Pocket Fighter

"Oh come on, you know you wanted a super-deformed Street Fighter!"

If only one word could describe this game, it would be super-awesome. Capcom's crowning acheivment pits super-deformed Street Fighter and Darkstalker characters against each other.

The graphics are super-deformed (of course) and I love it! The sprites are beautifully animated, each costume (explained later) was drawn beautifully and it animates fluidly. Backgrounds are the best though! Expect cameos galore in this game not only from Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, but other Capcom games as well! The supers are cute, and deadly and you'll probably want to see each one at least once.

Sound is the usual fare so I won't rant about it.

Gameplay is where this game excels at though. With Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Chun-Li, Zangief, Morrigan, Hsien-ko, Ibuki, Felicia, Tessa (not sure from what game), and "secret" characters, Dan and Akuma (just press right or left on Ken or Ryu. =P The fighting has been simplified from 6-buttons, to 3-buttons. One is punch, one is kick and the other is a weird special move (the character will wind up and whack the other person with an object. Well there is a taunt button, but no one uses it. And each character now has only 3 special moves, shown at the bottom of the screen. What's with the 3 different colours? I'm about to get to that. What is cool about Pocket Fighter is that when you afflict damage, different coloured gems fly out of the body. When you pick up a gem, the colour you picked up will raise the bar of the respected colour. When you get enough, an attack becomes stronger. Very cool. Also, when you pick up gems, your super meter raises (it can go up to 9) and you can perfrom super moves by doing a controller motion and the special button. The combo system was also redone for this game. Now, the way to start a combo is to first punch and from there, any order of punches and kicks. After the first punch, every successful hit will be done in a costume! That's right, they change when doing combos. Well they also change when they do that special button attack but this is cooler. Watch Chun-Li turn into Jill Valentine, a cheerleader and many other forms! Watch Ryu not change cause he sucks! Ever wanted to see Akuma in a construction worker outfit? Or Dan in a disco suit? Now's your chance! Oh, and the story's are okay, I guess. Poor Ken though. =P

A neat little extra in this game is the Edit Fighter game. You train a character from Pocket Fighter and when they win, they get items (like Street Fighter Alpha 3). This would've been the best part of the game, if you could control the fighter. -_-

Pocket Fighter delivers some fun that should last hours. Not as long as say, an RPG but you know, fun laughs and stuff. Get it now!

Oh yeah... I forgot to tell you, the Super Taunt is better than ever!!!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 03/20/03