Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus

"Tao Feng, is this killer fighting game exclusive for Xbox? Find out."

After reading all the bad and good reviews by various people regardless of where they work, I tried this game myself by renting it and after 7 days, I decided to write a review for myself.

Story(9/10)
I usually don't care about the story as long as the game is good. However, the story was quite interesting plot, even though it was quite similar story to the game I know of. But with the character relationship and why they have to fight, it provided decent idea to the gamer. So I gave this one a '9'

Gameplay(8/10)
I am not really into the fighting game but I lay lots of fighting genre, so I have quite good feeling about this game at first, because of the interesting system. It is when you get hit or hit others many times and either you block attacks too long or hitting your opponent many times, it will cause your bone to break after the 2 warning messages and get hit. It was quite impressive that I wish they had more games like this. However, after playing lots of times, it gets boring and even if it reduces the damage inflicted by enemy by half depends on which part you broke, I didn't see much advantage over it. However, control was nearly perfect and it was easy to pull out the combo easily. Also, the attack of 'Chi' was nice thing to add onto this game. However, it wasn't really powerful at all. Only thing it was useful was that Chi attack is impossible to dodge. But damage caused by the special attack isn't that greater than you'd expect. Combo system was quite rewarding. Before I was button mashing, I couldn't even beat many fighters. But after I studied and learned the combos of each characters, it was way easier than I expected. So I was glad that no more button-mashing noobs winning the experts. Well, I lost couple times by those so called, 'Button mashers'. Anyway, overall, it was good gameplay.

Graphics(8/10)
The graphic was smooth and backgrounds were detailed enough. Character movements were impressive enough that it can even beat the DOA3 in some instances. Also, I liked little details in the characters. Like, shaking of boobs, or bruises after each knock down. But I didn't really notice much about tearing off of the clothes as they mentioned in the magazine. Also, if you adjust the rating option as Teen, you won't see any blood at all. And they look always same. But it doesn't mean that if you choose the Mature option, you get things like tearing off of the clothes and revealing such parts and such. ;)

Sound(8/10)
I wish they had some more exciting musics or something that is very noticable. In some part, the music wasn't even in my attention at all, but all those shouting from the characters and also, I was hoping that the characters could speak more.

Replay value(9/10)
With the quest mode, survival mode, and etc., it will make you spend more time on playing this fighting game. Even though it does not give you much, like Soul Calibur1 did, it's worth to try to beat all the quest mode. Also, the training option was cool that it even teaches you how to use each combo.

Rent of buy?
IF you are not really into the fighting game, then rent it first. But if you are one who that have to own all the Xbox exclusives or loves fighting games, buy it. This is neither excellent nor crap, but a decent fighting game. With some options to play around, this will not let you down. ;)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/03, Updated 04/04/03