The Super Famicom port of Street Fighter II was released in June 1992. Telenet’s Doomsday Warrior then hit the market later that year in November. It’s unknown how long it was in development, but based on the final product, one could easily surmise that it was slapped together as quickly as possible to capitalize on the red-hot fighting game crazy spurred by Capcom’s worldwide hit. Now, the game joins the Nintendo Switch Online roster - but it is worth a look all these years after release?
There are seven playable characters in Doomsday Warrior, all part of a group of warriors called the Doom Squad, fighting under the influence of the evil wizard Main. One betrays the group – that’s the character you choose – and must fight their former comrades to protect the Earth. Layban and Sledge are the two diametrically-opposed karate heroes, and Daisy is a half-woman, half-plant in the vein of supervillainess Poison Ivy. Grimrock is an anthropomorphic lizard guy, Amon is a post-apocalyptic punk straight out of Fist of the North Star, and Nuform is a shapeshifter made of metallic liquid. And rounding out the cast is P. Lump, an obese Chinese man, and certainly ranks up as one of the most face-palmingly stupid character names in the entire canon of fighting games. There are three other boss characters – the four-armed Ashura, the shadowy Shadow (who just mimics your character a la Mortal Kombat’s Shang Tsung), and Main for the final encounter – though they are unplayable.
The controls are greatly simplified from other fighting games of the era. There are punch and kick commands, while jumping and blocking are awkwardly mapped to their own buttons. The fighting is kludgy, as moves don’t flow into one another, and the AI is often dull and inept. Each character has the usual command motion special movies, though there’s also a special throw manoeuvre, executed automatically when your character is close enough to their opponent. These look and feel cool, since they’re accompanied by cheesy speed lines and usually involves slamming the other character into a side of the screen. But they’re also so powerful, and so much more fun than slowly whittling away your opponent’s health with weak jabs, that they quickly become the core of the fighting action… and just as quickly, become incredibly tedious. Each character’s life meter is divided into four quadrants. Health regenerates (up to a point) if you stay on the defensive, which does alter the strategy a bit. Plus, any remaining stamina can then be channelled into upgrading one of five statistics, making you stronger for the next match.
Doomsday Warrior is largely junk, with a few redeeming elements. The character roster is pretty dumb, but it is interesting to play as characters that would probably be considered villains in other games. There aren’t many backgrounds, but some of them are pretty cool, like stages consisting of floating coloured tiles, or a stage on a rooftop that seems tilted on its side, seeming to defy gravity (there was a similar one in Vampire Savior, the third Darkstalkers game, though it would be generous to say they ripped off this game here). Overall, it’s about what you’d expect from Telenet; some neat ideas, tossed into a game that passes the bare minimum level of playability, all to exploit a hungry market.
Comments 20
Whoa, it got a better score today than back in the day! hee hee
My best friend had this game, we had a lot of fun with it as 10 year olds. I played it a few months back. I like the mad max setting of the game. Yeah the overall fighting is lack luster but can't expect too much.
Even though the review pans it, I'm glad you guys are posting reviews of these obscure games that are released just today. Thanks!
This looks like one of those games I would have been absolutely obsessed with as a kid, but only because the friends house I was visiting just had 4 games for their SNES, and this was the only multiplayer one they had.
(See also: How I spent an entire summer playing nothing but Karate Champ on the NES)
Such a terrible game but hey if you want a friend to suffer with you online play is there too.
Just for clarity, despite my cheek, I still love the fact the games are available
I agree with this review. I tried to play and just gave up after 5 minutes. why nintendo? i would like to say the cave man game is okay and on a funny note. when you die the cave man screams like Tom the cat from Tom and Jerry. you have to play it just to hear that scream
Game: has a 4 arm sub-boss and a Shang Tsung-esque boss
Nintendo life: ripoff of street fighter
Hmmmm....
@michellelynn0976 It's what is available for them to license. Not even Nintendo themselves seem keen on putting their titles on the service.
Well I don't think P. Lump is much worse than M. Bison but whatever.
Nintendo sometimes tries to bring the Nintendoom myth back. It's hilarious
Well if i could get some hours out of Tuff e Nuff i can get some out of this too
@Daniel36 M.Bison was named such because it was originally the name of Street Fighter's boxer character (now Balrog) and it was meant to be a parody of Mike Tyson. I think some legal issues popped up that spurred the change.
P. Lump...can't imagine what anyone was thinking there.
The description for this game make it sounds really good.
But its clearly trash.
As many fighting games that were on 16-bit systems I find the majority of them were really poor at the time or have aged poorly. I loved certain ones at the time but outside of a small handful they really needed better hardware.
@Dualmask oh I am well aware of the Bison situation. P. Lump is probably... plump?
@Daniel36 oh, duh. Of course.
But that doesn't make it less terrible. Haha.
If only it were more of a SFII clone.
This is one of the worst fighting games I've ever played. It makes Shaq Fu look like a nuanced, underrated masterpiece.
I boot this up on my Switch every so often to laugh at how bad it is.
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