It's even funnier when said young developer, making their first fighting game, makes public claims that they'll make a game so much better than "Street Fighter 2", and talk like people will totally ignore Capcom's games after they see their game.
I remember back in college for game development, all of our professors warned us - even when teamed up - to not make fighting games for projects because of how much goes into making even a bare bones competent one
You can really see how little care the developers put into the game as Evil Clown is shown as having a green wig, yet the film clearly originally depicted him with a gray wig. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!
I was amazed that Kasumi Ninja didn't beat Criticom. I was amazed Human Killing Machine didn't beat Criticom. I was especially amazed that Rise of the Robots didn't beat Criticom. I'm equally UNsurprised that this one DID beat Criticom. This is a whole new level.
Ok so get this, there exists an officially licensed MARVEL fighting game that has 1: poor graphics 2: load times of over 5 minutes to get into the game 3:input delay of around 1 second 4: and the coup de grace, characters being locked behind what is essentially PHYSICAL LOOT CRATES. Yes, such a game exists, it is XMen for the HyperScan. Matt! You must review this, it could very well take the top spot now and forever
My best friend and I actually had a lot of ironic fun with both Kasumi Ninja and Way of the Warrior. KN isn't quite as bad when you're not forced to use a real Jaguar controller, and it definitely doesn't take itself seriously (the Loch Ness monster eating a boat in the background of Alaric's stage is hilarious!). Way of the Warrior honestly looks amazing for the time, like the graphics really made MK look a bit stiff, and the gameplay was perfectly fine for a studio that didn't really make fighting games. Plus when Nikki Chan throws her hair out, I swear she's saying "Juan Valdez!", and my friend and I used to die laughing fighting Nikki vs Nikki with "Juan Valdez!" constantly happening 😂
ปีที่แล้ว +259
A couple of different things I want to mention: One, a friend of mine owned this game back in the 90's. Truly awful, indeed, but one thing that I remember clearly is that, there are only fatalities between the default player character and everyone else, never between the other fighters, because every single fatality is a separate video file. So, there's a video file of the player character doing his fatality for each and every possible opponent and a video file of each opponent performing his/her fatality on the default player character. Two, I own Ironblood. Bought it back in the day, because the back of the box showed a nice looking side scrolling mecha brawler and, what appeared to be anime cutscenes. Turns out it's a korean game they adapted to the western market, by removing said anime cutscenes. The game itself is fine. I liked it, though not as much as I thought I would, and even LGR made a video about it once, many years ago.
There was a Billy Blanks movie? THEY MADE A GAME BASED OFF THAT MOVIE?! Tae Bo is not a fighting style in that game? I feel like Nostradamus predicted this.
10 year old me that Tae Bo was totally legit and begged my mom to buy me his videos. Luckily she told me NO but eventually I got Tekken 3 and emulated Hwaorangs moves.
When you mentioned Microforum and their focus in computer generated imagery, I was thinking to myself "Wait aren't these the same people that did-" and the I was greeted by the Admiral from Maabus at 2:54 confirming my line of thought. I never expected a Matt video unintentionally crossing over with Ross's Game Dungeon.
@@grindsmore I know, right? Matt couldn't even bring himself to muster a lead-in line for the transitions. The abyss had gazed into him and left him with no words.
Wtf. Red pants guy with the mullet is actually “martial artist” Harold Howard from UFC 3. In the only winning match of his career, he actually attempted that weird flip kick thing that’s in the game. And no, it didn’t connect. 😂 Matt is also weirdly on point about them looking like criminals… because Harold Howard went on to become a convicted criminal.
Hey man, idk if you'll see this but I've been real down and your videos are such a mood lifter. Seriously love your stuff. EDIT: Also not to mention but its incredible that there's actually something worse than criticom but again, there's probably plenty of these hidden af
@Slipknot fan Naw man. He said at the end that there are other contenders he has to look at. Now they’re all just going after this game instead of Criticom.
I must say, Mr McMuscles, this video was a masterpiece. I initially thought it was just an average "The Worst Fighting Game" episode. Not very "What Happened-y" and exciting. But it slowly started gaining momentum. Cracks began to form in your narration. The professional voice opened way to exasperated, barely contained emotions. It grew and grew, getting crazier by the moment. Each segment, a cog started turning, until the realization moment. The climax. The epiphany! When the pieces all fell into place and it dawned on you and us both: this is it. This is the moment we waited for. Expect no Mercy is the chosen one! The flood of deeply repressed memories you shared with us made this moment ever so special. While your journey to find a new challenger and a definitive holder for the title will still hopefully go on for a long time (this show is very entertaining!), I will consider this a fitting episode for a conclusion. A season finale, if you may. Godspeed, Mr McMuscles and may your shows keep on being the bangers they are!
Beast Wars: Transformers: Transmetals on N64 and PS1 was a pretty iffy fighter. The N64 version was a Blockbuster exclusive, and the PS1 version had a slightly different roster. You could transform into three different forms, but most often it made sense to just stay in Beast mode because your Robot form would take damage from the energon-heavy environment (like in the show) and your Vehicle mode was often at best situational.
Yeah I remember that game. My friend was obsessed with beast wars so he bought it. We would play VS. when I would visit and it wasn't very fun. Luckily we eventually got Smash Bros. Brawl and could actually play out a decent fight between us. Many fond memories of us going back and forth strategically. Anyways yeah beast wars was lame
By far the best part of this movie tie in game, is that they couldn't convince Billy Blanks to come back to do the motion capture. Must have been too busy developing Tae Bo.
Truly a historical occasion. I was going to suggest Bounty Battle to get a newer title on your radar but dang, I don't know what could possibly beat this game. Great episode.
As the one person who knows about Iron Blood and saw it mentioned in the video: No, it was originally made by a South Korean company called Family Production. All the guys responsible for Expect No Mercy did was localize the game for the west, meaning the one good game under their belt wasn't even developed by them.
"Congratulations, you have defeated the worst fighting game, you are officially the new champion"" "See you in the Worst fighting game 2: the worse warrior"
Had a feeling something might be up, with "The Worst Fighting Game" being written in all-caps this time... and then Matt noted that even Criticom managed something as basic as proper endings for each fighter. Anti-congratulations to Expect No Mercy! (wrt: suggestions: IIRC, I've mentioned Capital Punishment on the Amiga once or twice now. I'm no longer sure if simply being farcically overly-difficult would qualify it for this series, but it might definitely be worth mentioning at some point.)
So, is the next episode in the series going to begin with the narration being changed to knocking "Expect No Mercy" off of its throne? Are we going to get more of a complete episode on Criticom, since that initial video was a glorified Let's Play than anything? Such a powerful upset, I have so many questions as to what comes next!
As the award ceremony begins, the crowd can be heard whispering: Where is the champion? Where is Expect No Mercy? Where is Expect No Mercy as its admirers chant its name? Already seeking the next challenge. Ceremony means nothing. The fight is all.
I'm just now realizing something that makes "I have seen the amateur and it is you!" somehow even worse than it already is: It's a play on Walt Kelly's classic Earth Day comic strip, where Pogo - hurting his feet walking over all the polution in the forrest says "We have met the enemy, and he is us." HOW YOU GOING TO DO THAT TO POGO?!?!?!?!
I know I played this back in '96, every time you played sound effects, I remember them vividly. They're burned into my brain like some deep seeded childhood trauma. This game truly deserved to be the worst.
2:18 Funny how in the beggening of the video we get a little spoiled of which game would detrhone Expect No Mercy, and at the end 20:20, the one which would take the new champ's place
The moment has arrived! 😂😂😂 Looking forward to seeing THE WORST FIGHTING GAME - ROUND 2!!!! And I put forward late 90s Amiga crapola THE STRANGERS (Vs Mode) - it won't win, but you will get some laughs, especially from the box art and the terrible intro/game complete cut scenes
I'm dying here. The bootup sequence and especially the sound effects and motion at 11:19 are hilarious. This game may be terrible to play but man is it fun to watch in the way the CDI games are. RIP Criticom, gone and hopefully forgotten.
I remember to bought this game back in... 1999 or 2000 I think. It was a CD-ROM in a tiny cardboard box that showed 2 screenshots of the game. And seriously thought it was going to be a blast. I was a kid back then and I liked the gameplay, of course I knew they ripped off the Mortal Kombat Style. Until now that I grew up, I realised the game was seriously one of the WORST games I've ever played. Some stuff to point out from the game too: -The Player was the only one character that could perform a finishing move on the opponent. -Versus Mode allows you to choose the character you want, but it's only for 2 human players (if I remember correctly) -You can't play on all the stages in the Versus Mode. -The characters cannot perform a finishing move on each other. Great video man, I just already subscribed, keep it up!
I haven't seen the entire thing yet, but this is a contender for the top spot for sure. I had this as a kid on a 386 somehow, and thought it was so choppy because my PC could not run it properly. Couple of years later I wen back with better hardware, and was just blow away by how bad it was. Fun fact, all the kill-moves were straight up avi files on the disc, for some reason they had to be pre-rendered lol
You should play Shura No Mon, a Japan only PS1 fighter based on an obscure manga. The graphics look like basic texture mapped polygons, and the characters control like they just took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. You'll probably get a good episode out of it.
2:10 - You know, I like how I only realize months later that you got excited about mentioning a game that you would later determine to be EVEN WORSE THAN THIS. ...you know, it didn't take THAT long for you to put up the video for Iron & Blood. I now question if you knew all along.
I’d love to see a series where you do the fighters people have suggested for this series you’ve disqualified for actually being good. Just most games people suggest I’ve usually never or only vaguely heard about so I would still love to see them here. Just a suggestion/request. Love the channel appreciate all your hard work.
I was actually afraid you'd stop the series after finding a game to top Criticom but am relieved to hear that you'll keep up the good fight for bad games! Excellent review and Congrats (?) to the champ! Also, very long side note and game recommendation: When you started talking about unlocking memories in the video, about playing this game and such, it unlocked a memory with me too. Not about this game, but one that would be able to compete in this championship methinks. I'm writing about IMP, a CD-Rom based fighting game made in Sweden, where you hade to buy characters separately and I mean All characters! You bought one CD with one character, that's what you got. You want more characters, you need to buy more CD's Horrid graphics, horrendous gameplay and very pay-to-play marketing ploy, dunno where to get it nowadays as it's at least 20 years old but I think you'd get a kick out it and would be fun to see a review of it!
I feel it's quite appropriate that we ended up crowning a new "Worst Fighting Game" in a video where most of the OST used was from Street Fighter Alpha 3, the Best Fighting Game. ' 3' Yeah wow, this was quite unexpected to suddenly stumble onto as our new lowest bar, yet upon seeing the first few bits of gameplay, instantly my brain said "This is the one." This was _rough_ to witness, dude.
What a time to be alive. We finally made it to the promised land. I love you all. Thank you Matt McMuscles, I loved this series. Can't wait to see more of it. ❤
11:18 "I have seen the amateur, and it is you!" "I have seen the amateur, and it is you!" "I have seen the amateur, and it is you!" "I have seen the amateur, and it is you!" 11:04 "THE AMATEUR IS YOU!"
As the video progressed I started to wonder if this will finally be it: The one to surpass the mighty (?) Criticom in terms of sheer awfulness. Well, the journey was long and arduous but it finally happened: Congratulations (?) on finally defeating the grand master of trash, Expect No Mercy. But there are still many challengers out there, so see you next time Matt.
I finally realised what that menu reminds me of the 90e album by Alan Parsons Project released called The Time Machine. Look at the coverart for that album then compare it to the menu of this
Wow. I remember "Budokan" also having an endurance ("ki") mechanic, but that game was also trying to be a more realistic martial arts game with an emphasis on weapons and techniques rather than special moves and over-the-top craziness. Vague memories of seeing this on the shelf at Software Etc. or one of those, but never picked it up (lucky me?). Long live the king, I guess?
Now that you have looked at this Windows game, you should look at Cyber Gladiators by Sierra Online. The keyboard inputs read half the time and you are usually wrecked by the computer before you know what is happening. If the computer constantly crushing you with its unmissed inputs, the objects flying into the arena will. There's no actual in-game story so you have to read the booklet in the CD case. The booklet does have a rundown of the limited moves available. What music there is isn't bad. the weird screaming grunts are identical for all male characters AND all the female characters have the same screaming grunt as well. Visually it's nice, in fact I think that's the only thing I liked about it.
I love how the Stamina bar goes negative on the footage, like the coders forgot to clamp the value between 0 and 1. I love the use of the SFA music for the background
I had this. I played this. The opening theme is still seared in my memories. Thank you for covering this and unveiling unresolved trauma. P.S. I'm surprised you didn't make any mention of the opening FMV...where they take a dig at Mortal Kombat which even in my younger 90's years found to be hilariously cringeworthy.
I remember there was this store downtown that had a demo of Expect No Mercy playing on no less than 3 screens, back in 1996. I never saw the game being sold anywhere, and to this day I've never found out why that store decided to showcase it so damn hard.
Anyone know which track is playing over 21:03 / 21:04? When it's showing Matt McMuscles's credits? Everyone kept saying "Street Fighter Alpha 3" but I've listened to that credits track here on TH-cam, it's not that. So which is it? Can anyone help?
In terms of PC fighting game schlock, I hope Cyber Gladiators makes it to the show, as it was pretty much Sierra's equivalent of Xenophage (terrible fighter from a popular publisher) and is far worse than the likes of FX Fighter.
ngl I was worried that this would be the final episode of TWFG, I'm so glad you're gonna keep making episodes! This series has been such a treat to watch.
Oh man. For a second there, I thought Matt was going to end this series. “That’s it, boys! We found it! The worst fighting game! SHUT IT DOWN!” I’m glad he’s going to continue. Thanks, Matt!
It would be justified, I can't imagine how a fighting game could possibly be worse than this unless it bricks your system or is accidentally child pornography
8:48 "The game looks like a college homework in a computer class". Hah! I *did* make a fighting "game" in my college years, and it indeed felt like Expect No Mercy.
It almost looked like they wanted to make Karate Champ (with the very small hitboxes and directon+button input) but mix it with Mortal Kombat. Also at 14:55, did Good-Quality-Raiden lightning-explode "Player's" balls through his head before incinerating him?
NGL after the whole video of negative observations, I was totally expecting some twist at the end like "actually, it's not that bad" or "actually, IT'S AWESOME!" and there wasn't any and I love when that happens.
Day-um, never thought King Criticom would be deposed. Must not have been able to tell what the sweet, tasty hell was happening while being pummeled by repeated 2-frame-long attacks.
I love those edits you have of the model, Rick martel in this. Omg you even have samples of OSW review talking about Doink! They're such a good time, I love their work.
It's funny that such an "achievement" would be this underwhelming. Like, the mistakes and flaws pile up as expected, but they just don't stop and then suddenly you're looking at the most unappealing mountain you've ever seen and you realize with a shudder that this is exactly what you've been looking for
It is! If you look at 9:20 you can see him standing in front of a logo with his name. For folks unaware, Rick "The Model" Martel was a Canadian wrestler most active in the 80's and 90's.
LMAO I’ve seen the DVD of the movie sold in a store in Ireland called Poundland which is basically the equivalent of a dollar store. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was in a bargain bin being bundled off with a choice of 4 other DVDs for €1.
"I have seen the amateur and it is you" is now my all-time favourite taunt.
Prime meme material
@@timmyd151 agreed
That is a burn though.
“Never made a fighting game before, but how hard could it be?” The infamous last words of basically 90% of the worst fighting games listed.
It's even funnier when said young developer, making their first fighting game, makes public claims that they'll make a game so much better than "Street Fighter 2", and talk like people will totally ignore Capcom's games after they see their game.
I remember back in college for game development, all of our professors warned us - even when teamed up - to not make fighting games for projects because of how much goes into making even a bare bones competent one
@@rhaganadoomslayer Those are some pretty good professors; it's nice that they warned the students.
@@akaimizu1 That’s how most games marketed as a franchise killer tend to be. Look at Resistance…
Well, you have to start somewhere.
You can really see how little care the developers put into the game as Evil Clown is shown as having a green wig, yet the film clearly originally depicted him with a gray wig. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!
They didn't care so I doubt it.
A wizard did it.
Nice Simpsons reference!
Mom, I want Doink the Clown in my fighting game.
Timmy, we have Doink at home.
Let me ask you something. Why is an adult spending his time posting TH-cam comments about a children's videogame?
I was amazed that Kasumi Ninja didn't beat Criticom. I was amazed Human Killing Machine didn't beat Criticom. I was especially amazed that Rise of the Robots didn't beat Criticom.
I'm equally UNsurprised that this one DID beat Criticom. This is a whole new level.
bro spoilers
The true underdog
@@Omabatfartsbruh Dude don't read the comments before watching the video.
Ok so get this, there exists an officially licensed MARVEL fighting game that has
1: poor graphics
2: load times of over 5 minutes to get into the game
3:input delay of around 1 second
4: and the coup de grace, characters being locked behind what is essentially PHYSICAL LOOT CRATES.
Yes, such a game exists, it is XMen for the HyperScan. Matt! You must review this, it could very well take the top spot now and forever
My best friend and I actually had a lot of ironic fun with both Kasumi Ninja and Way of the Warrior. KN isn't quite as bad when you're not forced to use a real Jaguar controller, and it definitely doesn't take itself seriously (the Loch Ness monster eating a boat in the background of Alaric's stage is hilarious!). Way of the Warrior honestly looks amazing for the time, like the graphics really made MK look a bit stiff, and the gameplay was perfectly fine for a studio that didn't really make fighting games. Plus when Nikki Chan throws her hair out, I swear she's saying "Juan Valdez!", and my friend and I used to die laughing fighting Nikki vs Nikki with "Juan Valdez!" constantly happening 😂
A couple of different things I want to mention:
One, a friend of mine owned this game back in the 90's. Truly awful, indeed, but one thing that I remember clearly is that, there are only fatalities between the default player character and everyone else, never between the other fighters, because every single fatality is a separate video file. So, there's a video file of the player character doing his fatality for each and every possible opponent and a video file of each opponent performing his/her fatality on the default player character.
Two, I own Ironblood. Bought it back in the day, because the back of the box showed a nice looking side scrolling mecha brawler and, what appeared to be anime cutscenes. Turns out it's a korean game they adapted to the western market, by removing said anime cutscenes. The game itself is fine. I liked it, though not as much as I thought I would, and even LGR made a video about it once, many years ago.
You forgot to show the video where the player character is talking to his master, and the master tries to warn him, "This is BEYOND Mortal Kombat!"
Lmao
It sure was beyond Mortal Kombat. In the same way a racer driving backwards is beyond the 1st place car.
@@MegaManXPoweredUp MFs thought they'd won because they scored ten goals into their own net.
@@MegaManXPoweredUp Sadly, this game won't crash horrifically within a minute and isn't nearly as sickly entertaining to watch in action.
Expect No Mercy^2: Beyond Mortal Kombat
7:00 Bruh, you know a game is bad, when you're not sure whether the cutscenes are a TH-camr's edit or an actual in-game moment. 🤣
@@larrymantic2635Rick Martel was that man, I believe lol
Criticom: "Finally a worthy opponent, our battle will be Legendary!"
There was a Billy Blanks movie? THEY MADE A GAME BASED OFF THAT MOVIE?! Tae Bo is not a fighting style in that game? I feel like Nostradamus predicted this.
He was in a few really bad films actually before or during a life of petty crimes and then fame as a guy selling tai bo crap and then.. I have no idea
Billy Blanks plays a villain in the incredible B movie "Low Blow" as well. Steals the show in his scenes.
I KNOW TAE BO!!!!
Billy Blanks also had a small role in the movie The Last Boy Scout as Billy Cole!
10 year old me that Tae Bo was totally legit and begged my mom to buy me his videos. Luckily she told me NO but eventually I got Tekken 3 and emulated Hwaorangs moves.
When you mentioned Microforum and their focus in computer generated imagery, I was thinking to myself "Wait aren't these the same people that did-" and the I was greeted by the Admiral from Maabus at 2:54 confirming my line of thought.
I never expected a Matt video unintentionally crossing over with Ross's Game Dungeon.
Ah, a Maabus crossover. Now things are beginning to make sense! More later.
"A Japanese Submarine... now things are starting to make sense. More later."
That SFA3 music over the ending of this video really gave me the feels for how IMPACTFUL this dethroning is!
Thank you so much. I was racking my brain over what that music was from!
In the end, the worst fighting game was right under his nose the entire time in the form of a bad childhood memory. I really enjoyed this saga.
I think that is the best part. I'm sure we all had games that we didn't realize were so bad because we moved on to others.
Thats some AVGN levels of insanity.
I can't believe that there's finally a game that has dethroned Criticom, that's crazy!
This is a very momentous event.
@@grindsmore I know, right? Matt couldn't even bring himself to muster a lead-in line for the transitions. The abyss had gazed into him and left him with no words.
Congratulations, Expect No Mercy! You have made it to the top! All I can say now is...damn, that was awful.
I felt a surprising warmth when Matt declared this the new champion. Like a chapter in an awful book has come to a close.
Wtf. Red pants guy with the mullet is actually “martial artist” Harold Howard from UFC 3. In the only winning match of his career, he actually attempted that weird flip kick thing that’s in the game. And no, it didn’t connect. 😂
Matt is also weirdly on point about them looking like criminals… because Harold Howard went on to become a convicted criminal.
Is he the guy that said "If you wanna come on, come on"?
@@tafua_aHaven’t seen the video in a long time, but it’s the “I have seen the amateur, and it is you!” guy.
@@someguy3186 Harold Howard was introduced in the UFC in a short promo where we said "we have a saying at home: if you're coming on... Come on!"
@@tafua_a Ah, didn't remember that one.
Hey man, idk if you'll see this but I've been real down and your videos are such a mood lifter. Seriously love your stuff.
EDIT: Also not to mention but its incredible that there's actually something worse than criticom but again, there's probably plenty of these hidden af
Glad you like them!
@Slipknot fan Naw man. He said at the end that there are other contenders he has to look at. Now they’re all just going after this game instead of Criticom.
I must say, Mr McMuscles, this video was a masterpiece.
I initially thought it was just an average "The Worst Fighting Game" episode. Not very "What Happened-y" and exciting. But it slowly started gaining momentum. Cracks began to form in your narration. The professional voice opened way to exasperated, barely contained emotions. It grew and grew, getting crazier by the moment. Each segment, a cog started turning, until the realization moment. The climax. The epiphany! When the pieces all fell into place and it dawned on you and us both: this is it. This is the moment we waited for. Expect no Mercy is the chosen one!
The flood of deeply repressed memories you shared with us made this moment ever so special. While your journey to find a new challenger and a definitive holder for the title will still hopefully go on for a long time (this show is very entertaining!), I will consider this a fitting episode for a conclusion. A season finale, if you may.
Godspeed, Mr McMuscles and may your shows keep on being the bangers they are!
Beast Wars: Transformers: Transmetals on N64 and PS1 was a pretty iffy fighter. The N64 version was a Blockbuster exclusive, and the PS1 version had a slightly different roster. You could transform into three different forms, but most often it made sense to just stay in Beast mode because your Robot form would take damage from the energon-heavy environment (like in the show) and your Vehicle mode was often at best situational.
Was that the arena fighter where you just either spam your gun or throw rocks at the other guy?
Yeah I remember that game. My friend was obsessed with beast wars so he bought it. We would play VS. when I would visit and it wasn't very fun. Luckily we eventually got Smash Bros. Brawl and could actually play out a decent fight between us. Many fond memories of us going back and forth strategically. Anyways yeah beast wars was lame
@@demomanchaos Yes, yes it was.
@@BaltanTwo I fondly remember the Beasties cringe along with the "Shadow Raiders" name for War Planets.
@@HellfireEternal Beast Wars Megatron best Megatron, and he has some stiff competition from the IDW, TFA, and Prime versions.
By far the best part of this movie tie in game, is that they couldn't convince Billy Blanks to come back to do the motion capture. Must have been too busy developing Tae Bo.
Hey, you saw the video. Dude made the right choice.
Well, it finally happened. Critacom was finally dethroned. Never thought we'd see the day
That devious Rick Martel, gotta be my favourite fighting game character of all time, so glad he plays such an important role in this classic of a game
I wonder if part of the company downfall was WWF (or WWE) sued for their use of The Model's promo?
I said, out loud, to no one in particular, "... Is that fucking Rick Martel?!"
If you told me this was the "Season Finale" for Worst Fighting game, I'd believe you solely because it's the perfect way to top off a season.
I guess everything up until now can be considered the "Criticom Era", while any future videos would be in the "Expect No Mercy Era".
@@Hijiri_MIRACHION Until ENM is dethroned.
@@MountainMemelord Of course, but Criticom itself took a while to dethrone already.
@@MountainMemelord I don't think you can dethrone this, just make something AS BAD AS.
The "Red Pants Guy" moveset and stance was hilarious.
That guy was actually in the very early days of the UFC. Harold Howard. 100% serious. That was definitely unexpected.
I have seen the amateur and it is you!
"If you're coming on... come on!"@@someguy3186
Truly a historical occasion. I was going to suggest Bounty Battle to get a newer title on your radar but dang, I don't know what could possibly beat this game. Great episode.
Matt, you forgot to mention that the intro FMV had the audacity to drop a line saying "This is BEYOND a mortal combat!"
As the one person who knows about Iron Blood and saw it mentioned in the video: No, it was originally made by a South Korean company called Family Production. All the guys responsible for Expect No Mercy did was localize the game for the west, meaning the one good game under their belt wasn't even developed by them.
Was it any good?
@@gregorymirabella1423 he called it "the one good game" so it might've been good? Idk.
"Congratulations, you have defeated the worst fighting game, you are officially the new champion""
"See you in the Worst fighting game 2: the worse warrior"
if expect no mercy didn't knock criticom off its throne, i honestly would've assumed criticom would stay at the top for good
... Yeah, about that
I'm glad to see you finally get to this one. It's the worse fighting game I've ever played by far.
Had a feeling something might be up, with "The Worst Fighting Game" being written in all-caps this time... and then Matt noted that even Criticom managed something as basic as proper endings for each fighter. Anti-congratulations to Expect No Mercy!
(wrt: suggestions: IIRC, I've mentioned Capital Punishment on the Amiga once or twice now. I'm no longer sure if simply being farcically overly-difficult would qualify it for this series, but it might definitely be worth mentioning at some point.)
"I have SEEN the amateur and it is YOU!"
I feel like a part of something, finally seeing a new king crowned.
Also, Maabus? Obligatory "Now things are beginning to make sense. More later."
I never expected the unintentional crossover between Matt and Ross's Game Dungeon.
Funny that Blood & Iron was referenced in this video, then ended up dethroning this game, almost like foreshadowing.
So, is the next episode in the series going to begin with the narration being changed to knocking "Expect No Mercy" off of its throne? Are we going to get more of a complete episode on Criticom, since that initial video was a glorified Let's Play than anything? Such a powerful upset, I have so many questions as to what comes next!
As the award ceremony begins, the crowd can be heard whispering: Where is the champion? Where is Expect No Mercy? Where is Expect No Mercy as its admirers chant its name?
Already seeking the next challenge. Ceremony means nothing. The fight is all.
Best comment right here.
How fitting that a game called "Expect No Mercy" ended up not getting any (as Matt's newest "worst fighting game ever").
SPOILER ALERT
Top 5 fighting game lines (not debatable):
#1: "I have seen the amateur and it is you"
“I HAVE SEEN THE AMATEUR, AND IT IS YOU!!!”
I'm just now realizing something that makes "I have seen the amateur and it is you!" somehow even worse than it already is: It's a play on Walt Kelly's classic Earth Day comic strip, where Pogo - hurting his feet walking over all the polution in the forrest says "We have met the enemy, and he is us." HOW YOU GOING TO DO THAT TO POGO?!?!?!?!
I know I played this back in '96, every time you played sound effects, I remember them vividly. They're burned into my brain like some deep seeded childhood trauma. This game truly deserved to be the worst.
2:18 Funny how in the beggening of the video we get a little spoiled of which game would detrhone Expect No Mercy, and at the end 20:20, the one which would take the new champ's place
I don't think he's reviewed Dangerous Streets yet.
11:05 "YAMCHA IS YOU!" (assumes Yamcha defeated pose)
I thought NOTHING was going to take Criticom's title!! Damn, I hate to see a bad game we're used to seeing being replaced by an even worse game!! Lol
The moment has arrived! 😂😂😂
Looking forward to seeing THE WORST FIGHTING GAME - ROUND 2!!!!
And I put forward late 90s Amiga crapola THE STRANGERS (Vs Mode) - it won't win, but you will get some laughs, especially from the box art and the terrible intro/game complete cut scenes
17:14 - OMG I had that keyboard! It had like a secondary number-pad style quick input thing that plugged into that ethernet port.
I think this has become the Matthew McMuscular series that I get the most excited to see a new episode of.
I'm dying here. The bootup sequence and especially the sound effects and motion at 11:19 are hilarious. This game may be terrible to play but man is it fun to watch in the way the CDI games are. RIP Criticom, gone and hopefully forgotten.
"Expect No Quality" is probably a better title for this I'm assuming
I remember to bought this game back in... 1999 or 2000 I think. It was a CD-ROM in a tiny cardboard box that showed 2 screenshots of the game. And seriously thought it was going to be a blast. I was a kid back then and I liked the gameplay, of course I knew they ripped off the Mortal Kombat Style. Until now that I grew up, I realised the game was seriously one of the WORST games I've ever played.
Some stuff to point out from the game too:
-The Player was the only one character that could perform a finishing move on the opponent.
-Versus Mode allows you to choose the character you want, but it's only for 2 human players (if I remember correctly)
-You can't play on all the stages in the Versus Mode.
-The characters cannot perform a finishing move on each other.
Great video man, I just already subscribed, keep it up!
I haven't seen the entire thing yet, but this is a contender for the top spot for sure. I had this as a kid on a 386 somehow, and thought it was so choppy because my PC could not run it properly. Couple of years later I wen back with better hardware, and was just blow away by how bad it was. Fun fact, all the kill-moves were straight up avi files on the disc, for some reason they had to be pre-rendered lol
So each character basically "fights" by just moving forward while having a seizure until one of them passes out. ..........Interesting.
You should play Shura No Mon, a Japan only PS1 fighter based on an obscure manga. The graphics look like basic texture mapped polygons, and the characters control like they just took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. You'll probably get a good episode out of it.
Just looked it up, looks fine, and there is NO chance it can dethrone Expect no Mercy
Dude, well done including the Model in this video. I miss 80s/90s WWF.
Expect no mercy: "You might be a villain but you're not super"
Criticom: "What's the difference"
Expect no mercy: 5:57
2:10 - You know, I like how I only realize months later that you got excited about mentioning a game that you would later determine to be EVEN WORSE THAN THIS.
...you know, it didn't take THAT long for you to put up the video for Iron & Blood. I now question if you knew all along.
I’d love to see a series where you do the fighters people have suggested for this series you’ve disqualified for actually being good.
Just most games people suggest I’ve usually never or only vaguely heard about so I would still love to see them here.
Just a suggestion/request. Love the channel appreciate all your hard work.
I was actually afraid you'd stop the series after finding a game to top Criticom but am relieved to hear that you'll keep up the good fight for bad games!
Excellent review and Congrats (?) to the champ!
Also, very long side note and game recommendation:
When you started talking about unlocking memories in the video, about playing this game and such, it unlocked a memory with me too.
Not about this game, but one that would be able to compete in this championship methinks.
I'm writing about IMP, a CD-Rom based fighting game made in Sweden, where you hade to buy characters separately and I mean All characters!
You bought one CD with one character, that's what you got. You want more characters, you need to buy more CD's
Horrid graphics, horrendous gameplay and very pay-to-play marketing ploy, dunno where to get it nowadays as it's at least 20 years old but I think you'd get a kick out it and would be fun to see a review of it!
I feel it's quite appropriate that we ended up crowning a new "Worst Fighting Game" in a video where most of the OST used was from Street Fighter Alpha 3, the Best Fighting Game. ' 3'
Yeah wow, this was quite unexpected to suddenly stumble onto as our new lowest bar, yet upon seeing the first few bits of gameplay, instantly my brain said "This is the one." This was _rough_ to witness, dude.
A......stamina bar? We've found the Dark Souls of fighting games y'all.
What a time to be alive. We finally made it to the promised land. I love you all. Thank you Matt McMuscles, I loved this series. Can't wait to see more of it. ❤
😁
I'm so happy that you're going to keep this series going. Easily one of my favorites on TH-cam!
It finally happen, Criticom's reing is not more, now begins the reing of Expect No Mercy, this one of the moments in history
11:18 "I have seen the amateur, and it is you!"
"I have seen the amateur, and it is you!"
"I have seen the amateur, and it is you!"
"I have seen the amateur, and it is you!"
11:04 "THE AMATEUR IS YOU!"
Finding a game worse than Criticom and using the street fighter alpha 3 ending music is strangely fitting and hilarious
I just imagined Criticom as M Bison getting pwned after losing like he does in most of Alpha 3's endings.
2:17 is really funny in hindsight considering where the tier list currently stands.
exactly the type of game I watch this series for. who the hell else would find this unless they were doing a deep dive into this topic?
I’ve always found it to be a very fascinating topic. 🤔
The amateur is you!
Me at 9:41 - "Holy shit, Criticom is getting dethroned!"
Foreshadowing at its finest.
This is one of the things I listen to between matches when I play ranked in fighting games! Thanks.
The biggest twist is that this was a game from his childhood, hiding right under his... lack of a nose all along!
As the video progressed I started to wonder if this will finally be it: The one to surpass the mighty (?) Criticom in terms of sheer awfulness.
Well, the journey was long and arduous but it finally happened: Congratulations (?) on finally defeating the grand master of trash, Expect No Mercy.
But there are still many challengers out there, so see you next time Matt.
_"A bunch of animated GIFs on crack swatting at each other..."_
_Lmfao 😂 💀 ⚰️ 🪦_
I finally realised what that menu reminds me of the 90e album by Alan Parsons Project released called The Time Machine.
Look at the coverart for that album then compare it to the menu of this
By god theyve finally done it. Also requesting battle of the eras, which is kind of a victory lap over this.
Anyone else look at the titlecard graffic and see the 2 claw scratches with the guys face being shown as 2 pieces of bacon?
It does look like that, ngl
Wow.
I remember "Budokan" also having an endurance ("ki") mechanic, but that game was also trying to be a more realistic martial arts game with an emphasis on weapons and techniques rather than special moves and over-the-top craziness.
Vague memories of seeing this on the shelf at Software Etc. or one of those, but never picked it up (lucky me?). Long live the king, I guess?
No game in this series deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Budokan. that game is a PC classic.
@@davidlee6505 No argument here.
Now that you have looked at this Windows game, you should look at Cyber Gladiators by Sierra Online. The keyboard inputs read half the time and you are usually wrecked by the computer before you know what is happening. If the computer constantly crushing you with its unmissed inputs, the objects flying into the arena will. There's no actual in-game story so you have to read the booklet in the CD case. The booklet does have a rundown of the limited moves available. What music there is isn't bad. the weird screaming grunts are identical for all male characters AND all the female characters have the same screaming grunt as well. Visually it's nice, in fact I think that's the only thing I liked about it.
the iron and blood foreshadowing
I love how the Stamina bar goes negative on the footage, like the coders forgot to clamp the value between 0 and 1.
I love the use of the SFA music for the background
He has seen the amateur. And indeed. It is you.
I had this. I played this. The opening theme is still seared in my memories. Thank you for covering this and unveiling unresolved trauma.
P.S. I'm surprised you didn't make any mention of the opening FMV...where they take a dig at Mortal Kombat which even in my younger 90's years found to be hilariously cringeworthy.
I remember there was this store downtown that had a demo of Expect No Mercy playing on no less than 3 screens, back in 1996. I never saw the game being sold anywhere, and to this day I've never found out why that store decided to showcase it so damn hard.
Anyone know which track is playing over 21:03 / 21:04? When it's showing Matt McMuscles's credits? Everyone kept saying "Street Fighter Alpha 3" but I've listened to that credits track here on TH-cam, it's not that. So which is it? Can anyone help?
In terms of PC fighting game schlock, I hope Cyber Gladiators makes it to the show, as it was pretty much Sierra's equivalent of Xenophage (terrible fighter from a popular publisher) and is far worse than the likes of FX Fighter.
ngl I was worried that this would be the final episode of TWFG, I'm so glad you're gonna keep making episodes! This series has been such a treat to watch.
Oh man. For a second there, I thought Matt was going to end this series. “That’s it, boys! We found it! The worst fighting game! SHUT IT DOWN!”
I’m glad he’s going to continue. Thanks, Matt!
It would be justified, I can't imagine how a fighting game could possibly be worse than this unless it bricks your system or is accidentally child pornography
@@DStecksI'd be looking forward to the second one
@@MemoristtheTerrorist4595 what do you mean by that? 🤨
@reubentherblazer9756 I said I was looking forward to see the game that overthrows this one. It already happened, twice.
@MemoristtheTerrorist4595 Oh! Okay!
8:48 "The game looks like a college homework in a computer class".
Hah! I *did* make a fighting "game" in my college years, and it indeed felt like Expect No Mercy.
Expect No Quality.
Expect no Budget
It almost looked like they wanted to make Karate Champ (with the very small hitboxes and directon+button input) but mix it with Mortal Kombat. Also at 14:55, did Good-Quality-Raiden lightning-explode "Player's" balls through his head before incinerating him?
Now that Matt already went through this "game" we have to expect Justin Wong take on his Junkyard video series and see him struggle
NGL after the whole video of negative observations, I was totally expecting some twist at the end like "actually, it's not that bad" or "actually, IT'S AWESOME!" and there wasn't any and I love when that happens.
This feels more like one of those shovelware Tiger handhelds than an actual game.
"I have seen the amateur and it is you" is one helluva 90's quotable.
Day-um, never thought King Criticom would be deposed. Must not have been able to tell what the sweet, tasty hell was happening while being pummeled by repeated 2-frame-long attacks.
I love those edits you have of the model, Rick martel in this. Omg you even have samples of OSW review talking about Doink! They're such a good time, I love their work.
Tbh, I am suprised that the goal was achieved, and I am glad that the series will go on, because I love it
It's funny that such an "achievement" would be this underwhelming. Like, the mistakes and flaws pile up as expected, but they just don't stop and then suddenly you're looking at the most unappealing mountain you've ever seen and you realize with a shudder that this is exactly what you've been looking for
Was that 'The Model' Rick Martel 😂😂😂??
It is! If you look at 9:20 you can see him standing in front of a logo with his name.
For folks unaware, Rick "The Model" Martel was a Canadian wrestler most active in the 80's and 90's.
LMAO I’ve seen the DVD of the movie sold in a store in Ireland called Poundland which is basically the equivalent of a dollar store. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was in a bargain bin being bundled off with a choice of 4 other DVDs for €1.