Brutal- Paws of Fury

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I've been posting some abstract Snes games recently. I've still got more I want to get through, but I thought I'd break up my streak with something more... Furry.

When I found out this game existed, it kinda took me by surprise. "Brutal- Paws of Fury" is a Fighting game in which you play as one of a range of anthropomorphic characters, including Prince Leon (A hippie Lion), Ivan (A russian bear), and Foxy Roxy (Best character). Using skills learnt throughout the game, you fight your way across an island, in one-on-one style.

Each fighter is colourful, well designed, and full of character. It's unfortunate that the only female on the game is your typical fighter gal, but otherwise, each character is quite unique, and well-drawn out. On the character select screen, you can also read a little bio of the character, and get a more in-depth idea of who they are, which is nice, even if the descriptions happen to be full of clichés.
Each stage looks attractive, and makes for a great scene for fighting. The game also features some pretty accurate shadow effects, which act as very appealing eye-candy. While this may not seem like a big deal, do remember that this was in an era when black circles drawn beneath your character would usually be considered sufficient. Anyway, the point is this- The game looks fantastic. Really, it does, they put their all into making it look great.
The music is also pretty good, setting the mood for fights quite well. However, it's a little generic, y'know. Otherwise, there's little to say about the sound, the game lacks voice files in this version of the game. I hear the Megadrive version had some, though they were annoying- And Roxy, apparently, sounded like a man. Thank goodness they didn't include that in the Snes version!

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So far, pretty positive. Fantastic visuals, well designed characters and reasonably good music. But when it comes to a fighter, what's really important is how it plays. Unfortunately, this's where it starts to lose a few marks. Your main moves are your Punches and Kicks. Both these moves have three versions, each assigned to different buttons- A slow version which does more damage and often knocks your opponent over, a normal version which does medium damage, and a fast version which will do little damage, but can be stringed with other moves. You also have the ability to block, by holding the d-pad in the direction behind you and down, at the same time. As you go through the game, you'll learn how to use new attacks. However, your enemies know how to use their special attacks from the start of the game, and as a result of having little else to use, will occasionally wind up spamming you mercilessly with them. It's even more irritating when that special move breaks your defence. Rhei Rat is the second opponent you will face in this game, and will often end up spamming his charge attack unless you block him whilst ducked. If you try to block him while stood, he'll break through your defence. And once he does break through, he'll often spam his attack over and over and over.

Once you defeat Rhei Rat, you should learn a new ability. You'll learn how to Taunt. It's actually a very useful part of the game, which raises a little HP on your health bar. It's a handy little feature- You can kick people on their backs and slap your arse at them whilst they're down, to regain some lost health. Provided you're Roxy, that is.

And that's pretty much how the game works. Beat some critters up, and learn new moves. You continue through like this until you reach the end of the game. At that point, it'll loop straight back to the first fight, giving you enemies at higher difficulties. If you choose to continue playing after your first run, the game will also allow you to learn new special moves, although these moves often get quite difficult to learn after your first playthrough, using ridiculous button combinations- A contrast to the earlier moves, which were really very simple. You're unlikely to bother using the later moves anyway. The special moves you learn on your second playthrough also usually just reuse previous animations from other moves, which I felt was a little cheap.

After every fight, you'll be provided with a password. Now, personally, I've never been a fan of passwords. I understand why games did it back in the day, but it's always a mild inconvenience. Usually, passwords are quite small, however, so on most games, it's quick to note down. In fact, usually on Snes games, you can simply remember the password.
Not here. Look at this.

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Does it not just strike terror into your heart? As if the 16-digit password wasn't horrifying enough, they had to throw random shapes and symbols into the mix, just to make it that little more confusing. Although it's not the worst password I've ever seen, this monstrosity hits near the top for me. This shouldn't matter a whole lot, as you can probbly complete the game within a half hour, if that. Nonetheless, I really don't undertand why such a long password was so neccessary.

I think my greatest pet-peeve with this game, however, has got to be the lack of a Combo system. That's right. This is a Mid-90's Fighting game which lacks Combo systems. How weird is that?

Anyway, all in all, it's an alright game. The graphics are fantastic, the characters are well designed, but the actual gameplay (the most important part of any fighter) drags this fighter down a few marks. There's a fair few flaws, including spamming opponents, silly button combinations for later moves, and a lack of a Combo system. And on top of this, provided you manage to block the AI's spam, the game is a little too easy. Nonetheless, it is playable, and still quite enjoyable. It also has a pretty good multiplayer mode, as any fighter should, which puts you up against a second player.

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This game could have been wonderful, had they nailed the fighting on the head, but unfortunately, some flaws pulled it down. Still, I had a laugh playing this, and the multiplayer worked pretty well. T'was worth the play.