Deadly Arts

"GASP!! - My reaction when I first played this"

My friend lent me this game for a week, and when he handed it over, he attempted to tell me how rubbish it is. I declined to believe him, as I saw on the cartridge graphic it was made by Konami, a reliable source for good games. How wrong I was. To help tell you how pathetic it is, I'll break it down into some bite-size topics.

Graphics
Oh dear. The characters are blocky, the move animations are slow, and the only way I can tell one character from another is by their costumes. The stages look absolutely diabolical, and this quickly takes the fun from demolishing them. Yup, you can demolish them, but there's still no fun to be had as the graphics completely ruin this idea. I expect better from a normal Nintendo.

Sound
I'm pretty sure I've recognized some of the sounds on other games, and there's not too many tracks to boot. They come under the fighting music genre, but sound like they were made on a cheap synthesizer by someone with no taste in music whatsoever.

Gameplay
To an extent, there is a varied range of attacks to use in the game. But they all look the same! Every character has the basic one-two punch combo, plus a punch-kick combo. A lot of the 'Specials' look the same, for example I count three people with a Roundhouse Kick but with different names. I beat the CPU piss-easy as well, there is no challenge, even on Hard. The controls are very responsive, no complaints there, but it's what they do that is the problem.

Options
Not a lot. You can have the bog-standard one- and two-player battles, a tag-team mode where you fight one character after another, and Create-A-Fighter. ''What's that?!?!'', I hear you cry excitedly, ''Create-A-Fighter?!?!'' Don't get too excited. You can only choose about nine different costumes and not much else for each gender. When it comes to the moves, the frustration does not end. I applaud Konami for employing a ''Learn as you go along'' type selection, but to give a created fighter a full selection of decent moves, you would have to spend hours on end. Which is unbearable because of the above topics.

Conclusion
Don't waste your money, however little or however much it is. My friend bought this for £3 at a Car Boot Sale, and he tells me that was the worst £3 he ever spent, and trust me, he has made a lot of stupid purchases. Take heed, and hold your head high knowing you haven't played this.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/01, Updated 09/29/01