Fight’N Rage Review

Talk about action! Fight’N Rage is bursting with fist-flying content. It has 56 different endings, 1-3 player Arcade Mode, time challenges, score challenges, a survival mode, 15 different looks for each of your three main characters, playable enemy characters for Vs. Mode, secret moves for each main character, 5 difficulty settings, and more!

You have multiple techniques available to you such as combos, jumps, an anti-air attack, (secret) special attacks, SP attacks, throws, and parries which also refill your SP gauge when successful. You’ll need to use each of these more as you progress in difficulty. Parries become a practically indispensable part of your arsenal when attempting the hardest mode.

You start out with the option of playing through Easy or Normal Arcade Mode with any of the 3 main characters. Gal, Ricardo, and F. Norris each have their pros and cons; providing a balanced selection for different playthrough styles. Gal is the fastest with the longest combos, while Ricardo is slowest, but also the strongest with the largest hit range; and F. Norris is right there in the middle. If you play to their strengths, it’s possible to advance with either character, which is grand because you’ll have to use each if you want all of the endings and unlockables.

Each character will also be able to use weapons they find as you progress through the stages, adding even more ways to play. Weapons you can find include knives, pipes, swords, shuriken, and boomerangs.  There’s also a power orb that increases attack speed and allows you to use SP attacks continuously without draining health, though it will shorten the power-up time. The variety in healing items is a bit slim, as you have only apples or whole turkeys to provide you sustenance.

Everything in gameplay is well-balanced with perhaps the exception of the Doberman enemies, which are exceptionally tricky to deal with unless you’re very good at parrying. If you’re clever about it, however, the game does provide you with a way to face one at a time. It helps to approach them diagonally, or to simply jump straight up when they’re about to do their wind-up punch.

There’s a fair bit of fan-service in this game as well, unfortunately it’s poorly done. The most irritating part is the women’s awful “anime girl run”. Even when they’re fleeing for their life it doesn’t compliment the tone of the game. They all seem a bit pathetic and child-like (though Gal isn’t bad and plays incredibly). It would have been better if they didn’t pile sub-par fan-service on top of the gameplay. Like they say, anything worth doing is worth doing right.

Single player mode is fun and easy enough on basic difficulty, however it becomes a bit more challenging past that. Multiplayer is really where it’s at though and playing with 2-3 players is the best! It’s incredibly satisfying to bash through hordes of enemies with friends and even with 3 players it doesn’t feel crowded. No worries if your friends don’t like games though, because the CPU Assist is mostly competent (though rarely takes items). The CPU was able to be useful enough even in the hardest mode.

Fight’N Rage is definitely something you could sink a lot of hours into and is a welcome addition to the beat’em up genre. It’s brightly coloured and retro-styled design is a wonderful throwback to old-school arcade games and was a joy to experience. I can certainly recommend this game.