Midway (from Bally-Midway of pinball fame) tries their hand at the 90's fighter craze with this whimsical one-off tournament fighter that was a bit ahead of its time, distinguished by digitized photographs of live actors instead of the hand-drawn art that was then prevalent. Unfortunately, while a novel idea in theory, in practice we had trouble telling many of the characters apart, likelyMidway (from Bally-Midway of pinball fame) tries their hand at the 90's fighter craze with this whimsical one-off tournament fighter that was a bit ahead of its time, distinguished by digitized photographs of live actors instead of the hand-drawn art that was then prevalent. Unfortunately, while a novel idea in theory, in practice we had trouble telling many of the characters apart, likely due to the smeary resolution limitations of the era; eventually it's just "the girl", "the guy with the funny hat", "that other guy", "that other other guy who looks like him", and so forth.
Visuals aside, though, 'Kombat' (sic) showed a lot of promise at the time, and one surmises it must have been the victim of a fraught development. There's a lot to like: rapid fire fisticuffs are thrilling, and slow but powerful roundhouse kicks deliver a satisfying "oomph". But some ideas feel they needed more time for a thorough fleshing out. For example, "low" and "high" attacks suggest some intense what's-he-gonna-do-next mind games that must have been on the drawing board, but aside from the sweep kicks these are all blockable regardless of stance. Fire, ice, and lightning elementals perhaps suggest an unfinished rock-paper-scissors dynamic. Many of the limbs flailing about in the special moves suggest designs more ambitious than actors perched on stools or propped up by wire could realistically support at the time. A higher screen resolution may have allowed for devilish character-defining facial expressions instead of the featureless blobs, etc.
The game's tone also suggests a disjoint between the directorial vision and the actual implementation; the overall mood of the story is dour and brooding, but there are so many silly moments during actual play one can only imagine heads were on the chopping block at the time of the game's release. Unfortunately the whimsical elements were the ones we enjoyed the most: the silly "you-can't-see-me-if-I-can't-see-you" crouching motion, graceful yet absurd ballerina jump-punches, curly ball-rolling attacks that seem to parody Metroid, and so on; we would have loved to see more of the staff's playful side. We especially liked the schlocky yellow multi-armed claymation monster; perhaps a weird clay creature battler or even a camp horror movie-themed fighter would have been an interesting experiment for Midway!
Sadly, the seemingly rushed development would prove 'Kombat''s downfall; the lack of polish, not the least of which were balance-breaking bugs (moves that failed to connect on certain characters, etc.) and rampant spelling mistakes (one in the title no less!) would relegate it to the target of ill-deserved jokes before it faded into obscurity. With the right direction and a little more time, one can only wonder at what might have been. But alas, such are the what-ifs. Still, 'Kombat' shows a lot of promise and a lot to like for fighter fans; definitely worth a look if you can find this one at your local thrift shop.
(Editor's note: this review refers to the original arcade and 16-bit home console release; 'Kollection' also includes revisions 2 and 3, which feature extended character rosters.)… Expand
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