and someone will hit you from behind and break up your combo. Then all of a sudden four people are pounding on you at once and you can't get away, and half your health bar is gone. It is really irritating. I often resorted to spamming the jump kick move, as it knocks multiple enemies down at a time and gives you a few seconds to focus on fighting people one-on-one before the others get back up from the ground and start coming after you again. This method has its flaws, though, as the kick misses a LOT. When it does connect, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage either. Since I had to resort to using this attack so much in the second half of the game, it made the game feel MUCH longer than it really is, since battles would take so long to complete. And if you happen to die in that battle and have to start the stage over again... oh boy. This happened to me multiple times and it made me rage uncontrollably each time. Even that anger isn't as bad as the anger I felt when I'd run out of lives and have to reload a save and play through multiple levels again that I'd already beaten before. So, SO obnoxious.
I had a tough time with this game, and I don't remember it being so tough when I played it back in '97. There are a lot of enemies to kill, and a lot of them can do some major damage. My most hated part of the game goes to the underground laboratory part where you have to fight an ungodly number of respawning enemies. What makes this part so terrible is the fact that there are certain enemies who regenerate health whenever they take damage. So you have to try and beat them fast, which can lead to you making a lot of dumb mistakes. I HATED this part of the game, as I died and had to restart the area (and the obnoxiously long subway area before it) multiple times on my two playthroughs. It makes me mad just thinking about it!
I really wanted to like this game. I had an.... okay time with it. Its repetitive nature and its difficulty spike in the second half of the game are keeping me from loving it. As a nice little walk down memory lane, I am glad I revisited Fighting Force. Thank you, Amy, for loaning me this game. I'm glad I played it and got the chance to review it. Truth be told, however, I am never going to play this game again. And I am totally okay with that.
Final Score:
C-
If you liked my review of Fighting Force, check out some of my other game reviews:
No comments:
Post a Comment