What a cute little title to drop! Sugoi Hebereke is a fascinating little game, a fully functional four-player multitap marvel for the SNES to allow arena-style combat that wouldn't be fully capitalized on even in later eras! Its top-down action stylings set it apart from other fighters of its era, being entirely positionally-based, relying on drops from power-ups from the sky and cute, imaginative arenas in order to turn the tide of battle. This is one of the most innovative little party brawlers made in its era (that I know of), and certainly deserves its flowers for that.

Anyway I beat it by walking up to every opponent and spamming grab, which deals a ton of damage, and then repeated that like 20 times. Hebereke does not stray far from the fighting game formula by including traditional health bars as the means of elimination, and it provides a ton of hitstun on most of its moves and usually pretty simplistic inputs for very linear strategies. It lacks the thrill of a ring-out kind of mechanic, the power-ups aren't quite as useful as just punching another dude repeatedly, and I managed to roll credits with merely the knowledge of how to do a penguin boy flash kick and mashing. I'm sure that there could be more depth to it, but ultimately, this is a game that I respect the gumption of significantly more than I enjoy playing it. I don't think it's bad at all, just uninspired mechanically past its initial innovation, which is clearly taking all of its horsepower!

Reviewed on Apr 12, 2024


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