Arcade Archives Dinorex

Genre: Fighting Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: A version of this game is available in Taito Milestones 2, along with Kiki Kaikai, The NewZealand Story, Darius II, Metal Black, Gun Frontier, Ben Bero Beh, Solitary Fighter, The Legend of Kage, and Liquid Kids.)

Dinorex is a Fighting Game released in Arcades in 1992, with this modern release coming to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2023. This game takes place in an alternate-timeline version of prehistoric South America where humans not only coexist with dinosaurs, but pit them against each other in fighting competitions.

If the idea of a Fighting Game starring dinosaurs sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the 1994 game Primal Rage, which became far more popular than this game ever was. The similarities are more than just that concept, though, as both games also make use of digitized pre-rendered visuals. Unfortunately for Dinorex, the visuals in this game are clunky, limited in color, washed out-looking, and extremely poorly-animated.

However, this game’s problems go well beyond that. The hit detection is atrocious, the need to use multiple directional inputs to jump is ridiculous, the two-button combat is highly limiting, there’s no ability to block, and the game even occasionally removes control from the player to have the dinos move around on their own.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

At $8, the Arcade Archives release of Dinorex would be decent given how obscure it is, but if I wasn’t quite clear earlier… this game is absolutely terrible. It barely even functions. Do not waste money on this when you could get one of countless better Fighting games instead.

tl;dr – Dinorex is a Fighting Game where players take the role of dinosaurs fighting each other. It’s a fun concept, but it is very poorly executed here, with ugly visuals, terrible hit detection, absurdly bad controls, and limited gameplay. This is a terrible Fighting Game, and you should not waste money on it.

Grade: F

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