Sony Playstation Shadow Struggle

My first impression of Shadow Struggle was, "Oh geez, Banpresto is trying to get into the 3-D fighting game market also!?" I had thoughts of poor gameplay, shoddy graphics and I wanted Banpresto to prove me wrong because Banpresto is not exactly known for their 3-D ability but they have potential. Their bread and butter is their famous licenses such as Dragonball Z and Gundam which have done well. I did not anticipate great things for Shadow Struggle. I also thought back to Jaleco's effort in the 3-D fighting game arena, the miserable Slam Dragons which had extremely poor animation, horrible character designs and background graphics from the Atari 2600. Slam Dragons was bad to the bone. Could Shadow Struggle break the mold and the negative pre-conception that I had placed on it? I hoped for the best when I unwrapped the CD and placed it gingerly into my Playstation. Erhm. Well, I was right. Shadow Struggle looks very good and reminds me a bit of Tekken 1 but where it falls short is the character animation and control. Quite a few frames of animation are missing from Shadow Struggle and I wondered how games like this even get out of beta. The control is sluggish and it is difficult to execute certain moves. In any case, Shadow Struggle is a disappointment and Banpresto should tweak their next 3-D fighting offering a bit more before unleashing it on the market.

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