STORYLINE 4/5

 

The game opens with a desperate scene. A gray-bearded scientist and his black-mustached assistant are trying to bring to life a robot. The robot, inside a transparent container through which an electrical current is about to be sent, will become your main fighter, the cute, pink robot on the cartridge label. But, something goes terribly wrong. The scientists begin infusing the robot with the electrical current when an explosion occurs!

 

As a result of the explosion, the gray-bearded scientist and his assistant become enemies. Each now have a stock of robots, the scientist with eight and the assistant with 36. This is where the fighting begins.

 

 

GRAPHICS 4.5/5

 

The graphics of the game are awesome, from the look of the fighters to the moving backgrounds. The backgrounds are often layered so that what's closest to the fighters moves fastest (to keep up with the movement of the fighters) while scenery at more depth moves more slowly or is stationary. There are over 10 scenes throughout the game, each very different from the one before it. My favorite come toward the end of the battling, in Stage 4, when the fighters are battling it out on a minaret up in the clouds.

 

AUDIO 2.5/5

 

Just as amazing as the graphics, the audio captures the playfulness of the game, but quickly switches to an intensity just right for the fighting. The sound effects during the initial storyline scene are perfect. When the scientists are gearing up their machines to put life into their creation, there's a computer-sounding noise trickling in the background. The explosion is a muffled roar, as the screen flashes white. The sounds and music of the fights keep you engaged as well. Some of the music is reminiscent of the quality in the Rock Man series.

 

 

GAMEPLAY 5/5

 

The gameplay in Joy Mecha Fight is like your standard fighter. You have four modes to choose from: tournament (or storyline), one player vs. computer, one player vs. two player, and computer vs. computer.

 

The most interesting, of course, is tournament mode, because it follows the storyline that began when the game was booted up. The tournament mode involves battles between the gray-bearded scientist's robots (you) against the black-mustached assistant's robots.

 

In tournament mode you have to make your way through four stages of fighters to reach the final fight. You chose one of your eight fighters to battle one of eight fighters for each stage. The stage ends with a boss-like fighter who level of difficultly is not any different from the rest of the fighters. In each of the stages you also get to choose which fighter you will take on first. And if you fail to beat this fighter, you are free to choose a different one to fight the next go-round.

 

Stage 1 takes place within the city, which at times resembles the Coliseum in Rome, Italy, then St. Petersburg, Russia, and at other times looks like the Vatican. I could swear that in the background of the Vatican scene there are two minarets that look very much like the phallic body part between a male's legs. Stage 2 takes place just in front of the gigantic minaret that you will fight on in Stage 3 and 4. During Stage 3, you will be at a lower level on the minaret, and in Stage 4 you are near the top, within the clouds, overlooking another minaret.

 

Each fight can last up to five rounds; it's essentially best out of five, so the first fighter to lose three times loses the battle. Every time you lose a fight you are given the option of continuing, which will take you back to the fighter selection screens, or you can quit. There appears to be infinite lives, since no matter how many times I lost, I could just hit continue and keep on going.

 

At the end of Stage 4, you meet the final boss, who isn't too tough. The two of you fight on the moon, with Earth in the background. Also, the evil assistant to the scientist is watching over the fight in a spaceship. When you defeat this final boss, the story that began with the explosion in the laboratory will end with another short scene that I won't ruin for you.

 

 

CONTROL 4/5

 

The buttons are the same as in most fighter games. Pushing A will cause your fighter to punch. Hitting B will kick. Start pauses and Select is useless, as usual. If you push a special combination of buttons, like B and Down, or the like, you will cause the robot fighter to throw a special move. Each robot has a couple special moves, which makes the game really cool. Some robots shoot fireballs or rain fire from the sky. Other will punch the ground to send a shockwave through the other fighter. Some fighter fly horizontally through the air while spinning. A few have arms that extend and a couple have quick kicking ability.

 

 

FUN FACTOR 4/5

 

This game is awesome. Get it wherever you can find it. You'll have a hell of a lot of fun playing it in tournament mode and with a gaming buddy. If the robots with floating body parts isn't enough to win you over, then you have to be excited by the strange abilities the fighter have. If anything, just buy the damn game to tell me if those really are penises in the Vatican background.

 

 

FRUSTRATION 3.5/5

 

The game is only frustrating because some of the fighters are tough. You have to choose the right fighter from your stock of eight to battle the fighters from the assistant's stock of 36. One fighter, a skull with only four glowing balls as arms and legs, is by far the toughest. He has some of the best abilities of any fighter, like balancing his head on all four glowing balls and "running" at you. It can be a challenge getting passed him.

 

 

OVERALL 4/5

 

If you aren't convinced yet that Joy Mecha Fight is an awesome game worth your time and money, then you're hopeless -- quit gaming altogether and run off to knit booties or make frilly collages of TomKat. If you're serious about gaming, seriously get this game!

 

 

SCREENSHOTS