Review: Beyond Fighting 2
One of the genres of game that has proven exceedingly difficult to execute well for a touch screen has been Fighting games. The Street Fighter games, Soul Calibur, and a few others managed to be playable on lower difficulties, but just barely. One of the promises of official iOS game controllers was that difficult games like these could be made much more playable. It seems like a great fit – the type of hardcore gamer who becomes deeply invested in fighting games would also be a likely candidate for a physical iOS controller. Although several games have been updated for controller support, the number is perhaps not as high as I would have expected.
Beyond Fighting 2 enters the arena as the latest iOS fighting game challenger to support game controllers. Unfortunately, itâs just not that great of a game. With a massive 800 megabyte file size and superficially nice looking 3D graphics, the game promises a premium experience. In practice, it plays more like a tech demo. The menus are clunky, and donât support physical controls; the 3D character models are actually flattened to 2D sprites, similarly to how some fighting games were made before Tekken 1 came out in 1994; the physics are floaty, with the jump button sending your character in the air without a matching animation; and the music and sound effects are off balance and repetitive.
Serious fighting game fans who donât mind spending the time or the space on a download this huge might as well give Beyond Fighting 2 a shot – itâs free to try, and controller support is adequately implemented. For everyone else, there are better games to spend your time playing.