1999 was a big year. People partied like it was, well, 1999. It was Bill Clinton's last full year of being president, most of which he spent battling impeachment charges over whether or not he lied about having sex. While many men lie about having sex, it is a rare thing indeed for a guy to lie about not having sex. But I digress. In the game world, the Sony Playstation was in a roll, riding a momentum wave that was driven partly by Squaresoft putting out the same kind of quality games that had been a huge boon to the Super NES years prior. Meanwhile, over on the other side... the Nintendo 64 existed, and was riding high with...uh... Ocarina of Time and Other.
Ehrgeiz is one of Square's better Playstation efforts. It isn't an RPG (well...mostly) but rather a fighting game. Square has always flirted a bit with the fighting genre, releasing Tobal No. 1 and Bushido Blade prior to this. However, I'd argue that Ehrgeiz was their best run at it for a long time.