Fighter Maker

"A great concept for maybe the wrong genre"

When you play a fighting game like Tekken or mortal kombat, you are usually amazed at the incredible moves the fighters are able to pull off. Sometimes you feel like the character should have had a different kind of kick in his arsenal or a punch. Maybe a flying roundhouse kick 3 times! Or how about a punch that takes out half the opponents health? Enter Fighter Maker.
In Fighter maker you are given the freedom to create your kind of fighter from scratch. Well almost, you can't change their appearance but almost everything else can be customized. Even their hometowns can be added. Once you pick your fighter, it is time to give him a whole arsenal of moves. This is not like a wrestling game where you give the fighters moves from a limited database. No, here you can literally create their moves. You can make your fighters do all sorts of things, your imagination being the only limitation. You pick a body part, and decide how you want to twist it or turn it, at what angle its going to move and how much damage it will do. Now, all this sounds cool and is any fighting game fans' dream. But, hold your horses.
Creating a fighter can take you more than 100 hours! That's because you have to create every aspect of every move which takes up a lot of time. It took me 2 hours to get one move of a character the way I wanted it to be. You need a lot of patience and it is very easy to be frustrated after just 5 moves. If you do have the patience and manage to create a cool fighter with a lot of moves, you can allow them to fight other created fighters or the computer generated ones. But, this is where the limitations of the fighting genre come into play. Even if you have a character with 50+ moves, it is fun to look at them only for so long, until you want a different character. And not too many people have the patience to spend another 100 hours to build a different fighter. The reward isn't that high compared to the effort it requires. Still, it is worth taking a look at just to try out a few moves.

Graphics: 7.
It isn't the best, but I was impressed at how smooth the action looked considering that the moves were created. There is only one background, though.

Sound: 7.
Decent music and sound effects. Nothing spectacular.

Gameplay: 6.
Like I said, you need a lot of patience for this one. It is also not very easy to create the moves and frustration will set in.

Replay Value: 8.
You can keep creating fighters and come up with never before seen moves. But, do you have the patience?

Overall: 7.
This game had a lot of potential. But, the fighting genre isn't right for it. If you have a lot of patience and time, buy this game, if not, it is worth a rental.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/00, Updated 07/26/00