With the popularization of the fighting game genre came a sea of copycat releases. Every developer and their mother wanted to release the next Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat to strike it rich, but many of their efforts were lazy and uninspired. This brings me to Fighter’s History. While other developers copied the formula and came up with inventive scenarios and characters Data East stuck a little closer to the source material than most others. The end result was Fighter’s History which bears more than a passing resemblance to Street Fighter II. It looks and plays so closely to the inspiration on which it was based that Capcom went so far as to press charges against Data East. The case was thrown out, but the similarities are undeniable. As a huge fan of Street Fighter II it didn’t take much to talk me into taking Fighter’s History for a spin. It plays very similarly to the source material, and that’s what makes this game awesome.
The plot in Fighter’s History centers around a modern day martial arts tournament called the great grapple. Combatants from all over the world come together for a chance at the mysterious organizer Karnov, but none have ever managed to defeat him. For this tournament only nine fighters have signed up, and all have their separate reasons for wanting to participate. The character roster is laughably unoriginal. Just about every fighter has a Street Fighter II counterpart who not only looks the same, but generally have similar movesets.
The main protagonist of this series is a blonde haired Ken wanna-be named Ray McDougal. Liu Feilin is your basic Chun Li clone with a very similar moveset. This character was specifically named in Capcom’s lawsuit, and it’s not hard to see why. Additionally you have Mizoguchi who looks like a bad Ryu cosplayer, Samchay is your poor man’s Sagat, Jean is a seriously uncool version of Vega, and Mastorius is a sad excuse for a Zangief impersonator. The other fighters are derivative, but slightly less so than the aforementioned characters. Ryoko is one of the more original creations in this title as a Japanese school girl trained in the art of Judo and based on a real life fighter. Matlok Jade is a punk rocker who actually resembles Duck King from SNK’s Fatal Fury franchise more than any of Capcom’s creations. Lee is one of the more boring characters in this game; he was obviously designed by someone who just didn’t care.
The roster is pretty lame overall, and the two boss characters (Clown and Karnov) are laughably bad. Thankfully the fighting engine is good, because otherwise there would be no redeeming qualities in this release. Basically, if you’ve played Street Fighter II then you’ve played Fighter’s History. That might be a simplification, but it’s right on the money. Fighter’s History is your typical single plane one-on-one fighting game. You have three different modes to choose from; arcade, survival, and versus. The first is your basic story mode wherein you choose a character and then fight your way through the roster until you face off against and defeat Karnov. Versus is your typical multiplayer mode wherein you fight against a second player, and survival pits you against multiple opponents one after the other and you’re allowed to choose multiple characters to participate. Additionally you have three different difficulty settings, and each fighter features their own specific stage which follows the theme of their nationality or profession. The best addition to this home port is the ability to play as both Clown and Karnov by use of cheat codes.
For what looks like a budget title Fighter’s History features a surprisingly fun fighting engine. The characters move at just the right pace (at a very similar speed to the original Street Fighter II) and there’s no slowdown whatsoever. The recovery time between performing each move is small which makes it exceptionally easy to chain together attacks resulting in great combo potential. Within just a few minutes I was able to link special moves together with ease which is something I can’t say about most other fighting games.
While the combo system is nice, but the special moves are for the most part highly uninspired. Most characters have only two or three of these at their disposal, and typically a slot is wasted on a generic projectile. It’s pretty lame, and there’s an obvious lack of ingenuity at play here. What’s more is that the special moves are all highly similar to one another between the different characters. There’s a lack of variety in play styles which is highly disappointing. On another note Fighter’s History does at least try something new in the form of the glowing weak points. Successive strikes cause places on each fighter to shine, and hitting them at this point makes them automatically go dizzy. It’s kind of interesting, but the feature is pretty insignificant.
The graphics are unfortunate. Visually Fighter’s History is very bland with generic and derivative fighters, boring stage designs, and a noticeable lack of flair. This has ‘budget title’ written all over it, but it sounds like this was a full priced release back in the day. Let’s start with the character designs. Everyone looks like a generic thug you would encounter over and over again in a beat ’em up which is pretty sad if you ask me. They don’t have elaborate costumes nor are any of their animations or personalities memorable in any way. To make things worse many of them, as I already mentioned before, look very similar to others from Street Fighter II. They’re all poor man versions of the source material. The backgrounds are pretty boring as well. They feature limited detail, and even though some of them have animated elements they just aren’t all that interesting. The artists couldn’t exactly copy these assets from Street Fighter (that would surely have gotten them in real trouble) but what we’ve got are jumbled messes of uninteresting locales. There is an obvious lack of inspiration, and the artists didn’t seem to love their work or even have fun with this release.
Personally I like Fighter’s History. The gameplay engine is a lot of fun, and potential for combo attacks is tremendous. This is one of those games that I enjoyed simply experimenting to find out the best follow up attacks. Unfortunately the art style, scenario, and characters are among the most forgettable you’ll find in any fighting game. This was obviously a project for which the artists and designers had no passion for. It’s ultimately forgettable, but as long as you don’t care about flash and flair there’s some fun to be had here.
