''Battle Monsters'' is a

versus fighting game The fighting game video game genre, genre involves combat between multiple characters, often (but not limited to) one-on-one battles. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappling, counter- ...

developed by Scarab for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it is the successor to the succes ...

. It was originally published by

Naxat Soft Kaga Create Co., Ltd., formerly Naxat Soft, was a Japan-based video game developing and publishing division of Kaga Electronics. The company initially released games for the PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America). It later relea ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and later published in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Acclaim Entertainment Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in Glen Cove, New York. Originally founded by Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes, and Jim Scoroposki from a storefront in Oyster Bay in 1987, the company built a global develop ...

Gameplay

Similar to

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

's '' Pit-Fighter'', the game makes heavy use of digitized human actors as the characters, plus some blood influenced by Midway's ''

Mortal Kombat ''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of fighting game, fighting video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The original ''Mortal Kombat (1992 video game), Mortal Kombat'' arcade game spawned Lis ...

'' series. The game features 12 playable fighters, and plays out on multi-tiered stages.

Reception

''Battle Monsters'' was panned by most critics, who found that the scaling graphics, complex controls, interactive backgrounds, and multi-tiered arenas do not work together well. They also razed the choppy animation and pixelization on the digitized sprites, and likened the game to a second-rate '' Way of the Warrior'' clone. Crispin Boyer of ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

'' called it "one sorry mess of a fighting game", ''

GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...

'' said it "doesn't even deserve coverage", and

Jeff Gerstmann Jeff Gerstmann (born August 1, 1975) is an American video game journalist. Former editorial director of the gaming website ''GameSpot'' and the co-founder of the gaming website '' Giant Bomb'', Gerstmann began working at ''GameSpot'' in the fal ...

summarized in ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'', "While Battle Monsters does have some good ideas and twists on the standard fighting game, the whole package is poorly executed". However, ''

GameFan ''GameFan'' (originally known as ''Diehard GameFan'') was a publication started by Tim Lindquist, Greg Off, George Weising, and Dave Halverson in September 1992 that provided coverage of domestic and imported video games. It was notable for it ...

'' defended ''Battle Monsters'', assessing that "The gameplay, though not conventional, can be entertaining, with 12 moves plus a super for each ghoul. And while the digitized graphics don't impress me as much as they did a year ago hen the game was released in Japan they are still representative of the monsters they surround." Reviewing the Japanese version as an import, '' Next Generation'' stated that "the characters are never quite enveloped within the background. Instead, what's left is a nice background with characters which seem to be cut and pasted on to the television screen."

References

Notes

{{notelist 1995 video games Acclaim Entertainment games Feelplus games Fighting games Kaga Create games Multiplayer and single-player video games Sega Saturn games Sega Saturn-only games Video games developed in Japan Video games with digitized sprites

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

Notes