An unusual VS fighting game that sadly falls flat, due to poor design and a retarded balancing of characters
The object of the game is, of course, to pummel your opponent into KO in one single, fairly long round. To do so, you'll use 3 buttons, one for punch (2 strengths, similar to World Heroes or Art of Fighting), one for kick (same), one to jump. Yes, you read me, jump. Indeed this is an unsual game, given that the fighting arena includes more foreground and background you can walk in, in a manner similar to Double Dragon, Final Fight or Streets of Rage. Additionally, to grab your opponent, you'll push the stick towards him and press punch+kick, then punch or kick and a direction. This gives the game en interesting feeling, closer to wrestling games such as Capcom's Muscle Bomber (Saturday Night Slammasters) than Fatal Fury or Street Fighter canon. Every single character also boasts special moves that are rather damaging and useful, if not flashy. Additionally, people will throw stuff into the fighting field, such as shovels, nailbats or molotovs that you can pick up and throw at/bludgeon your opponent with, adding to the mindless fun of brawling. Finally, each character also has a GANGAN move, which acts like a Fatality. To perform it, you must lower your opponent's life to red (more on the lifebars later) and have a full CRAZY gauge (gradually fills up with time, or by hitting the opponent). Then, after performing the right motion, your character will unleash a devastating, often ridiculously cartoonish finishing move that will net you victory (Leonhalt throws a white tiger at your face before pummeling you, Goh will launch a whirlwind under your feet, then catch you in the air and perform a backbreaker, Kisarah will seduce you, then kiss another boy, thus braking your heart, and many more).
The game system gives each character a long, 4-color lifebar to make up with the fighting style of the game, the rounds are by default fairly long (2 minutes instead of one). Sadly, the fights are often unbalanced, due to an abysmal AI that suffers from an SNK Syndrome (play Fatal Fury Special, Art of Fighting 2, World Heroes Perfect or KoF'94 and '95 to see what I mean) : this becomes way too hard way to fast. The computer reads through your moves, cheap-combos you and counter all it wants (fightinf Fuuma or Lee in this game is a real pain). Add to this a very limited roster (8 characters, including Fuuma, recycled from World Heroes, counting 1 female nontheless) and predetermined fights depending on the selected character, and you'll understand why this game fall slightly below mediocre in the end...
The presentation is rather nice and colorful, with big sprites and good animations. The voiceovers are rather good. The sounds and music are nothing to write home and easily forgettable... The controls are rather responsive, but the AI is too cheap to be really enjoyable past the first fight.
Sadly the numerous ideas brought into the game do not offer much in the end, thanks to a rather uninspired character design, limited special moves, cheap and retarded AI...
This game is worth a few VS matches and one or two bouts in single-player mode from time to time to laugh at the ludicrous GANGAN moves, but it easily forgettable. Play it at least once to experience Kisara's first appearance before NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, then move on to something bigger.