"A decent game that is brought down by several gameplay issues..."

---FIGHTERS MEGAMIX for Tiger Game.Com---

When someone discovers that the highly acclaimed Sega Saturn game, Fighters Megamix, had a Game.Com incarnation, many questions directly come through his/her mind. How did they emulate the ring based stages? What happened to wall stages? How were the character's moves implemented? Will this feature the same high level of strategic fighting it's Sega Saturn cousin had? How did they manage to place all these characters from Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers in a handheld portable version? And most importantly, was it any good? Well, I am afraid that the answers to your questions come in a negative shape. As much as the word ''potential'' comes to mind, while reviewing this game, other words like "boring", "failure", "clumsy" spring to the top of it.

You see, what Sega delivered on Tiger's handheld, was a pale imitation of one of the best Sega Saturn fighters, and actually a game that few will even come close to enjoying. But I guess that this was as much as the poor Game.Com could do, as I do accept that some effort was indeed put in this game from Sega.

I will try to further explain.

---GRAPHICS:

I have said already many times, but I will repeat it. Graphically, Game.Com was a case of wasted potential. It's processor could handle complex graphics and sound at the same time, and it was capable of showing quite complex 2D layers and sprites, but it was ultimately brought down by next to none memory and awful processor speed. It could perform basic 3D operations, albeit so slow. Thus, and while I believe that with superior programming you could manage to perform impressive games on it, nobody did.

But Fighter's Megamix comes close to good programming on the Game.Com. This game is not hindered by what most Game.Com games usually are. It does not have slowdown, and actually manages to perform some pseudo-3D effects, and move a couple of 2D layers along with the two character sprites. While nothing is really awesome, it certainly manages to remain decent under all circumstances. The stages look different from each other, and there are more than 10 of them. Also the characters are easily recognizable, and the movement is quite fluid -for a Game.Com game. But there are problems too. Animation is poor, with most moves consisting of only two frames, and the framerate, while always consistent, is actually pretty slow. Still, after having seen so many crap looking on the Game.Com, this was surely a welcome change.

GRAPHICS SCORE: 6.0/10

---SOUND:

There are literally no games on the Game.Com that have good sound. It was so badly performed from the hardware, that no matter how hard a developer tried, it would be not even close to acceptable. The same happens with Fighters Megamix. There are some awful music tracks for the intro, and music is, as anybody would expect already, absent from the most game. There only some digitized sound effects and voices, that while not being actually bad, are far from being anything decent. And you cannot listen to two sound effects at the same time, due to the Game.Com's technical shortcomings, so you I bet that you have already got the picture of how bad the sound of this game can be. Commodore 64 quality sound at best.

SOUND SCORE: 3.0/10

---CONTROLS:

The Game.Com's steady D-pad helps save what could have been a pain to play. Luckily your thumb rests easily on it, while you double tap a direction to run, or step away or close to the enemy. The same can't be said for the buttons on your right though.Performing anything from a kick to a punch or block will definitely result in shore thumbs. And there is not much strategy into it either. The long list of individual moves have been left on the Sega Saturn incarnation. Here you can only jump, punch, kick, defend and perform a super move for each character. There is nothing more into it, and soon you will realize that by simply pressing the punch or the kick button, you can defeat most fights. Welcome to the golden age of mindless button mashers!

CONTROLS SCORE: 4.5/10

---STORY:

While Fighters Megamix features a thin story, it was pretty much scrapped from the Game.Com version. So there is nothing to rate here.

STORY SCORE: N/A

---GAMEPLAY:

Well, you can select 4 Virtua Fighter 2 characters, 4 Fighting Vipers characters, and 4 secret characters. While there is no actual individuality in each and every one of them, you will soon prefer one or two over the others. Akira for an instance is one of the worst characters in the game, and his reach is really short, while Jack can reach much further thus most will prefer him. The moves as I previously said, are lacking in variety, and soon every fight will turn into a button masher. Just tap punch or kick as fast as you can, and victory is yours. Well, that's in EASY mode at least. Because HARD mode takes a much different approach. HARD mode simply consists of pre-programmed enemy moves-combos, that you absolutely have no chance of blocking, not even by pressing defense. So as soon as the game starts, you see your character getting hammered to the ground, with absolutely no chance of surviving past the 3 first seconds on the timer. And it really is not that exciting as it sounds...

GAMEPLAY SCORE: 4.0/10

---OVERALL:

William's Arcade Classics, is the kind of game, that you have to destroy upon sight. If you ever discover a copy, drop gasoline on it, and then set it alight. If you find more, blow up the whole place. It's a disgrace to the gaming industry, and to your own self. Avoid.

---

PROS: Decent attempt.

CONS: But ultimately flawed.

--- ---

FOR: Sega collectors and Fighters Megamix fanatics.

NOT FOR: Everyone else.

--- --- ---

OVERALL SCORE: 4.0/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/24/04, Updated 05/30/04