09.02
style
In NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, players have access to more than 30 characters from across the many fighting franchises of the NeoGeo family. Terry Bogard, Kyo, Iori, Haohmaru and Robert Garcia are among the many familiar faces you'll find in Battle Coliseum, along with newcomers like Yuki and Ai. Every battle is a tag team affair, where each side brings in two different characters that can be switched in and out at any time.
Like many other fighters out there, NeoGeo Battle Coliseum is brimming with special moves, super moves, throws, cancels, guards and all other manner of crazy techniques that will probably scare away gamers not intimately familiar with traditional 2D combat. Battle Coliseum does very little to introduce players to these concepts, as there's no tutorial or instruction given to newbies outside of the sparse "How to Play" section in the options menu. At its most basic, each character has two punch attacks and two kick attacks, along with an assortment of special moves and some supers that consume energy off the power gauge at the bottom of the screen.
There are only a few flavors of Battle Coliseum: story mode, survival mode, versus mode (for local play) and the obvious online matches. When you actually get into a battle, the many characters in the roster play as you might expect from their past appearances. Terry has his Burning Knuckle and Power Wave ready to go, and the overall strategy that goes into fighting another human player is here and always the most enticing part of a fighting game.
The unfortunate thing about Battle Coliseum is that the default controller (a 360 pad) is still one of the worst controllers for a fighting game, as the d-pad is a spawn of the Dark Lord himself. This won't be a problem for those hardcore fighting game fans that own 27 different fighting sticks, but this is huge deterrent for more casual players that usually game with a standard pad. When I tried to play with a controller, I found the game to be stiff and uncomfortable. Our resident fighting game enthusiast Mark Ryan Sallee was much happier with a stick.
But the worst thing about NeoGeo Battle Coliseum is what's happening on screen. Not only is this a nearly direct port of a two year-old PlayStation 2 game, but almost all the sprites are a lot older than 2008. What's worse: there are some hideous filters on the character sprites which give them a blurry, washed-out look that just doesn't work with an HD set. If you're going to use 2D sprites in your game, you might as well embrace the old-school nature of it all and not try and hide it underneath layers of disappointment.
When it comes to online support, NeoGeo Battle Coliseum runs well enough, but there doesn't seem to be much of a community at the moment and the game's been out for a few days already. There's certainly more time for players to get connected, but I barely found any matches when testing Battle Coliseum. I imagine that most of them are playing the far superior fighting games on the market today...
Closing Comments
Although NeoGeo Battle Coliseum has plenty of characters, tag team attacks and a fair amount of potential for strategy against another player, its poor visuals, lack of polish and general stiffness make it a much less appetizing entry in the fighting game genre. For only five dollars more, players can download the legendary Marvel vs. Capcom 2 instead. I'd recommend that over Battle Coliseum any day.
by: Ryan Clements
Posted in: Fighting
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