Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus

"Only for true fighting game fans, all button mashers....sorry!"

Okay, the first thing everyone will probably want to know is should I buy or rent/borrow this game, well if you think you are a good fighting game player then yes but if you only play DOA3, Tekken, VF4 then stay very far away from it. Now onto the Review...

I'll start off with the storyline since that is one of the games biggest assets and flaws. The storyline in this game is very well played out for a first game in the series, especially since it is a fighting game. The story takes place in New China, and is about two clans called the Pale Lotus and The Black Mantis and I'll assume you can tell which one is good and which one is evil. The Black Mantis is an evil clan that is led by this guy in a mantis suit, at least I think it is a suit, that wants to gain a potion of immortality. The Pale Lotus is the resident good guy clan that is led by the token old guy but the thing in this fighting game is that he isn't drunk for once and he wants the gift of knowledge.Now the two clans fight for certain artifact pieces which to be truthfully honest with you, I have no idea how they fit into the storyline. The storyline is actually pretty good, all of the characters have individual bios and other cool things and it really draws you into the character you find the coolest.

Story: 9/10

There are 12 characters to choose from from the start of the game but there is another character that you unlock later on. All of the characters in Tao Feng are rendered beautifully with all sorts of cool Xbox tricks and graphical effects. You can pretty much predict all of the characters in the game and how they will play but they are all very well balanced and you never feel like you're overpowered or outmatched. Now for the bad news, when you start to fight in the game you will notice that the characters look a little stiff compared to games like DOA or Tekken, especially when you first begin and only know two ro three hit combos. Once you get into the feel of the game though you will notice that once you start doing five or six hit combos they look very smooth and painful. Also one of the other things that may annoy people is when you kick or punch a character up in the air they kind of float there and it is pretty much a free hit fest until someone screws up the juggle. All of the characters take real time damage and can injure there arms and legs if they decide to turtle(i.e. Turtle: Tur-tle (v.) to sit and block until you are able to get a combo or super off on the attacker), which is good in theory but it does not reach it's full potential in the game. If the defenders arms are injured in combat then they do %50 less damage when they hit you but it still doesn't prevent them from blocking. The real time damage is great and really shows what direction fighting games should be going in, after every life bar is depleted you see the all the characters scars, bruises and other bad things that happen to them when they got there butt whipped. Overall the characters look great but the animation in the short form combos seems a little rushed.

Now here is the part that I love to talk about, the levels! The levels are some of the best levels I have seen in any game and are very fun to play in. There are several different arenas including a boat, boardwalk, and an alleyway under a train rail. All the stages are fully destructible and can injure your opponents if they are tossed into certain objects. They are not, however, multi tiered which may shun people that play DOA3 but there si plenty of stuff in the map to destroy and break. The maps are very highly detailed and show plenty of eye candy for you to gawk at while Exile is smearing the floor with your face. Some of the levels have holograms and games playing in the backround which all look nice, detailed, and nearly real.

Graphics: 9/10

Gameplay is where this game really shines if you are a fighting game fan. Every character in the game has multiple combos which can sometimes be linked and juggled together if you are a good player but if you are a button masher then you are pretty much screwed. The combo system is under heavy fire in this game since there is really no reversal system or way out of the combo once the character that is performing the combo lands the second hit on you. After the second hit in the combo has been landed then you are then you are pretty much the other players *ahem* female dog friend, until the combo is finished or he decides to let up. This can be a great thing for veteran fighting game fans that are great at memorizing combos but for new comers it is the worst thing ever. The only way you can really fix that is if you go to training mode and practice the combos, once that is done and you learn some of the long form combos then you can kick some major booty and feel like a good fighter. Once you start to play the game the first thing you are going to notice is that there is no ring outs, freeze attacks, or fireballs being thrown every two seconds, remember that you are not playing Mortal Kombat. The entire fighting engine is pretty much combo based, the only time you can throw a fireball or shoot some super move out is by building up your ''Chi Meter''. Your ''Chi Meter'' builds up as you attack your opponent and when it is full you can either choose to heal your broken arms or legs or use a super move that usually takes %20 of your opponents health away or stuns them and leaves them open for attack. Now on to the limb damage, you gain limb damage as you block your enemies attack, as it builds up you will hear the announcer say ''Limb Damage Alert'' which means ''Hey stop blocking or you'll regret that'' and then if you keep blocking you will hear ''Limb Damage Danger'' which means ''Don't get knock down or there goes your arms or legs''. Once you hear that, limb damage danger, if you get knocked over, depending on where they hit you, arm or legs, you will get limb damage.

Gameplay 9/10

The sound in this game is very good, the voice acting is great and the crunches and cracks are a little to vivid and almost make you want to kringe. All of the music in the game is pretty much your average fighting game blend, a little techno, little, rock and a little of every other kind of music you really don't care about when your getting your butt beat.

Sound 9/10

Now for the part that most people hate about the game, control. The controls in this game are very good in my opinion and I think people just do not know how to combo in this 3D fighting game society. The controls are very tight, the Directional Pad allows you to block by holding back, crouch by holding down, etc. but sometimes when you panic really bad and try to jump the game will think ''hey it looks like he is trying to sidestep'' and will make you sidestep which can sometimes be annoying but there is a simple way to stop this, DON'T PANIC. You can turn on the left analog stick which will allow you to move in 3D and makes it easy to dodge and sidestep enemy attacks. Now some people are going to hate me for this but I have to go back and talk about the combo system. When you combo in this game it takes pretty precise timing and the only real way for you to master a combo is to practice and if you don't odds are you are gonna mess up in mid combo.All in all the controls are very tight and responsive but they do take a little getting used to.

Controls: 8/10

This is a fantastic fighting game for anybody who knows how to play 2D fighting games or any game without free form combos and I recommend it for any fighting game fan.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/03, Updated 03/26/03