Stake: Fortune Fighters

"A big disappointment!"

I first learned of Stake from a gaming mag, where I saw the print ad featuring the cool anime-style character art. I was excited since the visuals reminded me of Capcom's art. If the game itself had as much personality as Gameness' artworks, this game should be good. It didn't hurt that the Xbox really needs more fighters, and multi-player fighters (like Barbarian) are always welcome.
Anyway, Stake also was attractive due to the fantasy setting. Going into the game I was hoping for the whole shebang; nice anime intro movie, Story mode for the cool characters, various modes of play, extras to uncover and perhaps extra characters to unlock.

Unfortunately, this final product has NONE of that, and less.

First of all, in terms of presentation, Stake is a bare-bones affair. No FMV movies or intros of note, the menus and selection screens are basic and made adequate only by the nice character art. There is no story to speak of save the premise of a tournament, and so far, no extras and bells and whistles. And while I do say that the art is the best the game has to offer, the designs are very derivative of other games, particularly Power Stone which Stake unsuccessfully tries to emulate.

Graphics-wise, Stake would make a fairly pretty game for the Dreamcast. On a system like the Xbox though, it is thoroughly underwhelming. The best thing about the graphics are the character models, which are clean, fairly hi-res and nice to look at. However, animation is not as great or as smooth as it could be, especially for attack and special effects. Nothing spectacular; just adequate.

In terms of Sounds and Music, character voices are repetitive and get irritating fast. The music is forgettable, and while the game supports user soundtracks, it just doesn't work and the menus are cumbersome. Best way to go is to just turn the sound waaaay down.

Gameplay is where this game really bites.

Each character has extremely few moves, so things get repetitive fast. Most probably though you will just rely on one single button (the fast attack) to get through alive. The fighters suffer great imbalances, so slow fighters are at a great disadvantage.
The control overall is sluggish and awkward. Combos seem to hit or miss depending on the CPU's whim; irritatingly CPU opponents have the awesome ability to break combos, throw your fully-healed character into inescapable instant death falls, hurl bombs and infuriating 'shrinking' potions with unnerring accuracy, use special attacks when you're down and worst of all, move faster than you.
This is made even more unbearable by the restrictive camera, which is fixed at a horizontal position. You can zoom in or out, and lower or heighten the camera height, but you cannot rotate around your fighter. This results often in things getting between you and your character, and of course, in your getting ahead in this game.
And I have to mention as well the truly frustrating traps in the game; the shrinking and freezing traps just throw off what little pacing and speed this game has, and are used to their best only by the CPU.

As for modes of play, there are only TWO. Single player and Multiplayer. Single player is full-screen, pitting you against several opponents. The multiplayer is split screen, giving you even smaller views of the play. Aside from these two modes, there is only a useless Watch Mode which I really can't figure out WHY it even exists.

As for extras and bonuses, I haven't seen any. Each character has four aspects/alternate costumes which apparently can only be seen in multiplayer mode if you select the character more than once (Barty's blue bikini outfit is the best...). Other than that, I don't know if there are any unlockable characters or bosses. This game won't let me discover them. BAH.

I really wanted to like this game for the character art, but there is little in this game to like. It really feels like a rushed, or worse, abruptly halted, project (which is odd given the delays this game has had). Sorry to say, but this is one of the worst fighters available on Xbox, though perhaps not as bad as Kabuki Warriors.

Keep away if you want a good multiplayer fighter; Kung Fu Chaos or even Barbarian (which shares the fantasy theme) will serve you better.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/25/03, Updated 05/25/03