Title: Fight of Gods
Genre: Action, Fighting, 3D
Modes: Single-player/2 Player Local
Developer: Digital Crafter
Publisher: Digital Crafter
Platform(s): PC, Nintendo Switch (Reviewed)
Release: January 18, 2019
Stop me if you heard this one: Jesus, Moses, Odin, and Santa walk into a fighting arena...Welcome to Fight of Gods! You didn’t get the joke? Well, welcome to Fight of Gods, a fighting game that pits eleven different characters against each other to determine who is the best god. Your guess is as good as mine.
The Tip and The Top
Let’s start with the positive. The game does offer eleven different fighters and each character has their own special move. For instance, Santa’s special move has him riding through the screen on his sleigh led by his reindeer, and if your character is in the way of this train, you’ll take several hits of damage.
For Moses, he calls a tidal wave to crush his opponent, causing several hits for damage. The dev team did spend time figuring out specific moves for each fighter.
Each character also has their own unique level - and again, you can tell that there was some research done for the design of each level for each character.
The Flip and The Flop
If the game is supposed to be tongue in cheek, it doesn’t play off very well. The fact that Jesus comes up from the ground, on the cross, breaks free from the cross by ripping his hands free (although wooden blocks are still attached to his hands) just comes off as tone deaf. Even for those that are not very religious, this scene is just cringe worthy. It’s something that maybe a teenage would laugh at, but it’s more embarrassing and offensive than anything.
The character list is also a bizarre choice. The game includes Moses and Santa Clause, neither of which were gods. It’s a weird choice, considering that both Greek and Roman history provide a plethora of gods to choose from.
The character animation is stiff - the characters and their clothing don’t have any realistic flow to them. This is particularly apparent when the characters crumple into a heap after being defeated; the animation just seems off. However, that is to say, one character, Sif, does have some over dramatic animation of certain female body parts. Again, this just plays into the whole teenage humor: it’s awkward and meant to be left on the playground, not in a video game.
The game lacks any story, and there is not incentive to play this game more than once. You unlock alternate color costumes by defeating The Boss (no, not Bruce Springsteen) in the arcade mode which leaves one with a feeling of a lack of fulfillment and no desire to play it again after you beat the game once.
Final Score: D-
It’s hard to understand the overall purpose of this game, is it supposed to be funny or taken as a serious fighting game? The game’s tone deaf approach to the character design and actions putrefies any positive aspects it has going for it. The stale teenage humor leaves a bad taste in your mouth. With no redeemable aspects and no incentive to play through the game after one play through, it’s hard to suggest this game to anyone, outside of maybe the religious studies majors looking for an off the wall topic to write a paper on.
Review Copy Provided by Digital Crafter