Raein
1991
Fatal Fury released several months after Street Fighter II and SNK has been playing second fiddle ever since. There's a lot of irony to unpack that the father of Street Fighter left Capcom and went on to create this right as his former projection became a worldwide phenomenon, but that story has been told and retold countless times at this point.
Refocusing on the game itself, I think it's a decent fighting game, and certainly better than most that had come out by 1991, but it's impossible to evaluate this game without comparing it to its main competitor that had come out just months before. There are fewer characters, fewer combos, and the two track stage design really doesn't add anything to the gameplay here.
The draw of Fatal Fury was supposed to be a more complex narrative, but it's about as generic of a martial arts story as it gets.
Refocusing on the game itself, I think it's a decent fighting game, and certainly better than most that had come out by 1991, but it's impossible to evaluate this game without comparing it to its main competitor that had come out just months before. There are fewer characters, fewer combos, and the two track stage design really doesn't add anything to the gameplay here.
The draw of Fatal Fury was supposed to be a more complex narrative, but it's about as generic of a martial arts story as it gets.
The Japanese have such a penchant for merging the saccharine and cuddly with eldritch nightmares. The result is games like Cotton where I'm pretty sure you play as a crack-addicted young girl that murders a dual-spined personification of Death in a graveryard to get her next cotton candy crack fix.
All that being said, the standard horizontal shooter gameplay is enhanced with an experience system to upgrade your weapons which will come in handy because the game can also get very difficult in parts.
All that being said, the standard horizontal shooter gameplay is enhanced with an experience system to upgrade your weapons which will come in handy because the game can also get very difficult in parts.
1991
A mostly generic brawler with the one unique bit being the "Flash" like running segments. They have some neat visual flair like enemies jumping at you from the foreground and background, but the combat itself is largely the same mindless button mashing here as well.
1991
Unrelated to D3's Earth Defense Force series, this game is a pretty derivative horizontal shooter with decent visuals and sound design.
1992
Middling visuals mixed with clunky controls and repetitive combat.
Probably one of the best RC car style racers to have come out by 1991, but still a mediocre format for racing games in my book. It has a nice layer of simulation elements to keep it a bit more interesting, but also contains a stupid pay to win feature where you could insert more quarters to buy more in-game currency. Yuck.
1991
Berserk meets Punch-Out. The sprites are nicely detailed, but that's to be expected when they take up most of the screen. While the combat design and perspective is novel, it also gets tedious after a while without enough variation in the fights due to the fixed perspective.
1991
I really like the variable scroll rate and the general fast pace of the combat. The core laser weapon works well enough even if it renders the gameplay a bit simplistic. While there isn't too much visual variety beyond the mechano-dystopian look, it also doesn't overstay its welcome.
1991
It's basically the good version of Captain America and the Avengers with quite a weird team. That said, the game still follows all the usual brawler tropes which can make the whole thing feel derivative, but serviceable.
Being able to play this with four people is a cool feature given the Avengers branding. The visuals are a mixed bag, with some decent background art, but mostly subpar sprite design. Combat is equally middling, and the whole thing is relatively short.
1991
SNK's lazy Final Fight knock-off with sluggish combat and some poor hit detection. Just play Final Fight.
1991
Ugly visuals and very sluggish combat make for a subpar brawler.
1991
Dull and generic platforming gameplay mixed with very colorful visuals.
1991
Decent visuals and animations with serviceable sound desgin. The gameplay gets very repetitive, and even the boss fights aren't particularly interesting.
1991
Ugly art style, annoying music, and middling shooter gameplay.