UFO2

Every company needs their fighting game, right? Taking place in the same universe as their other hits, Hyper Contender brings back the Pits of Phogon from Overbold, prolly worked on around the same time tbh.

UFO2

It’s a platformer fighter, less a “traditional” 2D fighter and more something a little unique. And thus better. I’m sorry, I hate the traditional 2D format. Street Fighter 2 was a blight on the creativity of the genre. Thankfully in this universe, that doesn’t seem to have corrupted the industry so every single 2D fighting game doesn’t HAVE to just be a shitty clone of Street Fighter. Instead we get this, and it’s got a lot of creative ideas! Originally it was supposed to have a more traditional health system, actually, which is still in the game as a secret code, but the ring system works very well.

It’s simple. You choose your character, who has a movement ability and an attack ability, as well as a melee atack. Rings spawn throughout the arena every ten seconds or so, and your goal is to get five rings to win. You can beat the rings out of your opponents, and they go flying, bouncing around. It can get EXTREMELY hectic. You can also block, which helps dodge the ranged attacks and stun melee attackers.

UFO2

The characters are all nicely varied. I’m a big fan of Donkus, myself, because of fucking course I am, but the wolf angel is damn good too. I dunno if it’s BALANCED per-se, I struggled to win with some characters, but thankfully to cherry it you only need to win with half the cast. :3 And that’s it! While I really enjoyed Hyper Contender when I first played it, it seriously dimmed on me with subsequent plays and time away from it. It’s prolly really fun with friends though.

Also every character gets an ending! Here’s an ending from the 2P recolor of Donkus.

UFO2

Huh that’s some fun world building and certainly not commentary on anything else in particular :)

By the way, I haven’t brought him up yet, but there’s a new staff member at UFO Soft! His name is Winston Nemuru, and while his exact relation to new CEO Tao Nemuru isn’t stated, my guess is he’s his son. I’m sure he was hired for his skills and abilities and certianly not cause of his relation to the new CEO. He’s been sprinkled into the credits of other games, and is in the credits as this one, listed for having the idea for it, alongside KC Levin. Actually, above KC Levin. I’m sure he just came up with more of the concept :)

8/10