Fighting Eyes (PS1) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
69A playthrough of Pony Canyon's 1998 3D fighting game for the Sony Playstation, Fighting Eyes (ファイティングアイズ).
Played through the single player mode as Shark on the normal difficulty level. After the main playthrough, I allowed all of the pre-game demos to play: doing this unlocks the Mini Game option from the main menu, and I show this mini game at the end of the video. The main game is entirely in English.
Fighting Eyes was a Japan-only title that had an incredibly limited release: According to a few different sources, only about a thousand copies of the title were ever produced. Most of the Japanese sites I've looked at in searching for information on Fighting Eyes also tend to reference its infamous review from Famitsu: it scored a 16/40 back in 1998, and as anyone familiar with the magazine can attest to, that's beyond bad. It's actually one of the worst ratings ever handed out over the course of the publication's 32 year history.
The game's notoriety for being one of the ultimate kusoge is what initially drew my attention to it, and I'm glad it did. The game is completely terrible, but the flaws are what kept me the most entertained. It's not "so bad that it's good," but it is so bad that you'll be thoroughly entertained by it for awhile.
You get your choice of twelve exceedingly strange characters, including Shark Pirates, the pirate with a glass eye (yes, his name says "Pirates"); Pierrot, a government spy in the guise of a circus performer; and my personal favorite, Shimui, a ninja who looks exactly like Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th Part 2. He rocks the signature pillow case on his head with one eye hole cut out. I'm not even joking.
Fighting Eyes does a lot of interesting things as a fighting game to make it stand out. There's no jumping, there's an unlimited use "instant counter" gimmick that blows an incoming attack back, you can "snake" around attacks with the dash button, and you can end a fight early (no matter which round you are in) by using your super combo on an enemy that's nearly out of life by leaving them with "No Fighting Spirit."
The moves are pretty ridiculous and can be hard to pull off, but thankfully the inputs are largely the same between characters. Move lists can be found in the practice mode, but most of the attacks are fairly self-explanatory with Virtua Fighter-style inputs. There isn't any semblance of a combo system, so things are kept simple.
The graphics are pretty terrible, even by PS1 standards with awkward clipping and some of the jankiest 3D animation I've seen (those arm and leg movements!), but they do have a certain charm. The music can also be catchy at times. The sound effects are a great source of comedy, though, as they often don't match up with the hits on-screen. It's all quite surreal.
If you really want to play a bad fighting game, I can heartily recommend this one. It's terrible but fun, so it at least sits well above the likes of Rise of the Robots. What a legacy to leave, huh?
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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