Masters of Combat - Sega Master System (Gameplay & Opinion)
7The Master System has a few one-on-one fighters but they are usually fairly expensive to buy these days. The most expensive of these to get a European release is Masters of Combat which was brought out in 1993 by Sega, an exclusive game for the Sega Master System in the west. There was technically a port for the Sega Game Gear that only saw the light of day in Japan called ‘Buster Fight’ in 1994. It is largely the same with the same characters moves, levels etc., however there are a few differences due to the Game Gears advantages / limitations such as the screen now scrolling on the levels and a few colours being changed around.
The game itself is a 1-2 player fighting tournament such in the same style as Street Fighter 2 where you take control of one of four fighters as they try to be the best whilst uncovering the mystery of the strange ufo which has crashed down to Megalo City. There are five stages in all with one bonus stage (which is an obvious rip-off of the car destroying scene from SF2), where you have to fight all of the playable characters along with the final boss.
The four characters that you can select from have different strengths and abilities with Gonzales being the strong but slow fighter, Wingberger having the nice advantage of added reach, the ninja Hayate is the fastest of the four and the last character Highvoltman who is a character who I really don’t like playing as but can be really cheap playing against as his electricity attacks are somewhat powerful. Overall it’s a good mix of characters, but I do wish that there were more to play as.
The game is animated really well for a Sega Master System with it being really smooth and drawn very well with only a little bit of flickering and no slowdown. Ultimately the amount of animation is probably why there are only four playable fighters in the game, if you look at the Mortal Kombat games for instance there are only two backgrounds and a general lack of animation in the backdrops in the Master System version. In this one there is definitely more detail with plenty of little things in the background such as the moving conveyer in the factory, the lighting effects in the temple to the waving watchers on the swat base.
Overall the game is very easy to pick up and play. Button 1 acts as your attack, back being the block with button 2 being a dash / jump. I would have preferred the jump to be the up button on the d-pad, but overall the controls are very responsive and feel very natural for the genre.
Whilst I do like Masters of Combat and its great fun to play, my main problem with it comes with the price tag. It regularly goes for between £100-£200 complete online and for that price it is probably not worth it. Mortal Kombat 1+2 are much cheaper on the Sega 8-bit and frankly I think that with the larger roster of characters that you should probably pick those up first.
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