![The Eye of Typhoon [극초호권] Game Sample - 3DO](/images/yt/ib/the-eye-of-typhoon-game-sample-3do-ms8oc.jpg)
The Eye of Typhoon [극초호권] Game Sample - 3DO
83So I gotta come clean: while Lucienne's Quest is likely the most sought after official title for the 3DO in the states and second in rarity to DinoPark Tycoon, they are not the rarest games on the system as a whole. While it's difficult to quantify exactly, that honor likely belongs to the 1996 South-Korean only fighting game, "The Eye of Typhoon", and if you own an actual complete copy of this game and not a burned CD-R, congrats on having what is likely the rarest 3DO game. The fact that someone even found this game in the first place and got it dumped makes that person a certified mad-lad, though I've known about this one for many years and it is, shockingly, not exclusive to the 3DO. Developed by Viccom and published by LG Korea, it was developed by the same team who released 1994's "Fight Fever" (aka Wang Jung Wang / 왕중왕, which was published under the SNK label) and is often considered the spiritual successor to the game. The game was also ported to MS-DOS, where it is arguably better (more consistent framerate, better sound depending on your soundcard though it restarts between matches, use Hoya's stage as an example, the 3DO version is flatter and missing the wind chime effect in his music, etc.), and was originally in development for the Neo Geo, where a prototype should exist.
Now I know what some of you are thinking... if you've played Fight Fever, then you most likely thought it was AWFUL, but this game is considerably better... it never reached its full potential being on either platform, but the framework is already there for a much better game than Fight Fever. If the framerate, animation, scaling and sound (in other words, just about everything) was a little better, it would be more in line with SNK's own titles, but it's not bad as-is. The scaling and framerate is more consistent in the DOS version as well as the victory screens and it doesn't have this version's hilariously bad 3D opening or loading, but this version controls a little better and is easier to run in this day and age (as the 3DO is almost completely region-free and almost all DOS games require some type of virtual environment or program like DOSBOX, unless you're one of those great people with a souped-up old computer lying around). Like most fighters, the goal is to be the last one standing and to that end, the game's cast is diverse with quite a few moves at their disposal as well as numerous super moves and the game responds well enough. My favorites are Sauri as she fights in her cheongsam and uses her usan (umbrella which was a family heirloom of hers) as a deadly weapon and Natasha who is pretty much the female equivalent of SamSho's Earthquake or KoF's Chang.
The one non-standard aspect of the fighting is that players have scrolls at the bottom of the screen that they start with and slowly acquire throughout the fight, and by pressing multiple buttons, the scroll opens and gives players a limited amount of time to execute a super move. Getting hit by one of these super moves usually takes a bonkers amount of health, especially if it connects in an unorthodox way and results in more hits than the norm. Matches can end very quickly in this game and the A.I. shows little mercy after the first opponent. I could not find any configurable options for this game and there doesn't even seem to be a normal versus mode (a player can join in during single player, but... yeah). Needless to say, this game is definitely lacking polish in some areas, but it's still a curious title and a pretty good game coming out of South Korea. It won't dethrone the better 3DO titles like Samurai Shodown or Super Street Fighter II Turbo, but it's not like there are a lot of options on the 3DO, so even a game like this stands out from some of "those other 3DO" fighters (they know who they are, lol).
This is a video of the game in action. Enjoy.
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