Brutal: Paws of fury is one of those things that wanted to be something else (I think.) Not violent like Mortal Kombat and definitely not as memorable as Street Fighter, but it somehow stuck in my memory.
I got the game as a gift from a family member that didn't know a whole lot about video games but they got it for me because (A-I liked video games and (B-It had animals on it and (C-I was taking karate at the time.
featuring : Punchy rabbit, grouchy bear, dignified wildcat, angry lion and long eared thing in the back.
To start, I don't like fighting games very much. I've never been good at them and I just don't like them. Brutal was something different. This was a fighting game that featured nothing but animals and it actually had some karate stuff in it.
Anyways, The game isn't all that bad. Granted, I'm horrible at it and have only beat the final boss once, but it does have possibly some of the best music for a fighting game on the SNES
Anyways, This is a character review as with most fighting games, the characters are the most recognizable part of the game. So, Let's take a look!
Kung-Fu Bunny (like 15 years before Kung-Fu Panda)
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Liu Kang?
Coolness rating: 6/10
Comments: Probably the only character I used to get far in the game. From what I've seen with longplayers, he's the only character they've ever used except for one person that used Foxy.
Prince Leon of Kenya (Because Lions are king of the jungle.)
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Not sure.
Coolness rating: 6/10
Comments: Leon's neat because he can summon a woofer speaker to knock his opponent on their ass. His taunt is him showing his sparkling teeth. Which makes you want to hit him even more.
Rhei Rat (AKA Moody McMoodypants)
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Again, Not sure
Coolness rating:3/10
Comments: I think I played as him once. He looks pissed no matter what. Probably because his wife yelled at him for putting his shorts in with the white laundry and making everything pink.
Tai Cheetah (Get it? It's a play on "Tai Chi"!!!)
Other Fighting game Equivalent: This is harder than I thought...
Coolness rating: 5/10
Comments: Tai is usually the first opponent you face. He isn't that strong but he's fast and can usually hit you a couple of times.
Kendo Coyote
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Johnny Cage
Coolness rating:4/10
Comments: Kendo Coyote is some kind of Hollywood type trying to win the tournament for fame. He does this weird spin move that makes him hard to hit.
Foxy Roxy
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Sonya blade?
Coolness rating: 8/10
Comments: Where do I start with Foxy Roxy? She's the token female of the game and it shows. she's scantily clad with form fitting pants and top, and she's the only character with X's in her name. Her taunt is slapping her ass. I'm not kidding, go look it up.
Ivan the Bear
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Zangief
Coolness rating: 6/10
Comments: When I first played the game, I played as Ivan because I was 8 and figured a bear would have no problem eating or killing the other animals. I soon learned that this game isn't based on biology and that Ivan isn't that good. His moves seem slower than the others and they don't have range.
Dali Llama-Hello Dali!
Other Fighting game Equivalent: Every boss ever? and smoke. Coolness rating:7/10
Comments: Dali Llama is the boss of the game. For what it's worth, He doesn't look like a llama and he doesn't fight like a Llama. Llamas are tough. They kick, they spit and they don't take prisoners. Dali uses this weird black magic to turn into smoke to attack you. Real llamas don't do that. Real Llamas fight with honor. So, there you have it, A strange and mediocre game I grew up with with all the characters explained. I never played the later games that were on the Saturn or PC. All they did was add a cat with psychosis, a fast talking crocodile, a culty panther and a mole that turned into a dragon... That actually sounds cool... See ya!
So, if you've read through my rambling blog that keeps changing its focus, you'll know that I grew up in the 90s with video games. That's the gist of it.
Anyways... Using the great powers of black magic, Science and alien technology "Borrowed" from a few choice places... I have created a sort of time machine...
Not to scale...
So, what pray tell am I going to use this device? To visit the prehistoric times to see how animals thrived? To stop the evils in this world from happening?
Nah. I'm transmitting a younger version of myself to argue with...
Welcome to....
There's more than 20 years difference between these pictures...
The megaman show came out when I was about 6 years old. I absolutly loved the series as a kid so much I dressed as megaman for Halloween when I was 6.
While I had an obsession with megaman, my sister loved Lion King. And if you're going to bitch about my costume, remember, it's 1994 and the internet didn't exist.
I loved it stupidly simply because it had Megaman. I remember quoting "Sizzling Circuits" and the other stupid things said in the show.
Anyways, we're going to take a look at a show my childhood self loved but after taking a second look at it, my adult self realized there were some gaping flaws.
Let's get started
First, let's go ahead and admit how friggin' cool the intro theme is.
SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT!
MEGA MAN!
Fighting to save.... THE WORLD!
Yeah, the intro to this show was pretty energized. It featured megaman being built
When I first saw this as a kid, I didn't want to watch the show anymore.
Then comes the second half, Wily shows up and starts wrecking shit.
Not every kid's show features Mass destruction.
Oh. Umm... Yeah. This makes the intro a lot darker.
Okay, so then Megaman shows up and starts violently kicking ass.
6yr old self- Do robots feel pain?
Myself now- I'm pretty sure my last car did, so probably. 6yr old self- (whimpering)
I didn't start the megaman series from the beginning, The first episode I ever saw was megaman on the moon (Episode 6) So, Let's start there!
Our episode begins with Megaman, Roll, Rush and Dr. Light and a bunch of generic people watching a space shuttle launch.
Oh yeah, and a girl wearing pink.Apparently her father is an astronaut.
About 30 seconds later, Gutsman and Cutman show up to do something stupid.
They throw a robot into a locker and trap some guy under a dome thing.
The creepy thing is, after the guy gets trapped under the thing, you can hear him whimpering. According to physics, if that thing was sealed, that guy is dead or dying...
Oh, so crystal man is there too. Anyways. The girl runs out onto the platform to talk to her father.
If this were real, she would have been so sniped.
I can't begin to think about how lax security is at a damn space shuttle launching.
So the girl suspects something's not right. Mega man decides to check things out for himself... BY CLIMBING THE SCAFFOLDING!?
Oh, and the girl is going to check things out too.
Seriously, where the hell is security?
So, Megaman figures out the astronauts aren't actually the astronauts, so he and Wily's bots have a fight on the platform. Crystal man knocks Megaman off.
"Good thing Dr. Light built me stronger than humpty dumpty!"
Myself now: No, it's a good thing he hit you and not the girl, or she'd be a damn smear on the launch pad! 6yr old self: (Whimpering)
Megaman tries to escape but runs into a robot's worst enemy: A drawer handle attached to the floor.
Found in aisle five, where door knobs are.
While this is going on, Dr. Wily and Protoman are in the shuttle prematurely getting ready to launch so they kill megaman.
Mega man blasts the thing holding his foot and escapes.
yay.
Next, Dr. Light, Roll and Megaman figure out that Tina, The little girl is missing.
Actual Dialog:
Megaman: Hey, Where is Tina?
Roll: She was here a moment ago
Dr. Friggin' Light: There's no time to find her. We've got to get to mission control
...
Okay, wait a minute, stop stop the show... I can't take this anymore.
You're telling me that a kid is left with Dr. Light, Mega man and Roll, goes missing and a damn doctor of robotics is just going to say "No time to find her. Let's work on something else."
...
ANYWAYS.
So, they go to mission control where the mission controller guy says that the shuttle is transporting a lens for a laser located on the moon.
...
Sure, go on.
Dr. Light builds a rocket jet pack for megaman.
Dr. Light: Be careful, Mega... Those engines develop 1 million pounds of thrust.
6yr. old self: (Watching with fixed grin because it's megaman with a jetpack.) Myself now: I don't have a degree in physics, but I call bullshit. First off, Each of the thruster engines on a space shuttle is capable of 375,000 pounds of thrust. This means that Dr. Light magically whipped up a dual engine thruster jetpack with almost triple the efficiency of a damn rocket made by rocket scientists. Second of all, these are supposed to be powered by liquid oxygen. Furthermore... 6yr. old self: "But it's megaman with a jet pack." ...
So, Megaman follows them up to the space station where we find Wily and his robots wasting time.
"Cutman Cutting the cards" 6yr old me didn't find this funny because I didn't know what cutting the cards meant (And I actually cut up a deck of cards to try to figure out the joke.) Adult me didn't find this funny because it's a juvenile pun and if you were stuck in space with only a deck of cards to keep you entertained and someone cut them up... Whatever. Let's keep going.
Okay, so Tina conveniently finds a kid sized space suit laying around and is sneaking around the space ship. Not sure how she was trained to move around and wear a suit but since nothing else in this show makes any sense, let's move on.
Dr. Wily and the robots get to the space station and they fight the security bots and people at the station which leads me to the next horrifying scene
That is the look of a man knowing he will die from a slow lack of oxygen or from starvation.
Heck, this guy doesn't even get the honor of an explosion, it's just, Hey look! Gutsman beats up some robots!
Moving along, Wily finds the damn lens and I realize I only have 13 minutes to go.
And as predicted, he's going to use it for world domination.
Luckily, it's protected by a force field. The only people that know the code are the astronauts.
Fortunately, Wily has no bargaining power in the matter. Yet.
So, Megaman finally shows up, Shoots gutsman and is here to save the day!
Nothing more can go wrong...
DAMMIT, TINA!
6yr old self: Wait, wasn't she on the space shuttle with the astronauts?
Adult self: Oh my god, you're right! How did she do that?
So, Wily threatens to launch the kid out into outer space if Megaman doesn't buzz off. So, he does but he comes right back as if on cue.
So, Wily flew away but left a bomb on board the space station. We know how this goes, Mega man will find it with like 10 seconds to spare and save the day.
No. Please no. Not the damn dog.
While Rush is a staple within the megaman games, He is the most annoying thing about the show (Save for the complete lack of regard for safety and science)
Because there's no bomb scanning equipment (Couldn't they just check the security cameras or something?) Rush has a scanner in his nose that they'll use to find the bomb.
While all this crap is going on, Wily makes it to the moon and a lame battle takes place. Crystal man blows up a moon buggy, Cutsman knocks a sattelite dish on 2 robots and makes a lame dish related pun and Gutsman makes the most cryptic comment so far on the show:
"HEEEERE'S GUTSMAN"
Again, this line is lost on both my childhood self and adulthood self. My childhood self didn't see the shining until I was about 13, and my adult self has heard the damn "heere's Jonny" joke at least 10,000 times in my life. He doesn't even say it while breaking through a door, he already broke through the door, walks slowly and scares off some astronauts...
I mean, What the hell?
Yeah, so Roll and Rush get to the space station, but Rush is "Space sick" A robotic dog is space sick and has to find a bomb.
Look who called it!
So, Megaman runs the bomb out and they all head to the moon.
But, crystal man shoots megaman with the laser.
So, the big scary laser that's supposed to destroy cities just disables megaman? Sure.
Gah, how much longer is this crap?
6 yr old self: You swear alot!
A bunch of more pseudoscience happens, the girl revives mega man and he fights crystal man. (I just want it to be over )
So mega man takes crystal man's weapon and blows him up. Great, Moving along.
Mega man reroutes a sattelite telescope thing to reflect the laser beam.
It blows up the space station and Dr. Wily flys away, Consequence free. After threatening to destroy a major city and all its inhabitants... FREE.
OH MY GOD, YOU MORON.
So the bad guys fly off into the sunset on a stolen space shuttle, Mega man commends the girl because "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have stopped Wily" (EVEN THOUGH HE DIDN'T)
This is one of those things looking back that has not aged well at all. The animation is so-so but the writing and the plot? I know it's a kids show, and I might have been too young for it, but that was before all the TV7 and TV13 stuff that came out later in the 90s.
Ugh. Okay, show's over. Get back to your time period, me...
6yr old self: Can I come back to visit?
Myself now: If I get enough readers, maybe.
6yr old self: Ok, BYE!
...
Shoot, I should have told him to study more... Meh, Whatever.
