Shadow Fighter

About

Shadow Fighter is a 1995 Amiga fighting game with 17 combatants including a space-born warrior and two hidden characters. Players battle through three rounds per opponent using special moves activated by directional button combos. A training mode lets you practice against Pupazz, a dummy with its own attack set. A toggleable "blood mode" dyes the floor red but adds no gore beyond that. The game runs at 25 frames per second with a cheat boosting it to 50fps on AGA systems. The game earned praise for its smooth gameplay and depth, landing at #20 in Amiga Power's all-time rankings. Shadow Fighter himself only appears as a final boss on Normal or Hard difficulty, and can be unlocked as a playable character via cheat codes. With combo-based scoring and optional speed tweaks, it stands as a strong entry in the Amiga's late-90s fighting scene.

Storyline

The game itself is as one would normally expect from any fighting game: fight through 3 rounds against all opponents to reach the main boss at the end. The game features 17 characters (2 hidden) from around the world (including one from space). Each character of course has their own special moves. Like most fighting games, they involve pressing a certain directional combination, followed by a button press to activate. Some of the moves are quite tricky to pull off using a joystick or keyboard, though much easier with a joypad (which started to become more popular on the Amiga towards the mid-90's). But for those still finding the moves too difficult to perform, the player can practice their moves on a training dummy called Pupazz. However, Pupazz is kitted out with his own set of moves, which make him lethal in his own right. Pupazz can only be accessed as a playable character via a cheat. During the in-game action, players are notified of bonuses for performing certain actions (such as first attacks and combos), in a very similar way to Super Street Fighter II. To rival the bloody violence of Mortal Kombat, a "blood mode" is included in the game, which can be toggled on or off. Unfortunately, this appears to do nothing other than turn the floor an untextured red colour. The main character of the game is Shadow Fighter himself. The player can only fight Shadow Fighter if they are playing the game under Normal or Hard difficulty setting, as the game will end just before you reach Shadow Fighter under Easy. Shadow Fighter can be accessed as a playable fighter by using a cheat. The game ran at a constant 25 frames per second, however with the use of a cheat the game could be made to run at 50fps on AGA Amigas. The game was ranked the 20th best game of all time by Amiga Power.