Gaming off the Beaten Path

  After almost two years, it's time to re-visit the World Heroes series. I had previously covered World Heroes 2 Jet, a tournament fighter from the 90's, and I wasn't particularly kind to it. While it was a well made game, it was overly simplistic and did very little to differentiate itself from it's countless contemporaries. Put simply, it was yet another average Street Fighter clone. However, it was far from the best the series had to offer. That would be World Heroes Perfect, which hit arcades in 1995 before winding up on the Neo Geo that same year. I've been doing this for three years and the only feedback I've received about which games I review was that I should have just skipped Jet and gone right to this game, as it is far superior. But was that really the case? I know SNK has a small but very dedicated fanbase, so could it just be bias? Well, World Heroes 2 Jet is a Street Fighter clone that's decidedly mediocre. World Heroes Perfect...is still a

It's time to talk about what may be the clone-iest of the Street Fighter Clones.  Released by Data East in 1993 and ported to the SNES the next year, Fighter's History is the first in a series of games from the early 90's. I can't say I've ever played the others, the second game was only ever released on the Neo Geo CD and the third game never left Japan. Honestly, it would probably be easier and cheaper to fly to Japan to pick up a copy of the third game than it would to find a working Neo Geo CD and a copy of the second. But the first game was relatively easy to acquire and became infamous for taking fighting games to a place they'd never been before...the courtroom. You see, I'm not the only one that who considers Fighter's History to be the most egregious Street Fighter ripoff. Capcom thought so too. They sued Data East for copyright infringement, claiming they had ripped everything from their characters to their combat straight from their more popul

I've decided to do something a little bit different this week. Rather than focus on one single game, I'm going to rope a few relatively similar licensed Street Fighter clones into one post. This was a very popular route to take back then and it makes sense. Fighting games were popular and so were these franchises, so, easy money right? These games are all certainly SFII clones, but do they have any similarities beyond that? Let's take a look. Double Dragon 5: The Shadow Falls So, let's start out with another member of the "Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game" club.  DD5 is based on the Double Dragon animated series, which was based on the series of beat'em up games for the NES. If you're still following, that makes it a video game based on a TV show based on a video game. Weird. They could have very easily just slapped characters from the show into another beat'em up and called it a day, but at least they tried something different...right? Yeah, Tr

What? Killer Instinct? A Street Fighter Clone? No Way! Yeah I was confused too, but we aren't talking about Rare's much-loved fighter Killer Instinct. This is Power Instinct, a fighting game that I had never heard of up until about a week ago. Released in 1993, it was developed by Atlus, of all companies. It may not be one of their signature RPGs, but it certainly wears their influence on its sleeve. It's difficult to tell how serious its trying to be, it doesn't shy away from its Japanese roots, it's far more popular in its native country, etc. But do all of those quirks that make Atlus RPGs so endearing do the same for a 2D fighter? And what does any of this have to do with being a Street Fighter Clone? First, I think we need to back up and define just what constitutes a Street Fighter clone, or at least what I am defining as a Street Fighter Clone. It's a phrase that's thrown around quite a bit, but not one I've ever seen defined. After spending the l