ClayFighter 63⅓ (N64) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
521A playthrough of Interplay's 1997 versus-fighting game for the Nintendo 64, ClayFighter 63⅓.
Played through on the default difficulty level as Earthworm Jim.
The internet seems to hate ClayFighter. It also seems to direct the lion's share of that hate toward the N64 games, and I really don't know why. Granted, you could argue that the original was a bit simplistic (I still found it fun), and that the second one didn't really do that much to move things forward, but that's not likely to be a complaint with ClayFighter 63⅓.
The gameplay superficially resembles the old SNES games, but make no mistake - it's a different beast, entirely. Much like everything else in the game, the fighting system is a rip on another game, parodying Killer Instinct. The combo system is very similar, requiring specials/jumps to launch into a series of auto-second hits and linkers, and get this: they're even poking fun at the absurd naming conventions for combos in KI. There are just as many 'different' combo types here, but now they're named things like, "Itty-bitty Combo" and "Dumb Combo." You also get super combos, which run off of three-stage power meters a la Street Fighter Alpha 2.
Fight endings are similar as well: once the enemy's life is in the red, you can launch a combo and link it into a command for the "ultimate" combo, giving you absurdly huge numbers (auto 600-hit anyone?) - unlike KI, though, after the ultimate combo, you can still launch the final "Claytality" move. They're nowhere near as violent as you'd expect, but they are just as dumb as the game they end up mocking (Mortal Kombat). My favorite is Jim's ability to "launch" his famous cow onto the dizzied and defeated opponent. Clay splatters and flattens pretty well, so it turns out.
Each of the arenas are pretty surprisingly huge. Though it can be difficult to access the other areas at times, the stages all have doors that, if someone gets knocked backwards and through them, lead to whole new sections of the current stage. Some allow players to be punched through the ceiling (think MK3), while others merely go into a new room (eg. a door in the battleground stages leads you to a hanger loaded with crates and army jeeps).
There are twelve fighters to play as here, although only nine are available until the others have been unlocked. Half of characters are from older games, four of them are brand-new, and two are loaners from other games - I was a huge fan of the inclusion of Earthworm Jim and Boogerman.
Man, Earthworm Jim really got around, didn't he? He was also in the PC version of Battle Arena Toshinden as a hidden character!
One of the common things that people seem to criticize with this game is the presentation, and I thoroughly disagree there. I really do think that, if you're being reasonable with your expectations for a 1997 N64 game, you'll find a lot to appreciate here. Yes, the animation was a bit choppier than you'd expect, some of the graphics are a bit on the fuzzy side, but the cartridge it was shipped on was only 12 megabytes! Given the variety and complexity of the character designs and the sheer volume of voice samples, it's a miracle that they packed this much into the game to begin with. If you need a good basis for comparison, go back and look at the first ClayFighter from 1993. It shipped on a 2 megabyte cartridge. Things had come A LONG way in four years, even if the game would've benefited from the storage capacity of a CD-ROM.
The graphics and sound are really something pretty special here, though. They are overflowing with personality - the characters are all pretty sharp and have some hilarious facial expressions and attacks, and holy celebrity alert! The voice cast is well beyond anything we expected back in the 90s! It features Jim Cummings (Animaniacs), Dan Castellaneta (Simpsons), Rob Paulsen (Animaniacs), Tres MacNeille (Disney), Charlie Adler (Disney), and Frank Welker (Scooby Doo). Just look up their individual credits. There's no way to not be impressed by that line-up, and it shines through in the game itself. It's pretty fantastically funny.
Hmmm.... the voice cast is suspiciously similar to that of Orion Burger on PC... ;)
In the end, Clayfighter 63⅓ isn't a flawless game by any means, but it's an outright fun one. It lacks the balancing, speed, and polish on the mechanics that SF2 and KI have, but it more than makes up for it with its personality.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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