Even by the time Commodore went bankrupt in 1994, the Amiga's best years were behind it. For the gaming press and public still loyal to the Amiga, Elfmania was one of the remaining titles to cause some excitement among the remaining fanbase. I'd transitioned to PC by 1994 and never got to play the game back then, but I've seen comments from some quarters praising it as one of, if not the best fighting game on the Amiga.
It's easy to see why; Elfmania was an impressive artistic and technical showcase, particularly for a machine which had debuted over a decade prior. That something could look this good and run at a flawless 50 Hz on an A500 is quite a achievement, something made all the more impressive when you consider this is an OCS game, not AGA.
Having played through the game a few times for the purposes of recording a longplay, my impressions of the game proved to be far less complimentary, for reasons I shall discuss later. First, we need to cover the underlying game model, for understanding this is key to understanding some Elfmania's more fundamental issues.
Whereas Street Fighter II (and similar games) try to balance the various fighters within the game, Elfmania goes in a different direction. The game employs the concept of hiring a warrior to fight on your behalf, and each of these costs a certain amount of cash to employ. You begin the game with just enough cash to hire one of the more basic fighters, with other combatants becoming available as you earn cash from various bouts. Landing a blow on your opponent causes a coin to spawn out of thin air, and this gets added to the prize pot if you manage to hit it. Coins are also awarded for health remaining at the end of the bout, and it's possible to earn a bonus by swatting the fountain of jewellery which spews forth on the demise of your opponent. It's all a little weird, but it's certainly a novel system.
Using your chosen combatant, you take part in combat to decide who takes control of the selected map square. Victory results in a cross being drawn on the grid, and you'll need to create a horizontal or vertical line of 6 crosses on the grid to claim ultimate victory. Some map squares will reveal your next opponent, whereas others will hide the combatant until you select the square. Using save states reveals that the opponents you face are actually predetermined for each game, just the game gives the impression of selecting an opponent at random.
The first major failing becomes apparent when you realise the game employs a series of modifiers under the hood to increase difficulty as the game progresses. The CPU difficulty setting, displayed on the map screen whenever you select a square on the grid, continually ramps up the general ability of your opponents as you proceed. What it doesn't make clear, however, is it also increases opponent health and damage output. I played a round 4 match using Janika against a clone of herself, and I noticed blows the CPU opponent landed where taking far greater chunks out of my health bar, where as the few hits I was landing were barely making a dent. This is made worse when fighting the more costly fighters, who have a higher base health pool to begin with; factor in the CPU difficulty modifier, and you have virtually no chance of beating a higher tier character with one from a lower tier.
Should you lose a fight with a more expensive fighter, the fact you'll stand absolutely no chance with one of the lower-priced ones means you might as well give and restart the game the moment this occurs. The game devolves into a weird game of rock-paper-scissors, knowing which fighter you have a realistic chance of beating an opponent with, and you best not mess up, ever. In short, the game balance is completely flawed and absolutely no fun as a result.
What makes things worse is the underlying fighting mechanics are also deeply flawed. Much of this comes down to the usual problem of only having a single-button joystick, so the devs shoehorned in an awkward eight-way control system where moves are executed by holding down the button and pushing in certain directions on the stick. This is less than intuitive in a game where pushing up to jump is a thing, so don't be too surprised when you find yourself bounding around the screen inadvertently. The one special move each character possesses is also completely pointless because they all involve repeating a specific move a set number of times to activate; you're telegraphing the special long before it activates, making it pointless in multiplayer, and the CPU opponent reads your joystick inputs anyway, making them similarly useless there. As a final insult, the developers decided holding back on the stick to execute a block was far too intuitive, instead forcing the player to hold down and fire instead.
The various issues gave rise to outbursts on more than one occasion as I railed against so many of the silly decisions the developers seemed to have taken. I was reassured to note that Amiga Power, regarded as one of the most honest and reliable Amiga publications of the day, felt equally aggrieved. In its July 1994 issue, reviewer Stuart Campbell reeled off the same issues I'd noted during my play-through, and had opined the fact the devs failed to act on any of the feedback AP had provided, following hands-on experience with an earlier preview of the game. Apparently, the game had been delayed on a number of occasions to specifically allow revisions to the gameplay, but that none of the issues had been addressed in the final build.
As impressive as Elfmania looks, the underlying game is woefully average. The money system proves to be a novel twist, but the combat is stymied by awkward controls and the the flawed balance model just adds to the frustration; those looking for a rival to Street Fighter II should continue to look elsewhere.
Developer: Terramarque
Publisher: Terramarque
Year of Release: 1994
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