Fight’N Rage

Genre: Arcade Brawler

Players: 1-3 Co-Op (Local) / 2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Fight’N Rage is an Arcade Brawler that plays like a love letter to Brawler and Fighting Games through the ages, filled with in-jokes and references. It features a “story” about a war between humans and human-animal mutants (no doubt so they could work in plenty of Ninja Turtle references), with players fighting hordes of mutant enemies with one of three heroes (a muscular bull-man, a ninja who seems inspired by the Final Fight character Guy, and a large-breasted girl who seems inspired by every large-breasted girl to bounce in the genre).

The visuals here feature some good pixel art and very nice animation set against some very 90s electric guitar-heavy rock, and those who aren’t familiar with the genre will the presentation overall pretty appealing, though the real treat is spotting all of the references strewn throughout the game. In addition to the references I already mentioned above, I spotted callbacks to Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Street Fighter II. Suffice it to say, if you’re a fan of this genre, this game was made with you in mind.

The game makes use of a filter to make the game appear as if it were an old-school arcade cabinet, which is cute but thankfully you can turn this off when the novelty wears thin. However, there is one other issue I noticed in the visuals that hindered the action. The characters in this game can take up a good part of the screen, and there can be a lot of them on-screen at a given time, with additional effects happening all around as the battle ensues. This can make the action difficult to follow at times, and there were more than a few times when I lost track of where my character was in all the chaos.

As for the gameplay, Fight’N Rage uses a deep and varied fighting system that feels pretty good and gives players a lot of utility while still being a challenge. Like many classic games in the genre, you have a jump button, an attack button, and a special button. However, players can do various combinations to form different attacks, and one of the joys in the game is stringing together combos in satisfying ways.

The special attacks are also cleverly implemented here – players have a special meter that takes a few seconds to fill up after using a special attack, but players can choose to ignore this at any time and use a special attack at the cost of some health. Some thought was clearly put into this too – enemies can combo the player just like you can combo them, and special attacks work as combo breakers, meaning that sometimes players may opt to sacrifice a bit of health to use a special attack to break a combo that would have drained more health if they allowed it to continue.

Like most games in this genre, Fight’N Rage is fairly short, clocking in at a few hours. However, this is made up for with a generous amount of unlockable content, including multiple additional play modes, alternate costumes, and even the ability to play as some of the game’s enemies (though to be clear, this is really an extra – these characters don’t have the same amount of detail and variety put into their gameplay as the main trio). There’s also a battle mode where two players can duke it out with each other (though this seems to end up being a cycle of each character using their special attacks one after another to break the others’ combos) as well as a full-fledged training mode to guide you through the different character abilities and combos.

While I do have a few complaints to make about Fight’N Rage, on the whole this is a superb Arcade Brawler that is an absolute must for fans of the genre, and even more casual players should enjoy it too… well, as long as they’re not put off by the shameless fan-service, the silly 90s references, and the absurd violence in some parts of the game.

tl;dr – Fight’N Rage is an Arcade Brawler that is a love letter to the genre, working in numerous references to many of the genre’s classic games, along with an excellent combat system, good graphics, and plenty of extra unlockable content. While there are a few rough edges, this is overall a must-have for fans of the genre.

Grade: B+

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