Cyclist versus skateboarder -- a grudge match years in the making. |
The game's sound is also an improvement from the original. AM2 -- like many other Dreamcast developers have chosen to do recently -- have blessed us with music that we might actually chose to listen to of our own accord, rather than the sort that might be found in a shopping mall elevator. A game's music can have a surprisingly large impact on the way it plays, and AM2 know this.
The same could be said for many fighting games, but one area where Fighting Vipers 2 does succeed is replay value. Once you've mastered a character's playing style and moves, there's always another challenge just around the corner, whether it's beating that survival record, or getting two perfects against BM. Of course, that won't be enough for any number of people, who will spend more time going over the game's faults instead.
Sad as it is, Fighting Vipers 2 is a game with several niggling faults. Let's start with something trivial. Personally, I found the announcer's voice rather irritating to say the least. It seems like a small issue, but when you have to listen to this guy at the start of every match, it can become a little tedious. Annoying annoucers seem to be a FV trademark in the making, but that's certainly not a good thing.
Now that that's out of the way, lets concentrate on the game's graphical faults. While AM2 have worked their magic inside the ring, the game's backgrounds fail to impress. No, sorry, but sheets, sprites, and poorly-animated textures aren't going to fool anyone these days. There is very little, if any, transparency at all in the game. Whether or not this is intentional is unclear; however, it does detract from the graphical splendor inside the ring.
Next come the characters. Very little has been improved upon from the last game in this area. The attacks may look pretty, but they're still the same old dated attacks with the same old sounds to follow. Characters such as Bahn and Picky sound just the same as they did in the original Saturn version. Yes, you guessed it, very little at all has changed since the original Fighting Vipers, and, in many ways, the game is simply Virtua Fighter 3 with armor. The graphics may have improved, but the gameplay isn't going to impress hardened Soul Calibur fanatics. Another area where FV2 falls down is the fact that it has comparatively few bonus characters. For me, the main incentive to go back and play Soul Calibur over and over was the fact that you were rewarded. With FV2, however, you're found having to play over and over again before you receive any sort of reward at all. Not a good move, AM2.
Bahn plays it smart and picks on someone far younger, weaker, and smaller than himself. |
There's also an the way the game seems to favor certain characters over others. For example, beating Grace with Bahn is very difficult due to Grace's speed. You'll also find that characters like Jane can pull off powerful combo moves, often knocking off a quarter of your health before you've even had a chance to get an attack in. The character balance seems quite a bit off, giving certain characters a clear advantage over others. Although with practice and skill it is possible to play any character well, the immediate favorites are obviously clear.
Finally, a game's final boss is meant to be hard, but, to be brutally honest, Fighting Vipers 2's champion is nothing more than a supercharged version of Bahn. No artificial intelligence here, I'm afraid -- just as the final boss in Quake III Arena, the game's developers have made BM (the FV boss) stupidly powerful and fast, with the ability to beat the player within a mere four seconds. BM also chooses to use the same five or six moves to pummel the player into oblivion, making the ultimate battle somewhat boring and frustrating.
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