Title : Brutal: Paws of Fury
Publisher : GameTek
Developer : GameTek
Genre : Fighting
Players : 1/2 Players
Release Date : 1994
Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $5-$10
There's nothing quite like a cast of fully anthropomorphic martial artists. I don't know, to me Anthropomorphic beings tend to freak me out. The only ones I can somewhat tolerate are the Star Fox team, but even then they disturb the hell out of me. Walking, talking animals...*shudder* - they are demon seed.
Despite my fear of anthromorphs, I am typically highly entertained by games involving them. Especially this little fighting game called Brutal: Paws of Fury. OH MY. I love that play on words. Not fists of fury, but PAWS of fury. PAWS..but wait..what if a character has hooves? Are there any hooved characters? Crap, I don't remember.
I guess it was an attempt to just make a new gimmick out of fighting games. You know? Use animals. But then again, we also have the Ninja Turtle fighting games, and who can forget Primal Rage. OH how I loved that game (despite how bad the port was to consoles). Still, these characters look like a bunch of Disney characters turned psychotic, so that's gotta be some bonus points right there.
Sadly, innovation can only go so far. You really have to make a good game too for it to actually be enjoyable. Unfortunately for GameTek, they missed the mark.
You start the game after bypassing the Lion King introduction by naming your player and setting up a save basically. I figured out that the point of this is that your character (depending on who you choose) learns new moves which can be saved via password system.
JOY! I can't even use the moves whenever I want. I have to EARN them. BS....total bs..
The best part of this game is probably choosing the characters and reading their hilariously awful stories. The story will scroll down from top to bottom, trying to make it seem as if you should actually care about why Kung Fu Bunny or Chester Cheetah is fighting. That's right, Chester Cheetah is in this game. Okay, it's not really Chester Cheetah but it certainly looks like him.
You've got a whopping 12 characters to choose from, so let me give you the list (THANKS WIKI!)
- Kung Fu Bunny - A rabbit monk.
- Prince Leon of Kenya - A lion rock star.
- Rhei Rat - A rat who is an accomplished Thai boxer.
- Tai Cheetah - A cheetah who is mentoring Kendo Coyote.
- Kendo Coyote - A coyote who is motivated by greed.
- Foxy Roxy - A lycra-wearing vixen, who is a politician and social activist.
- Ivan the Bear - A bear who claims to be the strongest animal in the world.
- Pantha - A panther who is a member of a sinister cult.
- Karate Croc - A crocodile bar brawler.
- Dali Llama - A llama who is currently the holder of the Belt of Heaven championship.
Apparently, you can only choose the last two by punching in some button code at the beginning of the game, but I don't really care.
You would think, that when a match starts you have to wait until the signal to "FIGHT" appears on the screen before you can do anything. NOPE. Not in this game. Just start fighting as soon as the match screen appears or you'll be getting walloped by the AI. There are no rules in this BS game, and practically no controls either.
The hit detection is absurd in this fighter, and the only thing you can rely on is spamming an attack button hoping you don't get hit. Like I said, you have no special moves to use until you unlock your "belts" (which is so...so..so..dumb). This is somewhat unfair however, because your opponent is typically capable of using combos that you are not.
Let me put it this way - this game is HIGHLY unforgiving.
Despite the horrendous controls, bad gameplay mechanics, and piss poor fighting style, the game does have some good points. Actually, only one. And it's not even that good. It's mediocre. The character designs are actually quite good, but to me they really don't fit the style of a fighting game. It's like those homebrew fighting games you see where they take any character from a cartoon show and turn it into a fighting game. It doesn't work all the time, and these characters are just not "violent" looking enough.
At least the backgrounds are pretty? That's something, right? I can look at pretty pictures? I'd rather just pause the game and leave it like that.
The sound quality is absolutely atrocious. The music reminds me of that annoying Jurassic Park music from the SNES game. Hard to explain it, I'll just let you google it so you can figure out what I'm talking about. The fighting sounds also sound like they were ripped from some stock audio.
If you're looking for a fighter, look elsewhere. If you're looking for goofy looking anthromorphs in martial art uniforms, then I guess you found it.
Final Score (out of 5) :
Until Next time - Keep on Gaming!
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