Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors Review (Switch eShop / Neo Geo)

When the one-on-one fighting game gold rush took place in the '90s it seemed that practically every developer or publisher had their own take on the genre, and as you might expect, not all of these efforts turned out to be classics. Sunsoft fared better than most - Waku Waku 7 remains one of the most unique fighters of its era, after all - but its first attempt was a little less memorable. Galaxy Fight isn't a bad game by any means, but even at the time of release it wasn't considered to be anything special.

As the title suggests, this is a brawler with a sci-fi focus. The action takes place on a series of different planets and the cast contains a robot, a space ninja and a cat-like woman with a chest so bouncy she looks like she's wandered in from a King of Fighters or Dead or Alive outing. The combat setup is surprisingly basic, even for a game released in 1995; you have three attack powers but these can be both kicks and punches, depending on the context, which instantly removes the layer of strategy introduced by Street Fighter II's separate kick and punch arrangement. 

There are no super moves to charge up, and outside of the ability to dash forwards and backwards, there's little here to separate this from the earliest examples of one-on-one fighters - and by 1995, there was simply no excuse for lagging behind. The only unique thing about Galaxy Fight is the fact that the stages loop infinitely, so you can't pin your opponent into a corner.

Given that so many fighting games of the period showcase cliched thugs and martial artists, Sunsoft should get some credit for trying to do something a little different with the roster of Galaxy Fight. There are a few neat ideas to be found here; the robot Musafar looks a bit like the "Mk 2 RoboCop" from the second RoboCop movie, while the ninja Kazuma is effortlessly cool. However, the rest of the cast are as dull as dishwater; "lead" fighter Rolf looks like a goofy guy in a spacesuit, cat-woman Roomi is irritating and the bespectacled G-Done looks like he's supposed to be in an entirely different game - he's just a typical earth thug with no special powers. In terms of visuals it's not an ugly game, but it's notable that the female fighters have more frames of animation than their male counterparts, a clear case of Sunsoft knowing exactly what the target audience of teenage boys were after back in 1995.

To make matters worse, none of these fighters feel all that exciting to use, with very basic movesets and - thanks to the aforementioned lack of super moves and the restrictive nature of the three-button attack setup - very little scope for creative play. The computer opponents are quite aggressive and cunning, even on the default setting, which can make your first few goes feel a bit overwhelming. However, we found that sticking to basic combos is usually enough to defeat them. The narrow nature of the game's fighting mechanics doesn't exactly encourage tactical play, and within a few hours you'll be thoroughly bored and wondering why you didn't spend your cash on superior Neo Geo brawlers, like King of Fighters '98 or Samurai Shodown IV.