Developer: Lasersoft Publisher: Renovation Release: 1992 Genre: Action
The fighting game explosion that came in the wake of Street Fighter 2 was an interesting time. Where most arcade game’s were content to copy Capcom’s classic most of the home grown efforts at least tried to be interesting. To be fair most of them were terrible but I will not fault them for trying. Doomsday Warrior marries the character progression of a RPG with fighting mechanics and tries to be better than the sum of its parts. Sadly this is a case of good ideas with bad execution.
Doomsday Warrior stars the Doom Squad, a group of seven warriors under the control of a sorcerer named Main who rules the Earth. As the hero your chosen character betrays the group and fights to liberate the planet. Fresh from the minds at Telenet Doomsday Warrior is just as weird and innovative as the rest of their lineup. But this one falls on the interesting failure side of their work like Beast Wrestler rather than an underappreciated gem like Gaiares.
The roster in Doomsday Warrior is small at only six characters. To make it even worse the game has the requisite palette swap rivals in Sledge and Layban making it even smaller. But at least the cast is fairly unique in design. Nuform is made of living liquid and shape shifts his body for his attacks in a manner similar to Twelve in Street Fighter III. However this released five years before that game! Grimrock is the second fastest and agile character after Daisy despite his size and has long range with his basic attacks. For those that want something a little more traditional the previously mentioned duo is your typical hero characters. But they do not play like Ken and Ryu despite what you might expect. In fact the mechanics are overall different than Street Fighter and its clones.
The controls are setup differently than your typical fighting game and I am not sure I like it. Doomsday Warrior uses a button to jump as well as block alongside a punch and kick button. Every character has a wide arsenal of basic moves performed with simple combinations. All special moves use charge motions making them easy and accessible. For strategy minded players the longer you charge the higher the range and power of your specials. Dedicated block and jump buttons is awkward and never feels natural. I get wanting to be different but there is a reason 90% of fighting games all follow a similar standard. In practice combat is clumsy as there is no combo engine; moves do not flow into each other. This feels more like a brawler adapted into a fighting game and not a particularly good one.
That is not the only issue. Doomsday Warrior has an upgrade system that both helps and hinders the game. After each match you are gain points based on your remaining life. These points can boost stats in multiple categories (leg and arm strength, defense, vitality, etc.) which is cool in theory. In practice it is half baked. You need to nearly max out a stat to notice any difference. The cheap AI means most matches come down to the wire. You will need to exploit the broken throw system to win. Your life bar is split in to four quarters and you can regenerate health to a degree. The computer can do so as well and exploits this to drag out matches. Whittling away your opponent with weak attacks gets old fast. There are some cool ideas here that later games would borrow so clearly they were on to something.
It’s a damn shame that this is a jumbled mass of ideas that do not work together. The RPG elements could have made for a deeper game as you build your custom character. It is clear they wanted this as you get passwords to save your progress. But grinding sucks in RPGs and it sucks here. Too bad as it could have made multiplayer matches really special with a better system and more characters. Speaking of characters while their designs are unique mechanically they are similar i.e. two special moves and a throw. Some of the moves are even shared between characters! The decent production values go to waste.
In Closing
Doomsday Warrior brings a lot of different and forward thinking ideas to the fighting genre. But different does not always mean better. It is a shame that it all does not come together in the end as the game has all the ingredients of a unique fighter. But playing it will only make you wish the execution were better. Sadly this one is a novelty at best.
