RRR: Fighting Force (PSX)

What I thought back during release….

The most disappointing release ever. There were promises that environments would be fully interactive, with a wealth of opportunity to expand the beat em up genre to heights never thought of before. The demo was merely okay, and months after that, I bought the full version in hopes that the demo wasn’t showing the strengths of Fighting Force properly. The characters were bland, gameplay was generic, and everything I hoped for and read about, wasn’t there. What was left was a failed attempt to redefine the genre, with either average, or below average aspects all around.

Rating Then: 5.5

What I think years later….

It’s depressing to go back to Fighting Force. It’s like I’m going to remind myself why I was disappointed with the game. In truth, this is probably the best game to tackle early on for me, as it shattered a lot of dreams I had about it. Can I put the pieces back together and perhaps see the game differently many years later?

Even Hawk was disappointed with the game, as he's delivering cases of Fighting Force to that UPS van so that they can be returned to Eidos.

Off the bat, I don’t remember the graphics on the foreground buildings looking like vomit. I’m serious, it looks like someone threw up on my screen in the shape of a building. Controls feel slower than I remember. Like I’m walking in a huge vat of mashed potatoes. There’s a dedicated ‘run’ button, but that shouldn’t even need to exist. Double tapping a direction should suffice. Running attacks do help break you away from becoming rapidly closed in by multiple enemies, which happens quite often. What’s more is that enemies seem to be able to always get an attack out faster than you, meaning your offense is constantly being halted by enemies that can keep attacking through your attacks. The inability to block is annoying as well, as your enemies have no problems blocking as much as attacking. Movement feels more and more sluggish as you progress. I remember it being sluggish, but not this badly. Hawk, the one you would think is average in all attributes, attacks so slow, while Mace and Alana, the two females in the game, don’t fare much better.

As you progress, you see things here and there that you can destroy for your own benefit. Soda machines yield health drinks (just like they do now!). Break other machines that are sparsely placed and you get to pick up a pipe and monitor, amongst other items. From previews, I was lead to believe there would be environmental interaction abound. When I got the game, it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. For what it’s worth, it does seem like there’s an adequate amount of weaponry found from backgrounds and enemies, more than I remember, but it’s still a far cry from what I was thinking, reading and hoping. One major problem is that it’s a chore to pick up an item. You can stand right on it, but you have to be in some physically perfect line up between the moon, Uranus and Venus, and then you can properly pick the item up. In a move that defies all logic, longer items, such as bats, fire axes and pipes, are the hardest to pick up. You need to be dead center to pick it up.

The interior of some stages are at least distinguishable from each other. Although other games in the genre on the PSX, such as Gekido, have a much cleaner look, Fighting Force had a bit more variation to it. You’ll occasionally break the claustrophobic interiors for some daytime street skirmishes, complete with motorcyclists that like ramming you at 3mph. To its credit, it does look a lot better as you progress, which I never recalled that happening before. Later on in the game, you can take different paths into the game, the first time being after you fight a life sized troll doll.

Around the time troll dolls started dying out, Fighting Force was released, complete with a troll hair boss. The job market back then was a lot better than now.

With enough time, if does start to feel like a somewhat passable Final Fight clone. I actually somewhat enjoyed the game after the whole high rise portion, as it seemed to open up more and show off a lot more variation in its looks and interactivity. It’s still a bummer that there’s not more interaction with the world around you, but there’s a lot more to use than I remember. As you progress further along, you start to notice and appreciate the fact that the degree of interaction with the scenery increases quite a bit. The subway level in particular, has quite a few interactive objects all around you. I think perhaps being 15 or 16 when Fighting Force was release, I didn’t have more of an appreciation for what was presented, nor was I able to let go of my tremendous ambitions for the game.

As you progress through the game, the stages start to look better, with more interactive objects around you.

In the end, I may have been seriously disappointed with Fighting Force in the past, but playing it now, I do see that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Don’t get me wrong — it’s still not near the top of the genre in that generation, but it’s not at the bottom either. Maybe the title was too ambitious for its era? Maybe my own expectations were too high? But all in all, Fighting Force is a decent entry into the genre, and doesn’t seem like one big disappointment. Not as well put together like Gekio, or not as exciting as even Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, but but it’s an adequate title that seemed to have aged better than I thought. Have a little patience with the first few stages, and it seems to evolve enough that you can somewhat enjoy the rest of the game ahead.

Rating Now: 6.6