Review: Crazy For Fight 1

I discovered this map by accident. It just so happens that there is another "Crazy For Fight" which was considered to be the only installment in the series (that actually turns out to be a trinity of packs) and when attempting a review I noticed the maps are unsigned and the author has left no data on his identity in the levels' metadata or the accompanying readme document. After conducting a thorough search, I managed to not only discover who the author was but also find... this. Crazy For Fight, the first, the original.

The map is just an arcade romp. It shows. The outdoors are a typical transition area, albeit quite nice, still basic though - albeit as the player progresses through them, an interesting image of a varied canyon-like area appears in their mind. The indoor parts are nothing more than an ancient-looking purposeless dungeon - lack of any translator messages in the level or synopsis in the readme only underline that lack of purpose for the structures. The texturing and settings are varied enough that the map never gets boring, BSP/HOM issues are barely there but there's nothing much else. At the beginning at least. But, as the player progresses, the environment becomes more and more interesting and while it never leaves the basic level of quality, it does make an impression that Tatuyuki got better and better ideas as he progressed with the map. I'll never forget the ending - an icefield with the ice layer being so transparent that huge fish and squid specimens are seen frozen in the ice block. At first I was shooting away at them thinking they'll go live in a minute and when I jumped down, I realized what was wrong. Despite the basic visuals of the map overall, this was still a sight to behold.

The level's audio layer is even more basic than the visuals. The only musical track playing is Surfacing and there's barely any ambience on the map but given its arcade feel it actually does not sting the player, not one bit. Surfacing is a quite fast paced, melodic tune and it suits the gameplay admirably.

The only thing Crazy For Fight does perfectly right is the oldschool arcade run-and-gun romp gameplay. All one needs to do is traverse the linear area, eliminating the opposition as they appear on the player's way. This might sound boring, but it isn't - it's pretty fast-paced and not too long, so there is no boredom. Some enemies have their default properties modified and thus they spice up the gameplay a bit more. There's more than enough bullets to eliminate the entire opposition and more than enough healing items to fortify oneself so gameplay balance is no problem at all, until the player does something stupid like ignoring missiles or projectiles that are coming their way or jump into the lava pools.