Fighter's History

"Okay Ray where is this Baked Potato you were talking about?"

Fighter's History is without doubt only a pretender to Street Fighter 2 and every fighting game vet should know about the infamous lawsuit that Capcom filed against Data atrue that Fighter's History is a knock off of SF2 and a bad one at that. Let us go the characters now. The Japanese warrior who use fireballs,and a hurricane kick and also wears a headband is Ryu well he has a different name and yes most SF clones have a Ryu type fighter but this is ridiculous,the big strong guy wrestler with a bread named Mastadora or something like is freakin Zangief!! There is also the judo girl Ryoko(no relation to the Ryoko from World Heroes who also uses Judo ironically)and she looks like a female version of Ryu,the French men Jean who is a vain man like Vega and also throws roses at you like Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon,the kickboxer Samchay who is Sagat in some ways,the punk Matlock(Matlock? Isn't that supposed to be a TV detective played by Andy Griffith)who is Guile and even has both of his moves,the Chinese woman Fei Len who fills the roll of the Chun Li style fighter,Lee another fighter from China,and finally the blonde haired Ken like warrior Ray who has the most stupid voice clip in fighting game history which is ''BAKED POTATO!''. Argg and I thought ''All you Can'' sounded weird. The mid boss is Clown a circus performer who throws cards like the X-Men's Gambit,and the last boss Karnov who might remember from some other Data East games(Man they must have a real obsession with this guy because he first appeared in his own game,then as a boss in Bad Dudes,now he is the last boss here)and he is without doubt the easiest end boss I have faced in a fighting game and I have not lost a single round to him unlike Clown who at least put up a good fight with me. The game does introduce something original and they are weak points and they are various things that the fighter wears like sunglasses or headbands and when you knock them off they become dizzy(That is the only way that they would get dizzy). Hmmm that is pretty original for a SF knock off. Well moving on now.

Graphics
The fighters were okay looking yet some of them were not that interesting like Ray and the Ryu clone looked kind of boring and plain compared to some of the other fighters(Clown was probably the best looking out of the bunch if I may recall). The backgrounds were either good or just plain looking. Some examples of the boring backdrops were Karnov's which was just a desert which showed no detail even though a scorpion would appear at points out of the sand,and Lee's was kind of plain and there was also two ducks in his background that animated choppy. I liked Ray's background though which was in front of the Capital in Washington D.C,and Clown's weird circus backdrop with a ring master and fire eater. Okay if nothing else.

Gameplay
Zzzzzz oh sorry I must have dozed off. Well what can I say is that you would think a SF2 clone like this one could copy the same amount of fun present right? Wrong there because this game just feels so boring and not fun at times. It is also very easy too because most of my opponents didn't seem like they cared about the fight with maybe the exception of Jean who did fight like a man and the punk Matlock also had some skill but everyone else fought like it was on the lowest difficulty setting when it wasn't. Because of that I probably saw most of the endings in like only a day(most of them were kind of boring also like Ray's which has you asking why bother?). There is a group battle mode here and that was probably more fun then the main game itself but that really wasn't saying too much either.

Control
It is six buttons like in Street Fighter(Hmm most other SF clones have 4 buttons instead of 6) and it is responsive too so that is a plus there. Like I said most of the moves are rip offs of SF moves like the Ryu clone has almost all of Ryu's moves if I'am not mistaken(He had a fireball called the Tiger Bazooka and actually it is nice to see a fireball that isn't called something ken),I think Ryoko had a move like Zangief's spinning pile driver,and Karnov has fire attacks like Dhalsim(Actually in his previous appearances he did spit out fire so I guess it is not that bad of a thing). Well I will say it is responsive though.

Sound
I think Ray's ''Baked Potato'' pummeled the sound category straight down to the pits of hell never to see to see the light of goodness again. The voices were bad and I'am just talking about Ray because I'am talking about everybody because they all sound muffled yet Matlock and Clown's voices were okay though. The music is very bland sounding as well and it was just that too was so plain and boring yet CLown's BGM was okay. The announcer was also kind of bad too with his weak semi European accent that just did me in when it kept repeating. What else can I say about the sound except it too is also bad.

Replay
Hmmm where is the replay value here oh yeah I guess there is almost none HA. This game is just not fun and if you are a fighting game fan then don't really bother with it unless you want to play one of the biggest SF knockoffs out there. The group battle was alright and the weak points were also original in the day but that doesn't cut it unfortunately. So the replay value is just plain low.

Final Word
Why bother with this imitator when you can go play Street Fighter or maybe one of the better SF clones like Fatal Fury,Art of Fighting,KOF,Darkstalkers,Samurai Shodown,Jojo's BA,Power Instinct and pretty much almost anything else that comes to my mind. Fighter's History is not fit to even step in the same territory SF is in and even on its best day FH can never be better then SF. If you want rent it but buying it is out of the question.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/01, Updated 06/10/01