Fighting Spirit

Title           Fighting Spirit
Game Type       Beat-em-up
Publisher       NEO/Light Shock Software
Players         1 or 2
Compatibility   OCS or AGA (AGA reviewed)
HD Installable  Yes
Submission      Dante Mendes De Patta (dante@fastlane.com.br)

Review
To start, let's say that this brilliant game is a bit unknown for the
Amiga community, because I really don't know too many people playing this
game, or a web page devoted to it (well, it deserves it!)

To be honest, Fighting Spirit is quite simply the best Amiga fighting game
ever. Yes, better than anything else, only Shadow Fighter AGA comes close
to it.

Well, why is it so good?  The first thing you can notice is the (AGA)
graphics, they have exactly the same quality and style as Arcade games
from SNK (Neo Geo) such as Fatal Fury 2, King of Fighters, World
Heroes...big and colorful characters, smooth scrolling, perhaps the
characters are the biggest ever seen in an Amiga game. The backgrounds
graphics are beautiful, with excellent detail and some animations. The
clickBOOM's game Capital Punishment is technically as good as Fighting
Spirit, but the latter one really has style and design. Capital Punishment
is a really outstanding beat-em-up, with spooky sounds and atmospheric
visual effects, but the playability is another issue, and in this
particular issue, Fighting Spirit clearly has the edge.

First, Fighting Spirit plays _exactly_ like a console or arcade
beat-em-up, it makes use of the two buttons on a joypad or more buttons if
you use a CD32 joypad, no more stupid
"one-button-does-all-moves-in-a-weird-way" kind of stuff like in every
other Amiga beat-em-up. And Fighting Spirit is responsive, you can 'feel'
the power of your punches (specially when playing with Rhajang, the
tiger). The special moves (3 or 4 per character) are reasonably easy to
achieve, and you can execute some combos after a bit of practice. Also,
there is the usual options such as "Story Mode", "Tournament" and "Versus
Battle". There are even 2 special characters in the game, they can be
reached by a cheat. All these points are features of a true classic.

The sound effects are good, with all the voices and screams you'd expect
from a fighting game, and the background music changes according to the
place you're fighting in (countries around the world). Also remarkable is
the intro music, a rock mod with neat vocals and lyric!  :)

After this, here's my league of the Amiga 2D fighting games:

 1- (best) Fighting Spirit (AGA)
 2- Shadow Fighter (AGA)
 3- Capital Punishment AGA
 4- Mortal Kombat II
 5- Elfmania
 6- Mortal Kombat
 7- Body Blows series
 8- Amiga Street Fighter II attempts...

And the Fighting Spirit ratings:
Graphics: 94%
Nice SNK Neo Geo arcade style, nice backgrounds, big characters...need I say
more?

Sound: 92%
All sounds you'd expect for a fighting game, nice in-game tunes and rocking
intro music.

Playability: 96%
At least an Amiga fighting game that plays in the same way as an arcade or
console game, with fast response, more than one button to punch, good flying
kicks and it is not too hard and frustrating, it has just the right gameplay
balance.

Overall: 94%
The best Amiga fighting game ever, it's a shame that it's a bit unknown and
has not received the feedback it deserves.

Alphabetical list.