Way of the Warrior: a review by Oliver Wade

I have been sitting back for the last couple of days and reading all of the opinions regarding WOTW, and have found it all to be very interesting. It's refreshing to see a game that has so many people clearly divided and taking the opportunity to voice their opinions. I have had my copy for about a week now and have spent quite a few hours playing it, and I thought I would give my impressions:

• Even though I enjoy playing fighting games, I have never liked one well enough to invest a large chunk of my time trying to perfect all of the moves. So far, this one is no different. I have had fun playing it, but there are so many things you can do (secret moves, fatalities, magic, etc...) that it seems a bit overwhelming. I know this is probably good for people who like alot of depth in their games, but it really seems to have escalated the learning curve so much that the casual player might feel that there is no way they are ever going to figure this stuff out.
• Although I think the overall graphic look of the game was done quite well, I can't help but wish that the animation of the characters was a bit stronger. I realize that when you are making a game for a CD platform, you can be severely limited by the number of frames you can give any one character, but I think the choice of adding more moves (see item 1) at the expense of smoothing out some of the animation was incorrect. Even though I think more frames of animation would have helped, I think the biggest problem with the animation is the choice of which keyframes to use. Alot of the poses lacked a real strength to them and made some already choppy animation seem even weaker. I know it is easier to get strong poses out of a "hand animated" character (check out Darkstalkers for a good example of this), but I believe that some of the digitized footage could have been tweaked to improve it.
• I also don't particularly like the selection of characters you have to choose from. I do like the fact that they tried to get a few varied types of characters into the game, but I think this could have been done more successfully. Even though "Shakey Jake" and "Crimson Glory" are from different countries, their attitudes are basically the same. "Dragon", "Nikki Chan", "Major Gaines" and "Konotori" have all been done before. I do think that "Fox" is a good, original character, and even though he's not exactly original, I actually play "Ninja" most of the time. I like the fact that he doesn't have quite as much "Bad Attitude" as some of the other characters (although I guess in a fighting game you're supposed to be kind of a jerk). I think that reason is why I also like "Nobunaga". He brings a fresh perspective to a fighting character. I just wish there were more original types of characters, say for example, a Canadien Mountie or maybe a Secret Service Agent or a James Bond Type. Well, maybe that's just me.
• I do like most of the moves I have seen (even though I can't get my character to do some of them). I think the balance between the characters is pretty good. I like the fact that there are area specific fatalties. I haven't diagonally fixed my controller yet, so maybe that's why I'm having a hard time with some of the moves, but I think some of them a quite difficult to execute. Particularly, the one where you have to hit A+C since this is impossible without shifting the controller around in you hands (especially during a fatality where you're trying to do it quickly). But other than that I think the control is pretty responsive.
• Finally, my overall impression is that of a very good game that could have been made better with a few minor adjustments. I have had FUN playing it (the true test of a good game) even though I'm missing out on half the fun by not having anyone to play against but the CPU. So far I have gotten through on Heavy and Medium advantage (me) and have gotten through about the first 4 guys on Light Advantage. I am looking forward to seeing High Abbott and Kull when (or should I say if) I finally get to them.

michel.buffa@cmu.edu