One Must Fall: Battlegrounds

"Hopefully a pioneer of a new genre!"

One Must Fall: Battlegrounds is a new kind of fighting game that includes a couple innovations that threaten to
change
the way the genre plays in the future.

The New:

The perspective: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds takes the old side-view from 2D and 3D fighting games in the past and throws it in the garbage. Introduced to take it's place is a over-the-shoulder view with completely unrestricted movement. 360 degrees of 3D movement are avialable to your character.

Online Multiplayer: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds is one of the few fighitng games made for the PC. This enables the game to break away from the 1 on 1 tradition that very few fighting games have walked away from. Team matches and FFAs are the focus of this game, but 1v1s are still supported. This can only be interpreted as a good innovation, because the multiplayer support does not directly harm 1v1 play; it just adds new ways to play fighting games.

Arenas: Unlike most fighting games, One Must Fall: Battlegrounds features interactive arenas. You have pickup-weapons,hazardous traps, and elevation, all of which introduce tactical elements into the combat. Unfortunately, the actual executionof these concepts is poor. There are not enough pickups, and most of the ones that are included are boring. The hazards
are a mixed bag; on some levels they're implemented extremely well, adding a lot of fun and strategy to the game. On others the hazards are just frusturating and annoying, and add little to the game.

Modability: Supposedly the game is supposed to be fully editable, but as of the time of writing the tools have not been released. If they ever are in fact released, a fighitng game editor should be fresh and interesting.

The Old:

Characters: The game doesn't have much variety when it comes to selectable characters. The game tries to have a dual-layered character selection, where the player chooses two characters : a pilot and a robot. The pilot, of which there are around 50 to choose from, simply contains modifiers for your robot's statistics (Power, Agility, Endurance, and Focus). The robot, of which there are 8, determines your arsenal of moves.

The idea for the dual-layered setup is to create a huge number of combonations for interesting
and varied play. The disappointing end result is that the pilot you select hardly affects strategies or play at all. High agility pilots can pull off slightly longer combos. Power pilots can put the enemy underground faster. Endurance pilots can take more hits. Focus pilots can charge their super meter faster. The problem is that these modifieres don't affect these stats in an extreme way. The pilot statistics need to have more of an extreme impact, and pilots need to have another
modifier (perhaps a unique move for every pilot to be added to your robots arsenal?) for this idea to be anything more than ''kinda cool''. Most other fighing games with a dual-layered character selection pull it off much better.

When it comes to choosing robots, however, your choice actually matters. The bad part is that there are only 8 robots to select from, which is a pitifully low amount by today's standards. The good part is that all these robots have a distinct feel and handle very differently. No robot feels redundant, and all of them try to retain a certain theme. Unfortunately, like the arenas, only about half of them are actually interesting. Some of them even feel incomplete, limited, and clumsy, as ifthey're works in progress.

Fighting system: The most important part of any fighting game is the fighting system; since most of your time will be spent fighting, it needs to be good! The fighting system in One Must Fall Battlegrounds is a sinch. There are no low attacks or low blocks like in most fighting games. All attacks hit high, and you only need one block to block them all. To compliment the 3D feel and view, each of your robot's four limbs are controllable. Instead of light medium and heavy hits, we have right and left punches, right and left kicks, right and left jabs, etc. It actually works out really nicely and intuitively.

Special moves are the heart of any fighting game. Street Fighter 2 wasnt popular because Ryu could punch and kick. It was popular because he could throw FIREBALLS! Some of the special moves in this game are very exciting. There are freeze attacks, rushing attacks, fiery beams, teleports, and even magnetizing moves; unfortunately, these moves arent very effective. They're mostly slow, low damage and easy to counter. The designers seem biased against specials and single attacks; the only real way to do serious damage in this game is:

THE COMBO. Combos dominate this game. They both make it and break it. They make it because they are beautiful, very fun to perform, and not many people would play this game without them. Aside from the combos, the actual fighting is pretty limited and too simple for it's own good. However, the combos also break this game for a few reasons. First of all, they're EASY. The gravity in the game is supremely unrealistic, with bots floating in the air and bouncing on the ground seemingly FOREVER,
allowing for massive air juggles. Just about every move can be cancelled into many other moves, giving every robot SPRAWLING combo trees. Unlike other combo-focused fighters like Killer Instinct though, these combos are also extremely high damage ones. An intermediate player can kill an opponent in 3 combos; an expert in 2. And that's not to mention the fact that these high damage combos often stun your opponent, meaning you will often lose because of one hit early on in the fight even to an opponent far less skilled than you! The consequence of being a low damage game with sprawling combos is pretty severe. It means poking strategies, risks, and tactical use of special moves aren't very effective. The game becomes all about opening a combo, and the methods to do so are not particularly deep. While there is a way to escape juggles in combos, in the version of the game I am basing this review off (Build 2172), they are slow, unreliable, and often counter-productive. Worse yet, they are often largely RANDOM; it is a rock-paper-scissors system of escaping a combo. Combos start off fun and amazing; they end up frusturating and game-breaking.

The new elements added to the fighting system, such as 3d movement (strafing, positional attacks, etc) work out beautifully. Unfortunately, the old elements that make for a fun fighting game are unrefined and unperfected. If only the developers got ''the old'' down right, we would have one monster of a fighting game on our hands!

Single Player Mode: The A.I. in the game is stupid and not much fun to play. The dialogues in the single player
tournaments are boring. The gameplay itself is too reptitive for single player; there are only a couple modes of play, and just not much to do in the game. If you don't plan on checking this game out for it's multiplayer, don't bother.

Presentation: The graphics are boring for a modern game, but they do their job well. The music doesn't really suit a fighting game, but this fault can be tacked on most new fighting games. Sound is mediocre. Not many complaints here, but not much praise either.

Recap:
In the end, OMF:BG seems like a game that needs some more time in development. The ideas behind it are SOLID, but the actual execution and lack of variety leaves a lot to be desired. With a deeper fighting system and better implementation of it's unique features (Arena hazards, pick-ups, pilots), it could be a masterpiece. Even despite it's flaws it is still a very fun game that is almost definitely worth your money (since its cheap) . But I honestly think the only reason this game is so fun is because the IDEA behind it was so great. Even though the execution was butchered, the idea and this new evolution for fighting games proved to be so great that OMF:BG got a LOT of play time from me. I look forward to the day that this kind of game is perfected.

I reccomend OMF:BG for any fighting game fans looking for casual fun or any gamer who wants to try a new GREAT idea. If you want a seriously deep 1 on 1 fighter, stick to your old guns.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/04