"Calling all mid-90s 2D fighter fans!"

Overview:

Remember the hey day of 2D fighters and Street Fighter clones left and right? From SNK to Midway, it seemed that every company tried to cash in the craze of that time. Some fighting games were good, most average, and others down right terrible. In 1993 the release of Data East\'s Fighter\'s History caused an uproar with Capcom. Capcom attempted to sue Data East because Capcom thought the game was too similar to their flagship Street Fighter II. Capcom didn\'t win.

And thus in 1994 Data East brought out Fighter\'s History Dynamite. Later released on the Sega Saturn, let\'s examine how the game holds up.

Categorical breakdowns:

Graphics: 8
It looks quite nice. If you sit back and gander at it, it is quite attractive. Too bad though that some of the characters are a bit lame-looking... so that takes away some of the potential appreciation. Nonetheless, graphics are colorful and bold. The stages, for the most part, are very pleasing in visual detail and color usage.

Sound/Music: 8
Sound is average fare. Music though, is pretty darn good. The coolest thing about the music is that in each stage, it starts slow, then the second someone\'s energy bar drops 75% off or so, the music rushes to a chaotic pace which really makes the last few seconds of each battle something different. A small adrenaline rush if you will. Well executed. Although, this feature was present in Street Fighter II first... voice samples by the way, are doable. However, Ray\'s \'\'Big Tornado\'\' still sounds like \'\'Baked Potato!\'\'

Controls: 9
Controls will make you feel right at home.

Gameplay: 7.5
Gameplay is adequate. Some fighters seem unbalanced, however. A good Ray player can wipe out just about anyone it seems. His fireball travels way too fast compared to the others. But for some reason, as decent as the gameplay is, there is just a little something something missing from Fighter\'s History Dynamite that made the Street Fighter games such a blast to play. FHD fails to capture the essence of true enjoyable gameplay, even though it plays decently. One thing that hurts FHD\'s gameplay the most is slowdown during those \'\'intense projectile battles.\'\' It is annoying, but to me is passable and not enough to totally bring down the score. It\'s still a shame the slowdown exists at all. After all, this is a 1994 basic 2D fighter utilizing the 1 meg ram cart. 2-in-1\'s exist here as well as basic combo\'s.

Replay Value: 8
Having only 13 characters hurts somewhat. Especially when a number of them are lacking the personality that made other 2D fighters so enjoyable. There are no extra modes in FHD such as tournament, survival and what not. Unless you got a sibling or friend willing to play this with you, replayability on FHD is lower than your average notable fighting game.

Fun Factor: 8
Whenever I fire this game up, I am whisked back to my childhood -- a time of extreme youth; all the adventures and blunders that went along with it. I think it\'s pretty fun.

MISC:
-FHD has four buttons, the original had six

-Each character has some special moves along with an \'\'extra\'\' special move executed at any possible time by the shoulder buttons on the Saturn controller with the motion of the regular special move

-There\'s no little power bar or desperation moves in FHD (it\'s 1994 game at heart after all)

-FHD has an English option

-If you beat the game without ever using a continue, you get one round to fight against a giant black ox, it\'s very fun...

-Stages evolved from round to round and there are breakable items scattered about throughout the stages. Well done in this aspect

-If you connect on a character\'s certain hit point, the clothing or item on them will fly off and they\'ll become dizzy

-Requires a 1 meg ram cart. Also compatible with the 4 megger

-This game loads very well. Probably no longer wait than 6 seconds

-13 playable characters, decent roster of sorted karate men and goons. Karnov, the old arcade and NES icon, is here in all his Data East splendor

Bottom Line:

Data East didn\'t rewrite the book on the 2D fighting genre. Expect nothing fancy or special from FHD and you might have a good time. If you, like me, enjoyed the Street Fighter II clones of the mid 90\'s, Fighter\'s History Dynamite is right up your alley. I recall the hot summer day back on 4th of July 1999 when the mailman handed me this game. More than four years later I\'m still enjoying its simplicity and nostalgia-like value.

Overall: 8.0

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/03