Fighting Vipers XBLA Review

Sooo... Fighting Vipers. I'll be honest and say the only reason I ended up with this game was because it was discounted to 160 MSP and Sega made it. I've explained my Sega love in the past, but as a quick recap; I grew up on Sega, most of my best gaming memories come from the Sega consoles. I owned the Master System and Mega Drive before I switched to Playstation and have always wondered what I may have experienced had I stayed on the Sega train. I never had a Saturn or a Dreamcast so whenever I have a chance to experience something from those systems I like to give it a shot.

In the case of Fighting Vipers it seems I didn't miss out on all that much. I have to preface this by saying that I didn't spend too long playing the game as I'm not the biggest fighting game fan (though a couple have grabbed me in the past). I played through the arcade mode a couple of times and came to grips with the systems and tested out a couple of characters. Again this was just a quick stop for my game train, but I think I got the gist of it.

Overview
Fighting Vipers for the XBLA has been ported from the Sega Saturn. It's a polygonal 1-on-1 fighter with a basic armour system. The combatants enter a small arena and fight, during the fight the armour can get damaged and break off your fighter. From then on, including proceeding rounds, you'll be more vulnerable and any hits you take do more damage than they previously did while armoured.

Some of the fighters look like they should be on an episode of the Gladiators

Rational
The fighting is just to fast and furious for me to see any real depth here. The systems seem balanced but it really seems like the person who gets the first combo in is more than likely going to win. Button bashing works decently and the armour never really seemed to be a factor. The fights usually finished one way or the other before it broke.

One good combo can decimate you or your opponent

If it did break it was usually in the last round when the fighter who was going to lose anyway only had a little health left. The quickness of the techniques leaves you little time to react before finding yourself in the middle of a juggle that will take away half of your health bar. Nearly all combinations of buttons result in a juggle that once caught in you can't escape.

I normally don't make it a point to talk about a games graphics but I think I'll touch on it here. Fighting Vipers is a polygonal fighting game, from a time period where polygons where in their infancy. It's quite jarring to look at, so know what you're getting into from the jump.

Summary
I'm happy that I saw and experienced Fighting Vipers for the reasons stated above. Unless you are in the same boat, or have some nostalgia for it from years past I'll say stay away. The better option for the same price and system of origin is Virtua Fighter 2, which I will be talking about next review, see you then.