World Heroes

Review

by Kyle Knight

After Capcom released Street Fighter II, other developers scrambled to get in on the new fighting game market. Some developers chose to boldly innovate, while others were content with basically cloning Street Fighter II. World Heroes tries very hard to the former, that much is evident. But the end result shows strong Street Fighter II influences.

Some of the character designs are clearly derivative of Capcom characters. Hanzo and Fuuma are essentially Ryu and Ken, while Brocken plays like an odd cross between Dhalsim and M. Bison. Muscle Power, the wrestler with the incredibly original name, plays a lot like Zangief. And last but certainly not least, the French fencer Janne plays uncannily like Guile.

Had Alpha Denshi chosen to also copy Street Fighter II's controls and fighting system, the game might be enjoyable, though blandly derivative. But instead World Heroes suffers from poorly thought out controls and an unpolished fighting system. The game assigns punch to A and kick to B, with throw being assigned to the C button. By holding the appropriate button down, you can perform a heavy punch or kick instead of a light.

The system is a poor way to control fighters, as in the heat of battle you don't really have time to be holding buttons down waiting for attacks to pop out. Another problem is that since the machine needs to determine whether you tapped or held the button, there's a slight delay in response to your button presses. The sloppy fighting system doesn't help, either. Some characters are significantly more powerful than others, and the CPU beats you with cheapness instead of skill.

Unlike the character designs, World Heroes' deathmatch mode is quite innovative. The deathmatch mode plays like the regular mode, except the arena is filled with dangerous traps and obstacles. You may have to watch out for mines placed on the ground, deal with spiked walls or side ropes that are on fire, or contend with slippery floors.

The traps are more than just superficial additions to the match, because there's the added element of strategy involved in trying to manipulate your opponent into them while staying away from them yourself. Unfortunately they're not as big a part of the game as they could have been, as the amount of damage they do is minimal.

World Heroes' graphics and sound are both slightly inferior to those of Street Fighter II. The characters aren't drawn as well, and their animations are a little rougher. The stage backgrounds at first look impressive, with crowds of spectators cheering and pumping their fists. But upon closer inspection you'll notice that the animation is just composed of two different background pictures being shown over and over. Each spectator has exactly two poses, and they all change poses at the same time. The songs are uninspired, and the sound effects are muffled and of poor quality.

World Heroes, with the deathmatch mode, could have been a contender. The game is both derivative of and inferior to Street Fighter II. Try it for the deathmatch mode, but don't expect it to keep you coming back for long.