''Shadow Fighter'' is a video game for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

and

CD32 CD32 (cluster of differentiation 32), also known as FcγRII or FCGR2, is a surface receptor glycoprotein belonging to the Ig gene superfamily. CD32 can be found on the surface of a variety of immune cells. CD32 has a low-affinity for the Fc r ...

developed by

NAPS team NAPS team is an Italian independent video game studio based in Messina, Sicily. They work mostly in the home computer and console market. History The company was established as a game developing house in 1993 by Fabio Capone and Domenico Bar ...

and published by

Gremlin Interactive Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established in ...

in 1994. The game was acclaimed by critics, and in 1996 it was ranked the 20th best game of all time by ''

Amiga Power ''Amiga Power'' (''AP'') was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future plc, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996. Philosophy ''Amiga Power'' had several principles which comp ...

''.

Gameplay

The game itself is as one would normally expect from any fighting game: fight through 3 rounds against all opponents to reach the main boss at the end. The game features 17 characters (2 hidden) from around the world (including one from space). Each character of course has their own special moves. Like most fighting games, they involve pressing a certain directional combination, followed by a button press to activate. Some of the moves are quite tricky to pull off using a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, though much easier with a joypad (which started to become more popular on the Amiga towards the mid-1990s). For those still finding the moves too difficult to perform, the player can practice their moves on a training dummy called Pupazz. However, Pupazz is kitted out with his own set of moves, which make him lethal in his own right. Pupazz can only be accessed as a playable character via a

cheat Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cri ...

. During the in-game action, players are notified of bonuses for performing certain actions (such as first attacks and combos), in a very similar way to ''

Super Street Fighter II is a competitive fighting game produced by Capcom and originally released as an arcade game in 1993. It is the fourth game in the ''Street Fighter II'' sub-series of ''Street Fighter'' games, following '' Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting''. It ...

''. To rival the bloody violence of '' Mortal Kombat'', a "blood mode" is included in the game, which can be toggled on or off, but this appears to do nothing other than turn the floor an untextured red colour. The main character of the game is Shadow Fighter himself. The player can only fight Shadow Fighter if they are playing the game under Normal or Hard difficulty setting, as the game will end just before Shadow Fighter is reached under Easy. Shadow Fighter can be accessed as a playable fighter by using a cheat. The game ran at a constant 25 frames per second; with the use of a cheat the game could be made to run at 50fps on AGA Amigas.

Reception

The game was ranked the 20th best game of all time by ''

''.Amiga Power magazine issue 64, Future Publishing, August 1996

References

External links

NAPS Team
* {{mobygames, /15895 1994 video games Amiga 1200 games Amiga CD32 games Amiga games Amiga-only games Fighting games Gremlin Interactive games Multiplayer and single-player video games NAPS team games Video games developed in Italy Video games scored by Patrick Phelan