A game with interesting concepts, but falls apart because of bad gameplay.

User Rating: 3 | Ultraman SNES

Ultraman is the most revered Tokusatsu hero of Japan. Since his TV show premier in 1966, his performance spawned many sequels in a long running line of shows that continue to be made to this day. With such a revered super-hero, there will also be marketing ploys to take advantage of the national fandom and use it as a cash cow (Just look at poor Superman). Ultraman has merchandise spanning from toys to live action impersonations, and of course video games. This one on the SNES was one in a long line of games, but was it any good? Well out of all the games on the list, there may be good ones, but this isn't one of them.
The story isn't presented to the player in any way, but the game overall follows the storyline of the show itself. As a result, the player plays as Ultraman himself and faces the same monsters in order from the TV show episodes, though there are only 10 that must be fought. The game certainly doesn't stray from its source material, but the story won't make sense to anyone who tries hard to find one (Especially if they don't know Japanese).
To start off on the graphics, they are fairly detailed and they don't get in the way of the player's vision. They meet with SNES standards and the minor graphics in the foregrounds shouldn't be too much of a problem. The foregrounds vary depending on the area you fight in, such as the city, forest, or U.N. Embassy. Other than that, the graphics aren't really worth bashing or praising, the only thing that I find bash worthy is that when you defeat an enemy, the explosion seems more like a pop and they aren't exactly anything that pushes the SNES limits.
Sound wise, the game isn't too bad. The music score is something pretty cool, it sounds like something from Godzilla, though it is based on a show about fighting giant monsters. There is also a song when you reach 120 seconds into the fights, that it signals Ultraman about to lose his power, which I think is probably the best tune in the game. The sound effects though, are only decent at best, since the grunts that Ultraman constantly make during his attacks can get on the nerves of some players. Other than that, the sound effects fit in with the actions that occur.
Finally getting to the gameplay, this is where the game overall begins to fall apart. This game does have some interesting concepts, but with the major problems that afflict the game, they keep it from being a decent experience. One thing that makes the game frustrating is the fact that this game has some of the worst controls and hit detection to grace the SNES with its presence. The controls are not only slow to respond, but the actions are placed in some very awkward places. Some prime examples are the jump button being placed on the "X" button and a necessary action which is the special weapon being placed on the "Y" button.
Not only are the controls hard to maneuver, but the hit detection is pretty poor at times as well. Sometime when you think you've moved Ultraman towards the enemy close enough to deal damage, the hit won't register. Not only is the hitting a problem, but sometimes your attack will connect with the enemy, and it will actually harm Ultraman instead. That's right, simply touching the enemies can hurt you! This should not be a staple in fighting games. Shooters and platformers, sure it's acceptable to happen, but when it's a fighting game, touching the enemies should not result in your character losing health.
The gameplay is not all downhill however, since there are some interesting concepts that are just overshadowed by poor game design. Putting a TV show like Ultraman into a fighting game itself is an interesting concept itself. There is also the fact that you can only defeat enemies when they have the "Finish" sign covering their health bar when you've attacked them enough times. To finish off the enemies, you have to charge your special attack all the way to the maximum by waiting for it to reach the top, and then fire at the enemy and you defeat them. Although this really depends on the situation since sometimes monsters won't die for the sake of staying true to the show's plot. There is also an ending screen where if you defeat the enemy, the game tallies your score by taking into factor how much time, health, and lives you had left, and when you get 50,000 points, you get another life. Trust me, you'll need these for the final monster. Despite these concepts, the game just isn't able to redeem itself with such poor design.
The finishing off system also has its problems, since both the monsters and Ultraman can recover their health over time after being attacked. This factor however, can cost you your victory, since sometimes when you have the enemy beaten to a pulp and your prepared to fire the special finishing attack, the enemy can recover health at the last minute and make you wait for the beam to charge up again, while requiring you to still attack the enemy. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if there weren't a time limit, but there is one. This is just one situation where staying true to source material is not such a good thing. Ultraman can only fight for 3 minutes before he gives in and loses the fight. So when this situation happens to you when you have 70 seconds left, this can basically cost you your victory.
If you're curious what the ending is, I'll spoil it for you. Ultraman fights a monster called Z-Ton (Zetton) and when he finally fires his special attack at him, Z-Ton reflects it onto Ultraman and Ultraman lies dieing. Then you take control of a character with a gun and special missile to fire, and you just need to fire at Z-Ton once to win the game. After that, Ultraman leaves the Earth with another of his kind and the credits role. From what I've read, this is true to the shows canon, but for gamers, I'd say that this is a rather mocking ending since you've worked so hard to beat the hardest monster in the game, only to find that you lose to him even if you defeat him. And no, you can't lose to Z-Ton on purpose since the game counts it as a loss anyways.
Overall, this game was really more of a frustration than it was a source of entertainment, and I feel some fans of the show might feel the same way if they try it out. If you end up enjoying it for whatever reason, then congratulations, you've squeezed out some entertainment that I couldn't. Believe me, I tried to like this game, but I couldn't find any reason to rate this game any higher than most people have already done so. Anyone interested in playing this looking for a good fighting game however, should just look elsewhere, because you won't find one here.