Developer: Sterling Silver Software Publisher: Tengen Release: 1991 Genre: Fighting
Pit Fighter was incredibly popular during its release in 1990. But for the life of me I never understood why. The digitized characters were impressive for the time sure but even as a ten year old I knew the gameplay was lackluster. Unfortunately my local mom and pop store got rid of my beloved Smash T.V. machine and replaced it with this monstrosity which also did not help my opinion of the game. But I digress. As with almost every arcade game that was a hit the home ports would follow and of all of them the Sega Genesis version is one of the best. But that is not saying much.
For its time Pit Fighter was pretty innovative as one of the first fighting games to use digitized actors for its characters. Like the later Mortal Kombat all of the sprites are actors filmed against a blue screen performing their attacks. However unlike nearly every game that uses digitized sprites they replay the footage rather than redraw the frames. The game was a technical achievement and looked far above most of its contemporaries which probably why it was so popular.
The Sega Genesis version only captures a fraction of the arcade’s majesty. This is an aggressively ugly game that barely makes use of the hardware. The sprites are significantly smaller and missing a sizable number of frames. But even worse than that is the color palette. The overall palette appears to use twenty colors at most leaving the game a muddy mess. There is heavily pixelation which makes the fighters and especially the crowd blurry. The system is capable of far better than this and it is inexcusable.
For the most part the controls are simple. The three buttons correspond to punch, kick, and jump. All three characters have a varied move set and the techniques are easy to perform. All of them require a combination of one or two buttons or a direction and are easy to remember. In fact you will probably perform most attacks by instinct. This was a year before Street Fighter would change the game with its insane depth but there is some nuance here. You can cancel attacks in to one another which enables rapid attacking. More importantly you can loop super moves which are arguably the only way you will probably beat this monstrosity.
There are three characters who each offer a unique gameplay experience. Buzz is the heavyweight, a pro wrestler with many throws and heavy blows who is slow. Kato is the karate expert who lacks power but makes up for it in speed. He has the longest combo strings and the largest move set. Plus if you master it you can loop your special move and essentially stun lock the enemy. Ty is the odds on favorite in my opinion. He has the longest reach, medium power, and his super move hits twice and is easy to land. Plus his defensive dodge travels a good distance and the lean is incredibly useful too.
Pit Fighter has the feel of a wrestling game more than a traditional fighter. You can freely walk around each arena and there are usually objects strewn about to use as weapons such as barrels, knives, throwing stars, and sticks. The crowd gets in on the action as well. If you get too close they will throw you back in to the fight and cause damage. Sometimes they wander in to take a pot shot at you as well. Yet despite all these elements the game is boring. The AI is dumb and cheap and in spite of the decent move set for each character your best option is to spam one or two attacks as the game is difficult for all the wrong reasons.
In the arcade Pit Fighter was notably difficult and remains so in the home port. In fact it is probably worse. Although you can reasonably cheese your way through most of the game by spamming your special attack there are still frustrating aspects that make it harder than it should be. The hit detection is suspect and prone to fail constantly. While that is bad you can work around it. What kills the game is that there are no health items or any other means of restoring health. That means you must go through the eleven fight gauntlet with one life and three credits which is stupid. You either cheese your way through the game or hope you get lucky. If you are smart you will play something else.
In Closing
Pit Fighter is a mediocre game. I went in to this with an open mind despite my dislike of the game originally as it has been decades since my last play through. But my memories did not betray me. Pit Fighter is a shallow game that was able to coast on its unique presentation in the arcade. The home releases do not have that luxury and the stale gameplay in light of the deeper fighting games out at the time means this is a novelty at best.
