Ragnagard - Classic Arcade Fighting Game (Saurus/System Vision 1996)
4This classic 2D fighting game was developed jointly by Saurus and System Vision, and published to arcades by SNK (1996). The game ran on the Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware.
Developers made use of pre-rendered sprites for the depiction of both characters and background elements in the game. The characters themselves fit the picturesque profile of computer generated imagery that was often common among PC games of the same era.
Despite the game's aging graphics, it was by all means a very well functioning fighting game; complete with a roster of 8 playable characters, all with unique fighting abilities. The characters are all based on classic Shinto Deities.
Among this game's many cool features are the ability to conduct multi-chain and air combos. There's also a power gauge that can be charged up by pressing and holding a 3 button configuration.
Once the power gauge meter is full, players can unleash desperation moves, which are essentially enhancements to each characters special fighting maneuvers.
The desperation moves consist of an element system, centered upon four elements, including Water, Fire, Breeze, and Lightning. But each character only has access to two of the four elements.
There were also super desperation maneuvers. But these were trickier to use, as your life meter has to be very low, and your power gauge meter totally full.
To Ragnagard's benefit, the game play was fast, thanks in part to the ability to perform dash and air combo maneuvers on the fly. On the downside, the game suffered from input lag at certain points in the game, a common issue that plagued many fighting games of the same era.
As the game progresses, the AI becomes more and more aggressive as the computer character's life is drained. Should the computer character's life meter fall very low, the AI responds by going absolutely berserk and becoming super aggressive!
The Asian ports were better known as "Shinohken": "God Phoenix Fist" and or "True King Fist" respectively. Besides Ragnagard's arcade debut, the game was also ported to the Neo Geo AES home console, the Neo Geo CD, as well as the Sega Saturn.
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