Fighting Masters is a beautiful fighter where everyone is a grappler, the factual best archetype in fighting games.

The plot absolutely rules. The sun is about to go supernova and these guys named "The Primaries" can only save one race, and champions from each race must fight to see which of them gets to survive! I think it was changed from the Japanese version, because it doesn't explain why the leader guy (Valgasu) fights you at the end. The playable fighters include Dirk the boring white guy, Zygrunt the lobster man, Uppercut the boxing glove'd ogre/cyclops, and Rotundo the blue derpy obese multi-boobed person. Zangief wouldn't stand a chance against any of these people, and that's ignoring the fact they're apparently all at least 50 feet tall, which may or may not be a hilarious error since Dirk probably should've been 5'7" and 220, not 57 feet tall and 2200 pounds. I'll stick with them being tiny kaijus though.

The gameplay is incredibly simple and only has one attack button and one jump button. Matches generally turn into a bunch of flailing and jumping around and trying to slam each other against the ground and walls to incredibly satisfying THUD sound effects. Despite it's incredible lack of depth it's horrifically fun to play and watch, it's one of those fighters that's objectively not great by any stretch, but is still very entertaining in short bursts. Just look out for the final boss, the bastard can 100-0 you super easily. Which is strangely thrilling despite how shitty that sounds.

It's busted, it's broken, it's stupid. It fuckin' rules, it's Fighting Masters for the Sega Genesis!

Reviewed on May 26, 2022


2 Comments


1 year ago

I played that game a bunch when I was younger. Xenon and Zygrunt were my favorites, hands-down. I loved that when you bought the game, it came with little collectible cards that had the fighters on them.

1 year ago

Oh man, I forgot it came with cards of the fighters! That shit is so cool.