is a

versus fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

developed by Scarab for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

. It was originally published by

Naxat Soft Kaga Create Co., Ltd. was a Japan-based video game developing and publishing division of Kaga Electronics. The company initially released games for the PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America). It later released titles for a wide ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and later published in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Acclaim Entertainment Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in Glen Cove, New York. Originally formed by Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes and Jim Scoroposki out of an Oyster Bay storefront in 1987, the company established a worldwide d ...

. Similar to

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...

Pit-Fighter ''Pit-Fighter'' is a 1990 arcade fighting game by Atari Games which uses digitized live actors. It was Atari's first fighting game. The Japanese arcade release was published by Konami. Home versions were published by Tengen. The graphical ani ...

, the game makes heavy use of digitized human actors as the characters, plus some blood influenced by Midway's ''

Mortal Kombat ''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a v ...

'' series. The game features 12 playable fighters, and plays out on multi-tiered stages.

Reception

''Battle Monsters'' was panned by most critics, who found that the scaling graphics, complex controls, interactive backgrounds, and multi-tiered arenas do not work together well. They also razed the choppy animation and pixelization on the digitized sprites, and likened the game to a second-rate '' Way of the Warrior'' clone. Crispin Boyer of ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The m ...

'' called it "one sorry mess of a fighting game", ''

GamePro Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...

'' said it "doesn't even deserve coverage", and

Jeff Gerstmann Jeff Gerstmann (born August 1, 1975) is an American video game journalist. Former editorial director of the gaming website ''GameSpot'' and the co-founder/editor of the gaming website ''Giant Bomb'', Gerstmann began working at ''GameSpot'' in th ...

summarized in ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'', "While Battle Monsters does have some good ideas and twists on the standard fighting game, the whole package is poorly executed". However, ''

GameFan ''GameFan'' (originally known as ''Diehard GameFan'') was a publication started by Tim Lindquist, Greg Off, George Weising. and Dave Halverson in September 1992 that provided coverage of domestic and import video games. It was notable for its ex ...

'' defended ''Battle Monsters'', assessing that "The gameplay, though not conventional, can be entertaining, with 12 moves plus a super for each ghoul. And while the digitized graphics don't impress me as much as they did a year ago hen the game was released in Japan they are still representative of the monsters they surround." Reviewing the Japanese version as an import, ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' stated that "the characters are never quite enveloped within the background. Instead, what's left is a nice background with characters which seem to be cut and pasted on to the television screen."

References

{{reflist 1995 video games Acclaim Entertainment games Kaga Create games Sega Saturn games Sega Saturn-only games Fighting games Video games developed in Japan Video games with digitized sprites Multiplayer and single-player video games

Reception

See also

References