Battle of the Eras (1994). A Mortal Kombat Klone that literally sold 0 copies and is extremely broken. The bosses weren't coded in, the game's a complete eyesore, and there's a documentary about the game online. It's abhorrent, yet I can't look away fron it.
It is OK if thy used such background during alpha stage then put in proper background graphics later. So, did they ship the game in alpha stage for they ran out of money and time?
Honestly, I am surprised there aren't/weren't ore historical fighters. Free IP that comes with recognizable names. Napoleon vs Hercules vs Leif Erikson vs Tecumseh vs Shaka Zulu, etc. And every history teacher is talking about your characters with no marketing spend.
@@guaposneeze Only example I can think of is the second Deadliest Warrior game with William Wallace, Shaka, Attila, Alexander the Great, Vlad Dracula, Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Hannibal, Hernán Cortés, and Joan 'DArc. Kinda surprised the roster is that small, considering the show also had (looks at notes) Jesse James, Al Capone, T.E. Lawrence , George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan IV, Theodore fucking Roosevelt, Crazy Horse, and Pancho Villa. Also Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot for those with no self-awareness. A historical character fighter would be pretty badass, NGL. I guess there's always Dynasty Warriors.
I'm going to take a wild guess that this was originally supposed to be a 3D fighter, a'la the replays. In that context, the voxel graphics make sense. Theoretically, you could get the fluidity of Virtua Fighter combined with something like the digitized look of Mortal Kombat. But given how unfinished the game feels, I bet they had to drastically scale back the scope late in development.
Bio F.R.E.A.K.S (1998) Midway's attempt at making another Mortal Kombat-like game, but in a dystopian "Neo-America", with fighting mutants and a really...really weird toad guy as one of the playable characters.
"Anyone who has ever thought a mechanic that limits usage of your basic special moves in a fighting game is a good idea - let it be known... I hate you!" Art of Fighting:
Holosseum is often considered the predecessor of Virtua fighter, since the characters are based on real martial arts and not fictional ones like SF and MK. Doesn't belong on a list like this, because the hardware carried the game.
@@eddiek6390 I'm just basing it on playing it and being thoroughly unimpressed... do fighting game fans consider Holosseum to be fun or groundbreaking? As someone else mentioned, it's fully playable in MAME - the "Hologram" is just a gimmick of how the TV image is displayed, so it works fine on a regular monitor. As such, I welcome everyone to check it out and let me know their thoughts!
I miss magazines. It was an art, as were some of the amazingly memorable advertisements. One page could convince a sucker like me back in the day to try a game based exclusively on the amount of skulls and monsters featured, plus how overall metal the ad was.
I think the one object lesson people learned in the 90s was, much like creating an anthropomorphic animal with attitude in a platformer, fighting games are a lot harder to make than they look.
I still think it's odd that despite this series going on for a couple years now, you've still yet to cover Tattoo Assassins, one of the games that flashes by in the title sequence. You know what must be done to rectify this.
@@willmistretta He's said that the game had to have been released in order to count, though that does raise the question of why that game is in the title screen to begin with if it doesn't count. I think it would make for a fun episode regardless.
@@sirsorgum5095 Ironically, I feel like TA would rank pretty low on the WFG tier list. It's "bad" in a general sense, sure, but damn can it be hilarious to mess around with with friends.
At this point I can't see Tattoo Assassins doing any worse than a Fairly Stinky rating. Gameplay wise it handles like a rough beta of MK2: not good, but nowhere near as unplayable as many of the worse games from this series. Probably the worst aspects of Tattoo Assassin are its uninspired character roster and troubled development.
I vividly remember playing this game with my cousin back in the day and mashing buttons them the opponent got dizzy after being defeated hoping to get a fatality. That being one of three PC-only fighting games from back then I remember playing the others being One Must Fall 2097 and Cybergladiators - and the latter truly deserves an episode
This is still one of my favorite ongoing series on TH-cam lol. Also in a moment of poetic timing... at 7:15, in the game I was playing while watching this video, an item dropped called "Lie after Lie"... I think the game was agreeing with you lol
Fair enough, but that leaves OMF. Which had an economy, RPG systems, multiple tournaments, repairs, and customization. Then at the end you fight the guy from Armored Core.
Amiga was a PC though, just not an IBM compatible/MS-DOS one. Anyway, I had this game but it was just called Warriors around here. I quickly learned that it was rather shit but it had a tiny bit of charm. Also, Neftis was a neat design.
Hi, I'd like to write a quick review of the game in question (I promise I'll be quick). As indicated in the video, Savage Warriors is a game by Atreid Concpet/Kalisto (which is a French studio) and, with some friends, we're organising a voting tournament to elect the "best French game of all time" (on the forum of a French newspaper called "Canard PC") and Savage Warriors was one of them.... ...Before being knocked out in the first round by Empire of the Ants (yes, the 2001 RTS). Just in case, I could put a link just below but I don't know if it'll be blocked in the comments (not to mention that it's all in French!).
16:58 there is one other stage interaction: your character goes up the little step on the side here. groundbreaking stuff. Also, regarding the story: Usually when a fighting game does the "warlord brings everyone to an island" thing there's like, an actual reason for it. Either to harvest fighting energy or to prove some point about being really powerful or whatever, but this guy just seems to be like "hey you, try to beat the shit out of me!"
I really think Catfight (1996) is a worthy contender. A Mortal Kombat Klone where they thought sprites of women in aerobic wear would do enough heavy lifting to forgive not really making anything else.
Was just reading through an old issue of Next Generation magazine, Nov. 1995, and they gave Savage Warriors 3/5 stars noting it as a "very competent effort" and saying that its hanging from background items mechanic was "particularly innovative." In that same issue, KoF '95 received a rating of 2/5 stars. (Meanwhile NHL '96 on SNES was given a 5/5 star "revolutionary" review.)
Dino Rex deserves a shot on this series. Even though most of these games aren't arcade exclusives, I know Matt has a bit of history with it already and I'd love to see a more in-depth analysis on how bad (or not) it actually is.
I know "voxel" is the wrong term to use, and I'm at a loss myself for what to call this particular style for the 3D characters (assuming of course they are actual 3D models), but what it reminds me of is a low-poly 3D modeling technique where adjacent polygons in the model actually _do not_ meet at their edges (like in a typical 3D mesh) but rather slightly overextend, allowing their textures (which include transparent pixels) to fake the presentation of a more curved/complex surface (that might otherwise entail a much higher polygon count). The technique, while not necessarily common in the early 3D era, was not unknown either. For comparison, it's like how the top surface of a table extends outwards from the actual frame/legs it stands on. In "low poly" terms, you wouldn't actually model each individual table leg and the framework underneath it, you'd simply render a simple 3D box with each of its 4 sides textured to resemble a complete "side view" of the table (legs and framing, but otherwise transparent) and then render a final polygon on top to represent the topside of the table. Whereas a "real" 3D table might require a minimum of, say, a 30-polygon mesh (assuming a rectangular solid for the tabletop plus each of its four legs), this technique does a similar thing in just _five_ polygons.
I had this as a kid, I bought it in its big-box out of a charity shop (UK thrift shop) while we were on holiday at the seaside. I felt so lucky to have grabbed what was clearly such an amazing game for just a few quid. I waited all week to get home and play it, and read the manual cover-to-cover once a day until then. I never bought another fighting game again - and let me tell you, it wasn't because I had all I needed in 'Savage Warriors'. I've been watching this series with baited breath, waiting for the day you'd bring the memory of this game screaming back to me. Thanks, it's every bit as awful as I remember.
That character select is really neat at least. I guess it wouldn't work in a game with a lot of fighters but I wouldn't mind seeing something like that in a modern fighter
Heavy Nova (1991) a Sega Genesis fighting robot game with a platformer single player mode that fails on both fronts, several moves have no hitboxes, all enemies can stunlock you, there's no walls so enemies can run forever, and it has an insane stamina mechanic where you're forced to spend more than half the match on the floor. It's worse than Rise of the Robots in every way.
Honestly i'm sort of morbidly curious about the credit for the animated sequences; the art style reminds me of the same style from the animation sequences from both Warcraft Adventures as well as Full Throttle
Interesting choice, dropping the Eternal Champions theme there at the end, because that's exactly what the stamina meter discussion made me think of. Did anyone actually play EC with that "chi meter" or whatever the hell it was enabled? I always turned it to infinite when me and my brother would play in versus, and the fact that it was stuck on made the arcade mode WAY harder than it needed to be. Even with that, EC isn't Worst Fighting Game material, but that's what the topic brought to mind.
Phew, that ad was a RUSH of nostalgia! I remember staring at it over and over in magazines, thinking that the game must be SO COOL. I'm glad I didn't have a good computer now.
the song in the outro really made tingle my nostalgia feel ... but i didn't know where it was from ... bit thinking and it popped in my mind ... ETERNAL CHAMPIONS!
I feel a lot of love and fun from the sprite art. The aesthetics of the character select, difficulty slider, and replay are sublime to me (I am a sucker for skeuomorphish design). Along with the equally nice background art, I gotta hand it to the 2D artists!
While the characters may be generic I still really dig their designs. Not all of them, but like Meatball (the NY gangster) and Osinkira (tall African tribesman) (WHO AS A KID I LEGIT THOUGHT HAD A BEARD) and especially the Master. Even generic American Millitary man Is a bit different because usually American Millitary men in fighting games wear full uniforms with cameo, or in Guiles case a wifebeater, but this guy is Dutch from Commando-ing it up going topless and covered in warpaint I kinda dig that? I like this game. Its 98% nostalgia speaking but I like it.
Tournament of Legends! Another one of High Voltage Software’s Quantum3 HARDCORE Wii games. I don’t think it’s Iron and Blood levels of bad… but it’s definitely not great. And it might be a nice break from the dregs of forgotten PC MK clones haha
I have to admit, the animated sequences made me think this one might have some promise. We've all seen cartoons of the era with worse animation (MK: Defenders of the Realm comes to mind right off the bat). It looks like this one just needed some more time in the oven, and maybe some attention to its plot and characters, to be something decent. That said, the Native American and African warriors...big oof. Those wouldn't have aged well regardless.
The animation looks so familiar! But I can't quite place it. Mobygames credits Patrice Bruel, Michel Prudhomme, and Pascal Valdes. (In some curious coincidence, the apparent website of Mr. Valdes features a logo that resembles that of Savage Warriors.)
So you're saying The Master plucked a bunch of different warriors out from various time periods to compete in a fighting tournament? How strange. I'm not sure why they thought Doctor Who needed a tie-in game that directly competed with Mortal Kombat, but then again, I'm not a 90s game developer.
Ugh. I am starting to think the only good fighting game on PC from the 90s was battle arena toshiden. Now that was a proper PC fighting game. Especially if you went up against the main boss Gaia, Talk about huge! Now this was before Street fighter went into 3d so the only way you could tell Sagat was supposed to be a tall hulking man was by the the animated movie that came out. Heck I think Gaia was the one fighting game character that made players wet themselves!
The intro animation reminds me of the stuff LucasArts was doing at the time with Outlaws and The Curse of Monkey Island. All of the hand drawn stuff in this game look pretty good, gameplay might be shit but kudos to the artists!
My younger self was reasonably skeptical at the ad, but fell for the actual box back and a preview or two. Spent actual videogame budget on it. For a couple years after, "3D BiO mOtIoN!" was a running gag from my brother.
To Sega's credit, at least Blast Processing was a very accurate way to describe the Genesis' 16 bit core processor which stacking up against the NES, feels much more powerful than a slower 8-bit console. Savage Warriors having a 3D Bio Motion selling point on the other hand... Yeah, I'm lost.
This series has left me with two distinct realizations. Firstly, there are Way more fighting games out there than I ever thought possible. Second, there's probably a good reason why I've never heard of them until now... on a show called "The Worst Fighting Game"
I so remember this advertisement from my youth it had me super amped it had me super amped. Sadly I did not have the chance to play it until much later at which point it had me a bit frustrated and let down. But in its time it was definitely pretty interesting specimen in itself when not compared to other games on the market
Battle of the Eras (1994). A Mortal Kombat Klone that literally sold 0 copies and is extremely broken. The bosses weren't coded in, the game's a complete eyesore, and there's a documentary about the game online. It's abhorrent, yet I can't look away fron it.
Yes, play that schmit !
Probably one of the two games that can dethrone Iron & Blood, the other being Olofight, a fighting game for AMIGA.
I just searched it! What a mess😂
@@espion2KX now to be fair, it does look like a spoof, don t think it s meant to be taken seriously.
@@insertnicknamehereIs that why Shrek: Fairy Tale FreakDown has yet to be cast into the ring?
Those backgrounds look like they belong in a point&click adventure
You took the words out my mouth 😂 A.K.A Monkey Island
Exactly what I thought
Reminds me of Zoombinis levels.
It is OK if thy used such background during alpha stage then put in proper background graphics later.
So, did they ship the game in alpha stage for they ran out of money and time?
Is this supposed to be a bad things? This is the greatest thing in this game.
"Tecumseh: Born in the Shawnee tribes..."
OMG. Did they really just randomly grab a major figure from history to plop in as a random fighter?
Yes.
Not even the first fighting game in this series to do so. Alaric from Kasumi Ninja sez hi.
Honestly, I am surprised there aren't/weren't ore historical fighters. Free IP that comes with recognizable names. Napoleon vs Hercules vs Leif Erikson vs Tecumseh vs Shaka Zulu, etc. And every history teacher is talking about your characters with no marketing spend.
@@guaposneeze Only example I can think of is the second Deadliest Warrior game with William Wallace, Shaka, Attila, Alexander the Great, Vlad Dracula, Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Hannibal, Hernán Cortés, and Joan 'DArc. Kinda surprised the roster is that small, considering the show also had (looks at notes) Jesse James, Al Capone, T.E. Lawrence , George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan IV, Theodore fucking Roosevelt, Crazy Horse, and Pancho Villa. Also Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot for those with no self-awareness.
A historical character fighter would be pretty badass, NGL. I guess there's always Dynasty Warriors.
1:20 A Cheap Pop-Culture Rewind?? D-Von...get the lawyers!
Thanks for having me on Mattbrah 😃
Was 95 the year of...Tatanka?
"You took A Cheap Pop-Culture Rewind from me!"
"I don't even know who you are."
I'm here for the "Jay Hunter moaning about Matt stealing the cheap pop-culture rewind" action!
Oh blue skeleton lord, until D&D is dethroned, you’re no longer able to say “ Combos” you’re only allowed to say *COMBINATION*
Big nod to using the Eternal Champions CD soundtrack in here, which was the very first thing I thought of hearing the premise.
I'm going to take a wild guess that this was originally supposed to be a 3D fighter, a'la the replays. In that context, the voxel graphics make sense. Theoretically, you could get the fluidity of Virtua Fighter combined with something like the digitized look of Mortal Kombat. But given how unfinished the game feels, I bet they had to drastically scale back the scope late in development.
You want to chalk that one up to budget cuts, memory issues or lack of experience? Cause my moneys on the 1st.
@@fruitjuice225
My money's on all of them.
Bio F.R.E.A.K.S (1998) Midway's attempt at making another Mortal Kombat-like game, but in a dystopian "Neo-America", with fighting mutants and a really...really weird toad guy as one of the playable characters.
SSAPO OUR BELOVED
@@kR-qj7rw PRAISE THE SSAPO
@@kittytime4279 BUST A MOVE
PRAISE SSAPO
"Anyone who has ever thought a mechanic that limits usage of your basic special moves in a fighting game is a good idea - let it be known... I hate you!"
Art of Fighting:
The end of the video teased _Tongue Of The Fatman_ -- looking forward! 😀
Forget about the Super Bowl...THIS is the must-watch matchup of the weekend!
Super Moves > Stupid Bowl
Bunga
Uh.... yeah
No.
Don’t sleep on the Puppy Bowl
Holosseum (Sega arcade, 1992) - a fighting game that used the Time Traveler cabinet. A lineup of four whole fighters including the all-star "Dave"!
Fun fact: you can actually play it in MAME
Holosseum is often considered the predecessor of Virtua fighter, since the characters are based on real martial arts and not fictional ones like SF and MK. Doesn't belong on a list like this, because the hardware carried the game.
DUDE! I’ve been telling Matt to cover it! That game was an absolute steamy pile
@@eddiek6390 I'm just basing it on playing it and being thoroughly unimpressed... do fighting game fans consider Holosseum to be fun or groundbreaking?
As someone else mentioned, it's fully playable in MAME - the "Hologram" is just a gimmick of how the TV image is displayed, so it works fine on a regular monitor. As such, I welcome everyone to check it out and let me know their thoughts!
Just binged the complete “Worst Fighting Game” series. This episode comes at a perfect time!
Of all the places to see Tecumseh's abriged history I did not think it would be in a 90s fighting game.
I miss magazines. It was an art, as were some of the amazingly memorable advertisements. One page could convince a sucker like me back in the day to try a game based exclusively on the amount of skulls and monsters featured, plus how overall metal the ad was.
BoomBots (PS1).
It is time.
oh good god
YES
I never thought I’d ever live to potentially hear Matt McMuscles talk about The Neverhood but there may be a chance :0
I used to love that game lmao
@jabrone.destoroyah not even the worst game Klaymen has been in
I think the one object lesson people learned in the 90s was, much like creating an anthropomorphic animal with attitude in a platformer, fighting games are a lot harder to make than they look.
I still think it's odd that despite this series going on for a couple years now, you've still yet to cover Tattoo Assassins, one of the games that flashes by in the title sequence. You know what must be done to rectify this.
Should unreleased stuff qualify?
@@willmistretta He's said that the game had to have been released in order to count, though that does raise the question of why that game is in the title screen to begin with if it doesn't count. I think it would make for a fun episode regardless.
@@sirsorgum5095 Ironically, I feel like TA would rank pretty low on the WFG tier list. It's "bad" in a general sense, sure, but damn can it be hilarious to mess around with with friends.
At this point I can't see Tattoo Assassins doing any worse than a Fairly Stinky rating. Gameplay wise it handles like a rough beta of MK2: not good, but nowhere near as unplayable as many of the worse games from this series. Probably the worst aspects of Tattoo Assassin are its uninspired character roster and troubled development.
@@willmistrettaWasn't Thrill Kill unreleased technically? Had to be leaked well after the fact.
Before "the Halo killer", we had "the next Mortal Kombat".
I vividly remember playing this game with my cousin back in the day and mashing buttons them the opponent got dizzy after being defeated hoping to get a fatality. That being one of three PC-only fighting games from back then I remember playing the others being One Must Fall 2097 and Cybergladiators - and the latter truly deserves an episode
This is still one of my favorite ongoing series on TH-cam lol. Also in a moment of poetic timing... at 7:15, in the game I was playing while watching this video, an item dropped called "Lie after Lie"... I think the game was agreeing with you lol
7:15 Body Blows was released for the Amiga before the MS-Dos version
Fair enough, but that leaves OMF.
Which had an economy, RPG systems, multiple tournaments, repairs, and customization. Then at the end you fight the guy from Armored Core.
Amiga was a PC though, just not an IBM compatible/MS-DOS one.
Anyway, I had this game but it was just called Warriors around here. I quickly learned that it was rather shit but it had a tiny bit of charm. Also, Neftis was a neat design.
@@richardhunter9779What is this Amiga erasure!?
Hi, I'd like to write a quick review of the game in question (I promise I'll be quick).
As indicated in the video, Savage Warriors is a game by Atreid Concpet/Kalisto (which is a French studio) and, with some friends, we're organising a voting tournament to elect the "best French game of all time" (on the forum of a French newspaper called "Canard PC") and Savage Warriors was one of them....
...Before being knocked out in the first round by Empire of the Ants (yes, the 2001 RTS). Just in case, I could put a link just below but I don't know if it'll be blocked in the comments (not to mention that it's all in French!).
16:58 there is one other stage interaction: your character goes up the little step on the side here. groundbreaking stuff.
Also, regarding the story: Usually when a fighting game does the "warlord brings everyone to an island" thing there's like, an actual reason for it. Either to harvest fighting energy or to prove some point about being really powerful or whatever, but this guy just seems to be like "hey you, try to beat the shit out of me!"
lol “if you’re like me, and I know I am…” brilliant
I really think Catfight (1996) is a worthy contender. A Mortal Kombat Klone where they thought sprites of women in aerobic wear would do enough heavy lifting to forgive not really making anything else.
4:21
That info box was missing a feature:
Great game
MKII: Yes
Warriors: No
😂
Was just reading through an old issue of Next Generation magazine, Nov. 1995, and they gave Savage Warriors 3/5 stars noting it as a "very competent effort" and saying that its hanging from background items mechanic was "particularly innovative." In that same issue, KoF '95 received a rating of 2/5 stars. (Meanwhile NHL '96 on SNES was given a 5/5 star "revolutionary" review.)
Now cover Mortal Kombat 4 for the Gameboy Color.
3:10 "If you're like me, and I know I am..."
I'm ashamed to admit that made me chuckle despite it being such a dumb joke lol
Dino Rex deserves a shot on this series. Even though most of these games aren't arcade exclusives, I know Matt has a bit of history with it already and I'd love to see a more in-depth analysis on how bad (or not) it actually is.
I know "voxel" is the wrong term to use, and I'm at a loss myself for what to call this particular style for the 3D characters (assuming of course they are actual 3D models), but what it reminds me of is a low-poly 3D modeling technique where adjacent polygons in the model actually _do not_ meet at their edges (like in a typical 3D mesh) but rather slightly overextend, allowing their textures (which include transparent pixels) to fake the presentation of a more curved/complex surface (that might otherwise entail a much higher polygon count). The technique, while not necessarily common in the early 3D era, was not unknown either.
For comparison, it's like how the top surface of a table extends outwards from the actual frame/legs it stands on. In "low poly" terms, you wouldn't actually model each individual table leg and the framework underneath it, you'd simply render a simple 3D box with each of its 4 sides textured to resemble a complete "side view" of the table (legs and framing, but otherwise transparent) and then render a final polygon on top to represent the topside of the table.
Whereas a "real" 3D table might require a minimum of, say, a 30-polygon mesh (assuming a rectangular solid for the tabletop plus each of its four legs), this technique does a similar thing in just _five_ polygons.
I had this as a kid, I bought it in its big-box out of a charity shop (UK thrift shop) while we were on holiday at the seaside. I felt so lucky to have grabbed what was clearly such an amazing game for just a few quid. I waited all week to get home and play it, and read the manual cover-to-cover once a day until then. I never bought another fighting game again - and let me tell you, it wasn't because I had all I needed in 'Savage Warriors'.
I've been watching this series with baited breath, waiting for the day you'd bring the memory of this game screaming back to me. Thanks, it's every bit as awful as I remember.
dudes, i'm so amped that matt mcmuscles finally added 4D echo vibes. gonna re-listen to all his videos now with my headphones plugged in, on max
Mindscape sure has a lot of shovelware on their resume!
That character select is really neat at least. I guess it wouldn't work in a game with a lot of fighters but I wouldn't mind seeing something like that in a modern fighter
Maybe it could be reserved for a single player mode, while giving the versus modes a more standard select screen.
6:43 I heard that Half-life 3 will run on the "4D Echo Vibes" engine. Can't wait!
Holy shit 7:10 One Must Fall 2097 mentioned. One of my favourite old fighters.
I never actually got to own the game, but I had a shareware disk with it. I played the hell out of that thing even though it was so limited, lol.
I would have thought 3D Bio Motion meant biologically realistic or motion tracked movements for the fighters, but idk
Slaughter Sport, Time Killers(Genesis), Shadow: War of Succession, and Dangerous Streets would all make good contenders.
I was looking away when you mentioned Scottie Pippen.....and then I saw him in the replay lol So bizarre
The only game Scottie Pippen can play as himself while imagining he takes on Michael Jordan and his son lol
I love how every MK clone's story is basically a shitty isekai.
That or "guy owns an island and invited people to it to beat the shit out of each other".
Heavy Nova (1991) a Sega Genesis fighting robot game with a platformer single player mode that fails on both fronts, several moves have no hitboxes, all enemies can stunlock you, there's no walls so enemies can run forever, and it has an insane stamina mechanic where you're forced to spend more than half the match on the floor. It's worse than Rise of the Robots in every way.
There's no way that they were doing voxels that small back then. Likely its a polygons without anti-aliasing (jagged edges) with pixellated textures.
"If you're like me, and I know I am..." SENT me
Battle beasts (1995) for pc I think would make an interesting conversation. I remember playing it when I was a kid and hating the controls.
said it before but Time Slaughter def needs to be included in the series.
It looks like it was intended to be a 3D fighting game but they had to change it back to a traditional 2D fighter half way.
I can´t believe Tekken 7 stole the Infinite Azure stage from this game´s replay feature.
all the eternal champions music in this video... i miss her so bad bro
8:44 omg hi Zagreus
Thank you so much. I recognised the voice but couldn't remember where it's from which was driving me nuts
I'll be honest, I read the titles as "Sausage Warriors"
I always wanted the ability to Imitate Chill Penguin in a fighting game.
Honestly i'm sort of morbidly curious about the credit for the animated sequences; the art style reminds me of the same style from the animation sequences from both Warcraft Adventures as well as Full Throttle
These videos have turned into my comfort food, always happy when there's a new one haha
When is the whuh happun on Them's Fightin' Herds? It could use a proper looking at, given it's premature death by modus games.
Man this game really looked at Eternal Champions and went "Hey let me copy your homework" didn't it?
Interesting choice, dropping the Eternal Champions theme there at the end, because that's exactly what the stamina meter discussion made me think of. Did anyone actually play EC with that "chi meter" or whatever the hell it was enabled? I always turned it to infinite when me and my brother would play in versus, and the fact that it was stuck on made the arcade mode WAY harder than it needed to be.
Even with that, EC isn't Worst Fighting Game material, but that's what the topic brought to mind.
oh my god i cannot wait to see you do Timeslaughter
Phew, that ad was a RUSH of nostalgia! I remember staring at it over and over in magazines, thinking that the game must be SO COOL.
I'm glad I didn't have a good computer now.
I'm going to laugh really hard when Matt and I release Pray For Death videos at the same time.
Cameo by Tongue of the Fatman/Slaughter Sport at the end…that NEEDS to be part of this series. It’s truly awful.
If it doesn't have 4D Echo Vibes, I'm not interested
the song in the outro really made tingle my nostalgia feel ... but i didn't know where it was from ... bit thinking and it popped in my mind ... ETERNAL CHAMPIONS!
I hate how morbidly fascinated I am with how this game looks
18:13 I swear you're one of maybe 5 people who still remembers & appreciates Eternal Champions.
I'd recommend Best of Best by SunA. Also, Dragon Master or Fight Fever can be candidates, but I think Best of Best fares worse than them.
I feel a lot of love and fun from the sprite art. The aesthetics of the character select, difficulty slider, and replay are sublime to me (I am a sucker for skeuomorphish design).
Along with the equally nice background art, I gotta hand it to the 2D artists!
@3:05 Is that Doomcock from DVD overlord?! Man did he ever upgrade from the 90's.
3:09 Goddamn I had to pause to laugh properly.
I remember playing this way back in the late 90's,
to tell you the worst part is playing with a keyboard.
Doesn’t have 4D Echo Vibes!?!? 0/10
"If you are like me, and I know I am..."
This is genius.
This series is my life-force, having to deal with some of these games as a kid too, I love it so much haha
I love how you are able to drag back memories of PC Gamer demo discs that I've not thought about in nearly 30 years.
The warriors in the game aren't the only thing that's savage: Matt's washboard abs are the talk of the arcade.
While the characters may be generic I still really dig their designs. Not all of them, but like Meatball (the NY gangster) and Osinkira (tall African tribesman) (WHO AS A KID I LEGIT THOUGHT HAD A BEARD) and especially the Master.
Even generic American Millitary man Is a bit different because usually American Millitary men in fighting games wear full uniforms with cameo, or in Guiles case a wifebeater, but this guy is Dutch from Commando-ing it up going topless and covered in warpaint
I kinda dig that?
I like this game. Its 98% nostalgia speaking but I like it.
08:44 - The voice sounds familiar, is it Alec from Disventure Camp?
Tournament of Legends! Another one of High Voltage Software’s Quantum3 HARDCORE Wii games. I don’t think it’s Iron and Blood levels of bad… but it’s definitely not great. And it might be a nice break from the dregs of forgotten PC MK clones haha
A gift! Did I do something nice!? Oh well, I'll take it! Thanks!
Body Blows is a port from the Amiga, tho.
I used to own this one!!! it was distributed by Expert software here, still loved it with my brother!
core memory unlocked when you showed the magazine ad haha
I have to admit, the animated sequences made me think this one might have some promise. We've all seen cartoons of the era with worse animation (MK: Defenders of the Realm comes to mind right off the bat). It looks like this one just needed some more time in the oven, and maybe some attention to its plot and characters, to be something decent.
That said, the Native American and African warriors...big oof. Those wouldn't have aged well regardless.
Especially since the native character is based on an actual person, or at least named after him.
If you’re doing 90s PC fighters, PLEASE do Cyber Gladiators from SIERRA!!! 🙏🙏🙏
The animation looks so familiar! But I can't quite place it. Mobygames credits Patrice Bruel, Michel Prudhomme, and Pascal Valdes. (In some curious coincidence, the apparent website of Mr. Valdes features a logo that resembles that of Savage Warriors.)
So you're saying The Master plucked a bunch of different warriors out from various time periods to compete in a fighting tournament?
How strange. I'm not sure why they thought Doctor Who needed a tie-in game that directly competed with Mortal Kombat, but then again, I'm not a 90s game developer.
Ugh. I am starting to think the only good fighting game on PC from the 90s was battle arena toshiden. Now that was a proper PC fighting game. Especially if you went up against the main boss Gaia, Talk about huge! Now this was before Street fighter went into 3d so the only way you could tell Sagat was supposed to be a tall hulking man was by the the animated movie that came out. Heck I think Gaia was the one fighting game character that made players wet themselves!
Pretty sure the portable systems have enough questionable ports to keep this series going.
The intro animation reminds me of the stuff LucasArts was doing at the time with Outlaws and The Curse of Monkey Island. All of the hand drawn stuff in this game look pretty good, gameplay might be shit but kudos to the artists!
I’m pretty sure the only reason we haven’t covered Fatman yet is because it’s almost certainly going to rank as the worst.
Oh man, I haven't thought about One Must Fall in ages. I might have to get that running again.
17:36 I noticed that "Girl Fight" has been erased from history
My younger self was reasonably skeptical at the ad, but fell for the actual box back and a preview or two. Spent actual videogame budget on it. For a couple years after, "3D BiO mOtIoN!" was a running gag from my brother.
That was my boy! Two-and-a-half time Golden Nogger winner, Jay Hunter!
Have you covered FX fighter? That was the first cd based pc game I ever had. Came with my creative labs 4x cd drive.
Heavy Nova
Black Hole Assault
Battle Fantasy
To Sega's credit, at least Blast Processing was a very accurate way to describe the Genesis' 16 bit core processor which stacking up against the NES, feels much more powerful than a slower 8-bit console. Savage Warriors having a 3D Bio Motion selling point on the other hand... Yeah, I'm lost.
This series has left me with two distinct realizations.
Firstly, there are Way more fighting games out there than I ever thought possible.
Second, there's probably a good reason why I've never heard of them until now... on a show called "The Worst Fighting Game"
I so remember this advertisement from my youth it had me super amped it had me super amped. Sadly I did not have the chance to play it until much later at which point it had me a bit frustrated and let down. But in its time it was definitely pretty interesting specimen in itself when not compared to other games on the market