90's Fighting games- The Honerable Mentions

Snk's well done fighter, with a story written by the same people that penned beat-em-ups back in 1985. Girl gets kidnapped, boyfriend (never a husband thats too hard to follow) goes on a bad ass mission to save her and has to beat up generic thugs along the way.
Limb chopping off fun. Drawn by someone in 5th grade art class, before his perturbed teacher had him admitted to a rubber room.

Dinosaurs, blood, guts, flatulence. Atari was a far better publisher than console maker. Its too bad it was just a flash in the pan.

You now see the foundation for Tekken. I really like how we have a beautiful sky back there and these very synthetic and unorganic characters. Great steps in a fighting game, and we had to wait for the Saturn in order to play it at home.

This list of the top 5 fighting games of the 1990's has been a blast to make, I've been enjoying every pixel of it and sadly there wasn't enough great games for me to do a top TEN that would be easily understood by all who owned the great 16 bit consoles like the SNES and Genesis. Truthfully, I'm was kinda torn by some of these games because some were good but really not THAT good. To be on the top 5 list, you really had to be unforgettable in every aspect.

These following games didn't suck, they were all good, but not great either and I have explained just WHY they didn't make it. I feel its my duty to at least give them a moment in the sun. These game are in no particular order, they're all equally mediocre.

Primal Rage (Atari 1994): Dinosaurs and giant apes duking it out, eating humans for health during matches, gathering worshippers and performing death moves ala Mortal Kombat. No better ideas have been made by Atari. This game had cool stop-motion animated graphics of prehistoric menaces to the 'Urth' beating each other into a bloody paste all for world domination.

What went wrong: This game suffered from horrible and almost embarrassing console releases that looked ok, but had all the fun censored out. Also this series never went ahead with its sequel and honestly that move caused this series an untimely death. Quite a surprise for a franchise that gave birth to action figures and other merchandise. It could have been magical. Magical, I say.

Timekillers (Strata/Incredible Technologies, 1992): I don't care what anyone says, I loved this game! It was more violent than MK and was creatively inclined with its 'limb loss' feature. Whats better than cutting off an arm or a head to win a match? This game will get its own article very soon, just wait.

What went wrong: This game gets put on a lot of fighting games 'Worst of' lists and its not hard to see why. The game really needed a lot more work. More frames on animation, better looks for its cookie cutter characters, and a system of combat that's easy to follow would have helped. The story to this game really didn't exist until its loathsome console release on the Genesis, to which bred a plot that didn't really make sense or even get followed, we just wanted to chop some arms off. This game really looks rushed, and this could be due to the fact that it was made to cash in on the Mortal Kombat rage. All in all, 10 year old can draw homemade comic books that look better than this game.

ClayFighter (Visual concepts/ Interplay, 1993) : This game was fun, admit it. It was the first time that a fighting game had a sense of humor and the first time we got to see a game that made of other games. We all loved it so don't deny it! This games graphics were made from stop motion clay animated figures, all of them armed with an array of fighting moves and a smart ass-ed attitude. Best part is, was that all of its character were very unique and innovative, with the exception of one that really killed this game. Which brings us too...

What went wrong: The 'N. Boss'. The boss and lost fighter of CF that you fought against was a circle of spherical balls that threw other players projectiles at you. No punches no kicks, NOTHING, just a circle that attacks you. So lame, so half-assed. There is a game programmer out there kicking himself in the face right now due to his boneheaded decision to staple this travesty into an otherwise good game. Other than that, I noticed that this game didn't have a lot of frames of animation causing it to look really choppy. I know my SNES can do better than this.

Virtua Fighter (Sega, 1993): A fully rendered 3d fighting game that finally gave us a camera that wasn't JUST showing the side view of a fight. We started to really see what was possible in a 3 dimensional world and 'virtual' reality suddenly didn't have to involve playing a crappy shooter with a pair of giant electric goggles strapped to our head. Seeing this game these days kinda reminds us of that Dire Straits music video, we see martial arts being performed by a diverse lot of unmotivated characters, fighting in a video game was now realistic, which was a nice change from the gore riddled world of Mortal Kombat. But that also brings us to..

What went wrong: This game was so... ssslllooowww! It was like the fighters had gum stuck to their shoes. Jumping attacks now required you to do formulas in modern physics just to land a mid-air kick. The worst also came from the Genesis console release of VF, which included NO polygon based graphics, which is impossible for the Genesis to do, and there was the revelation that this game really was all about looks, and less about action.

Teenage Mutant Ninja(hero) Turtles:Tournament Fighters (Mirage/ Konami, 1993) : Our four shell shocked smart ass-ed heroes along with other characters of that series having a fighting tournament and the winner takes April home to have their way with her with a dirty weekend in the turtle van, or just fight for money. Cool characters, good Street Fighter inspired controls. I liked it actually. Yeah thats right, screw you, I liked this game.

What went wrong: No one else liked it. Besides did we need another frigging TMNT game?

No.

Art of Fighting (Snk/ Takara for the console release, 1993): Great fighting game with an innovative control scheme. Using the 'special' buttons meant dealing blows that made your opponents into bruised paste. Bouncing off of walls and dealing a flying kick to the face was beyond satisfying. I love and still screw with this game and discover new tricks all the time. All the characters have personalities that don't blatantly copy other games like and before it. The best part was that the SNES version has almost ALL the fun of the original arcade version, right down to the camera 'zoom' effects.

What went wrong: Almost nothing really, this game rocks. However this games plot follows the story of 2 men out to get the gang leader that kidnapped their girl. That story was used up 5 years before this game was made, and it was in its prime with Double Dragon. Also in the story mode you can only play as 2 characters. So we have the same used-up story involving the same 2 used up hero guys, one man is a martial arts expert with an unpronounceable Japanese name, and the other is an American pretty boy with a pony tail. I'm shocked this never became a cheesy action movie starring Steve Segal and Kurt Russel.

Eternal Champions (Sega, 1993): The Sega Genesis was getting its ass handed to them by Nintendo and its SNES. Why? Badly executed or horribly translated fighting games. Solution? Make one that's specifically for the Genesis, hype it up to commercially high levels, and try to advertise a failure motion controlled prep behind it (remember the Sega Activator?) . This was a creative and well received stab at one upping Timekillers by being WAY more complex story and fighting style wise. Great characters that span across time and cultural borders, good moves that present themselves as being linkable for combos and other specials and CGI death moves exclusively on the Sega CD system version that put Mortal Kombats' fatalities to shame. A top choice for Genesis fans.

What went wrong: It was on the Genesis.

Street Fighter EX (Arika/Capcom 1996): There is 6 games in this series spinoff of Capcom's fighting classic, all of them in full 3d. These games weren't bad at all, but it does definately scream the fact that Capcom was trying to get a hold of the 3d market of fighting games that was established by Sega's Vitua Fighter Series, and also Tekken. (I myself personally failed to include most of the 3d fighting games mainly due to the fact that as an old timer of video games I didn't own the Playstation until it was late in that consoles' life.) The fighting mechcanics of SFEX remain very faithful to the 2D origional series, only this time we get to see the dragon punch from a full 360 degree angle, so it still wins.

What went wrong: Nothing really, but theres no way you remembered this game until just now when you read this. Admit it.

Street Fighter Alpha (1995 Capcom): Great follow up to the other 3 versions of SF2, despite the fact that this game is actaully a prequel story-wise. The action is fast, the animation and character design looks fantastic, and the fighting system of 'spirit moves' give this game a 1 up above all the other SF games. It was exciting to see that Cap' wasn't giving us ANOTHER tired translation or update of SF2.

What went wrong: Again NOTHING. But SNES console owners got totally screwed on this, and forced them to go out and get a Playstation. Oh well, I guess we had to move on. I also thought the 'Dan' Character was a big pansy (c'mon the pink karate suit?), but that's done on purpose.

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Stay tuned ladies and gents, the WORST list is on the way (and man, is it long).