1. Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (1996)
Believe it or not, this is a licensed game. More in particular to the famous tabletop game, Dungeons & Dragons. You know a game you & your friends are suppose to use your imagination on the possibilities. A couple episodes of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory did several Dungeons & Dragons episodes.
Most games based on it are mostly RPG or adventure games. Someone decided let's turn that into a fighting game. It may sound great on paper since a couple fighting games done it. There are great similar games that do predate this such as Soul Edge aka Soul Blade. Sadly, the end result is one of those things better left forgotten.
I have to give the game some credit. I actually liked the cover they chosen for the game. Some of the audio department mostly in the music works just enough. There is no home runs though. Depending which character determines which side you'll mostly be facing. To be honest, I do like this concept. Not a lot of fighting games at the time done that.
Instead of a traditional health bar, you & your opponent has a torch representing your health. In a way, I like it because so many loves to see how much fight you got from within you. But the cheapness of the AI is more likely to keep you not paying attention to it. Also how some of these characters fights isn't acceptable in this genre.
You got a few characters that floats who often keep throwing projectiles. The controls is difficult to describe since there isn't much depth to them at all. In a game based on a tabletop game, you kinda expected there would be. The rest of the audio is horribly done. One particular character never shuts up who strangely looks like a smaller Green Goblin from Marvel comics.
I should mention, there's four boss characters. Most fighting games has one sub boss & one final boss for the most part. I don't know many that goes beyond that amount around the release of this game. If Tattoo Assassins got released, I would've counted that. Speaking of them, I have to give credit for making each boss character vastly different from each other.
There is codes to play as the bosses. But some of them are difficult to pull off for the worst reason. I can accept you have to enter em in the character selection screen. A lot of fighting games at the time done that. But how you have to input these particular codes makes it very frustrating. You would lucky to play as the final boss or the boss before him I'm not kidding.
The evil group comes off like a generic Halloween party. A little foreshadowing what's coming next. Some characters are just plain weird. You can play as a dwarf whose missing an arm or this creature that's suppose to be almost like a gargoyle I think. Of course, most of the bosses in their own right are cheap.
Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft is loosely based on a particular lore from Dungeons & Dragons. I actually grew up with the only Sega Genesis Dungeons & Dragons game. I couldn't get far in that but to me that was much closer to the actual concept than this. Not to mention, you get a few continues before game over.
2. Killing Zone (1996)
Although this gets labeled as a sequel to Battle Monsters on Sega Saturn. This is more or less an unrelated but similar concept fighting game. I think what happened is following Battle Monsters, they knew they weren't going to get far ripping off Mortal Kombat series. So they chose to rip off another fighting game franchise instead.
Soul Edge, now before someone whose a big fan of that franchise confirms anything. The original arcade game does predate both Iron & Blood and Killing Zone by a few years. Not many similar concept weapon based fighting games came before it. Just like Soul Edge & a few 3D fighting games there are ring outs.
For those new to this term, it means you can get knock off the platform during a match. No not like Super Smash Brothers & games ripping that off way either. The actual roster is very generic. You got what mostly could be considered Universal monsters with some touches of Greek mythology. Unlike Iron & Blood, there is no boss.
Killing Zone doesn't use digital actors like Battle Monsters either. You only do a few fights that's it, you could finish it faster than many similar length fighting games. I'm sure some bad ones are a little more satisfying than this. Even Tattoo Assassins had ways to spice things up. Not one stage stands out either, now for fighting game standards that's horrible as well as embarrassing.
Let's be brutally honest here, this game just from it's presentation looks worse than Iron & Blood. The actual characters looks more bland with virtually nothing to make em any form of excitement. I will say it has some songs but the audio department dropped the ball here. I can say the controls are better than Iron & Blood.
The difficulty is a little more fair even with ring outs. This game quickly becomes boring than you constantly losing at a much better fighting game. Yes you'll be piss off but you aren't going to give up until you win. There isn't much to go on for story either. Even Iron & Blood had some story to help paint a picture in our minds.
This is more or less let's just have monsters face each other & call it a day. If I wanted a fighting game with a similar concept. I rather play DarkStalkers series, Killer Instinct series, Soulcalibur series & the fan game Terrordrome: Rise of the Boogeymen. I have a lot more fun playing Dead by Daylight that has some of horror movie villains.
It is amazingly Acclaim has their name on both of these games. Some characters from both games are similar. Obviously different companies as well as developers made both these games. We all can agree both of them sucks even for fighting game standards. We got one that doesn't nail what could've been a great fighting game while the other ends up being lazy in comparison.
I should mention there isn't as many playable characters than in Iron & Blood. There is no hidden characters which might've help things. Now a lot of fighting games doesn't have hidden characters. So that isn't necessarily a strike. But what is a strike is Killing Zone took a fun concept to ended up giving us this diseaster.
I actually played Castlevania: Judgment on Wii, a similar concept fighting game. Although that game sucks too with even worse controls. Some of the characters designs as well as their moves stands out. Yes I do agree there are heavily mixed but I rather have that than flat out generic as crap. They even made a Minotaur boring.
Proof that Killing Zone rips off Soul Edge is Batch whose a Minotaur wields an axe. There is a character who wears animal skin over his head also wielding an axe. Also Drake is like DarkStalkers' Victor poor cousin who didn't have gas money. Without question, DarkStalkers series is way better. Overall, it is generic, boring and quickly took all the fun out.
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