Ultimate Fighter

Also known as:  Hiryu no Ken S: Golden Fighter (Japan)

Developer: Culture Brain

I got Ultimate Fighter from the Wind Lake Street Fair when I was a young'un - an event that happened once a year in our little village where one, long road next to the highway that passed through Wind Lake essentially became a flea market. It was something I looked forward to every year, though I rarely had the funds to purchase what I wanted. It was there that I first saw Ultimate Fighter, being sold, for cheap, by a video rental store that had rented out a space in the fair to clear out old games and movies to make room for new stuff in their store. I picked it up, and despite some flaws, I grew to really enjoy it. For those not in the know, which I wasn't when I bought it, Ultimate Fighter is actually the sequel to Flying Warriors on the NES, and it's basically a unique brawler with multiple modes. The main mode is your standard brawler, but with two differences. First, with most brawlers, you have a bit of room above and below you to walk around and maneuver. Not Ultimate Fighter. In this game, it's a straight line. There's not really any room for avoiding attacks except for backing way from the enemy or ducking/jumping away from certain attacks. The second different part of the main mode are the boss fights - all boss fights, and there are several in each level, turn into a one-on-one fighting game with mildly awkward combat. If you find yourself struggling with that mode, you can try animation mode - which is the same game and same story, but all standard enemies go down with much less of a fight, and you have the option to let the computer take control for the boss fight so you can sit back and watch, or you can battle against the boss in turn-based combat similar to what you'd find in an RPG. If you've got a friend, you can also battle against them in one-on-one combat in another mode, using most of the characters found within the game. While the gameplay definitely could have been tweaked to make things better, for what it is, Ultimate Fighter is passable, and all of the extra modes are a nice little bonus. There are a lot of very neat ideas here, and if everything was just polished a bit more, I honestly think that this game could have been excellent. Still, if you'd like to play a unique brawler, and don't mind working with controls that aren't necessarily smooth or tight, then you'll probably find something to like here like I did.

Review added: 08/03/2022