Review - Back in 1994, Micronet (which is the same Software House that developed Curse) came out with a game called Battle Fantasy, a name that probably doesn't sound very original but it can't be accused of not making sense.

Sometimes later, Extreme Entertainment Group, Inc ported Battle Fantasy over to the US and after a long and strenuous meeting with all of the Marketing people, renamed the game with the mind-twisting title Revengers of Vengeance. Now, I am really trying to understand what went through these people's head. No really, I am. Because I have no clue what the esoteric name Revengers of Vengeance might possibly mean.

But let's look at each terms' definition:

Revenge - "Revenge is retaliation against a person or group in response to a wrong-doing by that person or group."

Vengeance - "The act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done)."

Ok so the 2 terms seem to be synonyms. So far, so good but now it gets trickier:

Revenger: "One who revenges." (what the...)

So now I am confused. If we put all of the terms together it would mean that the Revengers (who are people who revenge) are taking their revenge on Revenge itself?!? Is Revenge the name of some poor unlucky dude that just happened to pass by? Or maybe, it means that Revengers are taking their revenge on some other people that they themselves were taking their vengeance? Or could it be that…ok I guess I'll stop now hehe.

Honestly though, I think this must be the worst re-naming of the entire history of videogames! Oh well, let's talk about the actual game now, shall we? I'll put this bluntly: Battle Fantasy is a Street Fighter II clone set in medieval times where you have a bunch of different mythical creatures like elves, dwarves, sorcerers and other magical beings who battle each other for some (probably good) reason.

Graphically, I found the game to be well done. The intro is very nice with a cool anime sequence that introduces the player to the story and the characters. Sprites are nicely drawn (although they would need more frames of animations), backgrounds are overall inspired as they are colorful, varied and have tons of layers of parallax scrolling.

The music is also well done as it includes inspired little tunes that are strictly CD quality. Where things could have been a lot better is gameplay. The premises were good since the characters roster is wide enough, each fighter has a decent amount of moves that he can perform and specials are easy to pull off. But handling could definitely be better, collision detection could be more accurate and the overall speed at which the game runs could be higher.

As things stand, Battle Fantasy's fighting engine feels rough and a bit primitive even compared to games that came out during that period. I don't want to bash the game completely as it has enough interesting features.Yes, because besides the usual 1 on 1 tournament, you have a quest mode that plays a bit like an RPG where you can enhance your character's stats and buy new items and such. This game mode also includes very nicely done cut scenes to advance the story ( they are only present in this mode). There are also other playing modes that in all honesty I didn't go through and then, there is even a hidden Arkanoid type versus game that looks and plays fine!

All in all Battle Fantasy is one of the few fighting games on Mega CD / Sega CD and although it's not a classic, it is much better than other similar games on the system.

Bottom line: an average 2d fighting game with a few nice touches. 5,5/10