‘Fighter Within’ Review

Platform:  Xbox One

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: AMA Ltd.

Genre: Fighting

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”

According to goodreads.com, legendary movie icon Bruce Lee – the person who once defeated Chuck Norris mind you – said this in his book “Tao Jeet Kune Do.”

After playing Fighter Within, I cannot help but wonder if Lee would’ve bothered with the game at all going by his aforementioned quote because the game simply does not work in many different aspects.

Fighter Within is an exclusive Xbox One Kinect-centric fighting game. From the get-go, the game sends you into Initiation Mode, a tutorial that also serves as the game’s story.

It’s difficult for me to maintain a straight face when calling it a story though. You assume the role of a young punk named Matt, who becomes a fighter because, well, I honestly cannot say. Matt is a typical nobody-has-ever-cared-for-me-ever and I-do-things-my-own way character minus any explanation of his past experiences.

Through encounters and character interactions with still images of their gestures, the story lasts for 21 agonizing chapters, all of which are fights lasting two or three rounds at the most. However, only half of the chapters hold any relevance to the plot and the other half are fights for the sake of being fights. Characters either attempt to tell their stories within a chapter or show up out of thin air with Matt somehow knowing who they are. Even for the characters trying to talk about their past, it’s ultimately pointless due to the voice acting and horribly written dialogue, which includes lines such as “I learned how to dodge before I could walk.” Really?

Even the most fearful foes Fighter Within has to offer look like babies who knew how to dodge before they could walk when compared to the Kinect’s controls, the player’s true opponent. At a reasonable distance away from the sensor with plenty of room to move around in, the Kinect failed to recognize many of my commands, making a majority of the fights incredibly frustrating. Punches would turn into throwing moves, jumping to utilize poles for an extra move become a chore, not recognizing when I was charging my Ki to use special moves, and gestures that look akin to one another are just some of the gameplay problems Fighter Within is plagued with. Even during the times where the Kinect read my moves correctly, the fighting is monotonous thanks to predictable AI and repetitive controls.

Only furthering the frustration of the Fighter Within experience is navigating the menus or simply pausing the game. Most of the time I had to yell “Xbox” to get the console’s basic navigation controls to appear because it would force the game to pause itself. I had to do this because it never once recognize my gesture to pause the game.

Your best bet to navigating the menus lies with the Xbox One controller. When I try to select things in the menu with Kinect, the game rejects me like a beautiful idle woman at a bar – it ignores what I am trying to do without barely giving me a chance. On top of that, sometimes if I tried to select something such as “Back,” it would select something else entirely.

It pains me to say these things about the Kinect because outside the broken realms of Fighter Within, Kinect 2.0 is actually fun and comes in handy at times when it comes to the console’s functions.

Not including Initiation, the game only offers four other modes to play in: Duel, Arcade, Local Multiplayer and Training. All of them are exactly as they sound and nothing more. There is no reason to play them with the game’s awful controls anyway.

The game also claims to have Extras, but the only real extra feature are character bios. The other features in Extras include Credits, Control Cards – signs that show up in battle telling you which moves you can us – and videos showing you the different moves the game has to offer. Why are credits considered an extra, and shouldn’t Control Cards and video tutorials be under Training?

There is a decent selection of 12 fighters and 10 stages with one fighter and one stage unlocked by completing the story. Aside from a few different move sets, the fighters are not distinct, even in their most basic moves. It becomes dull seeing the same grabbing move or punch over and over again despite a different character being on the screen.

Fighter Within’s sole redeeming quality is its aesthetics. The details on the fighters look great while managing to run at a solid 60 frames. It is not quite the ideal next-gen title when compared to the likes Forza 5 or Ryse, but they still appease the eyes.

I would easily argue Fighter Within is the worst launch title of the new console generation, including the Wii U. Despite a ludicrous three gigabyte update installed before playing, the game manages to fall flat in every way possible exempting its visuals. At best, it could have been a $10 downloadable title, but even then I would hesitate to give it a recommendation. Do yourself a favor: avoid Fighter Within at all costs, especially a $60 cost.

The Good

+ Pretty visuals

+ Runs smoothly

The Bad

– Nonsensical plot

– Terrible dialogue and voice acting

– Few things to do with unoriginal modes

– Dreadful Kinect controls

– Frustrating menu navigation with Kinect

– Little to no variation in fighters

|

The Score: 2