Fighter's History (Super NES, 1994)

 

Looking at an oddball Data East fighting game that made its way onto the SNES. This wasn't exactly King of Fighters '94 or anything. The lack of SNK fighters on the SNES is weird, but it left some room for games like this to try and compete with the MKs and SFs of the world.

The box art shows off the game's highly-unappealing roster of characters. The giant head in a turban is the villain of the game, Karnov. This is basically a clone of Street Fighter II while also borrowing heavily from the aformentioned KOF series (going for realism, etc). It's on the Switch Online virtual console as we speak, mostly just taking up space.

Someone out there likely has this as their favorite game, though.

Not many options, pretty barebones game. It has a two-player versus mode so it has that going for it.

The character it defaults you to is this oddball guy in the middle, who is a fusion of Dhalsim and Sagat if they were horribly burned by gamma radiation. What's really weird is that he's the default choice and not the blonde guy in the upper left who is clearly intended to be the real "main character" of the game.

That's Ray, and he seems miffed about something. More importantly, this finally answers a question I've had since the 90's. I could have sworn one of the games I played on an arcade machine back then had a character named Feilin, and it wasn't until now that I stumbled upon the game that had her. I thought she'd probably pop up in the KOF series somewhere. Nope, here she is.

Which means I played this once as a kid. Back then, pizza places were magical; you'd go there to have some food, sip Nestea, and play arcade fighting games.

Now...there are no arcades, I'm allergic to caffeine so no Nestea, and the rare times I get a frozen pizza to try and relive the old days of having one and gaming, I end up finishing 25% of it and then feeling deep shame and giving the rest away, wondering why YET AGAIN I thought the Motor City Detroit Deep Dish pizza was any good when it's in fact quite mediocre and you can practically feel it clogging your arteries.

The game itself... plays just like Street Fighter II, with 3 levels of punch and 3 levels of kick. The moves are all very grounded and realistic, nothing crazy or mystical here. Feilin doesn't particularly stand out, not sure why she's the one thing I remember about this game. Ray looks cool enough; not unique enough to build a franchise around, as I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but cool enough to make the game compelling.

The other lady in this game is Ryoko. She looks upset, so she's probably in the tournament* to avenge her father or something. * - or whatever is going on here

The creators of this game didn't get the memo about female characters in fighting games needing to be scantily-clad, because both of them are in normal fighting outfits. On one hand, that's a bit progressive of Data East. On the other hand, it isn't gonna put butts in seats like a Cammy or Mai Shiranui is going to. Everyone wants to look at, or play as, hotties in games, even RL hotties.

Ray has a projectile attack, and it's this blue tornado. Not as appealing as a Hadoken; nothing in this game is as appealing as its Street Fighter II counterpart.

Ryoko does Judo, so she throws people around. After fights, we get the familiar SFII gloating screen.

The beefcake of the game is this big Marstorius guy. What a ridiculous name. At least Mizoguchi is a normal fighter, which at this point I'll take anyone with any sort of normal fighting game appeal.

Marstorius' offense contains the GERMAN SUPLEX.

Apparently THE GUCH has a move called the Tiger Bazooka. Which is, incidentally, how Sagat refers to his dong.

We get BEEF WAR '94 as Marstorius battles Marstorius. What a ridiculous name.

Marstorius is at least fun to play as, but why isn't he bigger? He should be huge like Zangief. Everything in this game just feels so scaled-down and...Mid.

I load up the default dude from the character select, Samchay. Yep, he's 100% Dhalsim-Sagat. Uses Muay Thai fighting stances.

He's got long range on his strikes. Not Dhalsim-long but long enough to probably be a good choice for beginners.

Feilin busts out the coolest move I saw in my entire time playing this game, a Guile Flash Kick. Finally, something appealing!

Lee is another dude who might have some "main character" potential...except they made him super short. Is he supposed to be a kid? He's got an adult physique, he's just dwarf-sized.

He throws a fabulous fierce kick. Put your foot down dude. Goddammit. Why can't anyone in this game just be cool?

His throw attack might be the most effective move I've found yet against the CPU, and dishes out a vicious palm strike to the neussen.

The Vega-esque flamboyant ladykiller is Jean. Well, at least female players have some sex appeal to look at.

Jean is actually a solid enough fighter, with good moves. Him and Ray are the beginnings of a decent fighting game. Lee too...if he was taller. Other than that, the whole roster could get replaced and be better off.

Continuing on, I SMACK RYOKO.

Impressed at the consistency of the game continuing to make Judo a core component of her persona. A lot of games would just make constant reference to how she's female and that'd be it for persona traits.

Matlok is the last of the regular characters that I meet. I think he's supposed to be some kind of cyborg. He, get this, should be bigger.

...yeah, another really unappealing character design here. How did they strike out so much?

Lee palm strikes him in the neussen so hard that he flies backwards through a nearby mountain like a DBZ character.

It's LEE VS LEE as we see his neat rising kick. It's no Flash Kick but it's cool and down to Earth.

We get the ultra-rare DOUBLE KO!

The geese are like "WTF are these honkies doing?"

The mirror match is the final fight before the two big bosses of the game, neither of which is selectable.

First up is Clown. Yeah, just Clown. Even when the game gives us a kinda interesting-looking character they still manage to make it Mid.

Clown and his band of Oddities are fought in some sort of drug-fueled dream land of imagination.

Kick to the neussen!

Strike to the neussen! FULL NEUSSEN DEVASTATION COMBO!

He waves the world's smallest white flag, and I move on to the final boss...

...the Mongolian? Russian? Dynamo that is Karnov.

This fight takes place in the desert, complete with camels and burning cities in the background. Alright, so he's either Mongolian, Russian, or Middle-Eastern. That's a pretty huge spread of potential homelands of this guy. The curved boots say Middle-Eastern, the stache says Mongolian.

YET AGAIN, this guy would be much more intimidating if he wasn't so damn small!

His attacks can light his opponent on fire, ala SFII. All of the characters likely have the same on fire character animation...ala SFII.

Something I've noticed, but don't know what to make of, is that you can knock off various clothing items of your opponents. Hit this guy up high a few times and his turban flies off. Not sure if this makes characters take more damage, or what.

All things considered, it's a pretty easy final boss. I knock him off and liberate [unknown country in Central Asia] from his tyrannical rule, or whatever it is that's going on here.

So, thoughts on Fighter's History? It's an okay fighting game, nothing special, nothing terrible. Mostly I'm just unsure why anyone would really need to play this in an era that has Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat (or if you've got a Neo Geo, King of Fighters '94). There would have been so many better games out at this point. Aside from the obvious SFII connections, it seems most comparable to Fatal Fury 2, only nowhere near as interesting. It's on the Switch Online for some reason, so it's easy enough to fire this game up and play it in the modern era, costing you nothing except time. Though once again...not sure what the point is.

Next up: Something slightly more significant to the Super NES's fortunes in this timeframe