Aggressors of Dark Kombat


Aggressors of Dark Kombat, known in Japan as Thrilling Intense March or simply GanGan, is a 1994 one-on-one fighting arcade game developed by Alpha Denshi Corp. and published by SNK. The English game title uses the same initials as the developer.

Gameplay

The game's major innovation is the ability of fighters to move virtually continuously towards or away from the screen as well as left and right in a similar manner to some 1980s arcade fighting games like Taito's Violence Fight, SNK's Street Smart and Atari's Pit-Fighter. Because of this, unlike many other 2D fighting games, the game uses one action button to jump, and does not use the "D" button, unlike many SNK fighting games. Only two action buttons are used for attacking ; instead, grappling and grabbing opponents is the focus of the gameplay: opponents can counter being grabbed and break free as well. Also featured is weapon play. Weapons can be picked up and thrown, or used in special and standard attacks. Weapons are thrown into the ring by spectators in the background.
The health bar has several layers of colors to indicate the health. There is also a "Crazy Meter" at the bottom of the screen. It is built up as characters attack; this gives the character a special attack that will defeat the opponent outright. It is called the "Gan Gan Attack" in Japan, and "Crazy Attack" internationally.
Battles are joined by irreverent, sometimes humorous pre-fight banter from characters. The dialogue differs from opponent to opponent, and the fight is immediately presaged by a clash of two small images of the combatants' eyes in the center of the screen. There are almost no differences between the Japanese release of this game and the international versions aside from the name, and the removal of blood when using a critical hit on an opponent.

Characters

The game features eight selectable characters. The characters are not named anywhere during gameplay, which is unusual for the genre. Seven of the characters are new to the series, but Kotaro Fūma returns from World Heroes.
The game was later ported to the Neo-Geo AES console, then ported a year later to SNK's Neo Geo CD. In 2008 it was also ported along with a few other Neo-Geo titles also by ADK to the PlayStation 2 as part of the ADK Damashii Game Collection released in Japan only. It has also been ported on the Japanese NeoGeo Mini, in 2018 as one of the 40 games. Celebrating SNK's 40th anniversary. It was later re-released on other NeoGeo Mini systems, the limited edition Christmas, Samurai Shodown and Samurai Spirits versions.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Aggressors of Dark Kombat on their September 1, 1994 issue as being the eighth most-successful table arcade unit of the year, outperforming titles such as Fantastic Journey.
On release, GamePro panned the Neo Geo version of the game, saying it "combines aspects of Art of Fighting, World Heroes, and Street Fighter without coming close to the complexity or challenge of any of them." They complained of unresponsive controls and the excessively long string of commands required to execute Crazy moves, and remarked that though the sprites are large, they are nonetheless unimpressive due to the uninteresting animations and unoriginal character designs. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly acknowledged the mediocre animations and character designs, but asserted that the game is fun if given a chance, with the strong points including the ability to fight in multiple planes and the humorous crazy moves. They gave it a unanimous score of 7 out of 10. Famitsu scored it a 25 out of 40.
Next Generation reviewed the Neo-Geo version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "Although moves are difficult to pull off, ADK's crisp look and powerful action make it well worth the trouble." A critic for Next Generation scored the Neo Geo CD version two out of five stars. He contended that despite SNK marketing the game as a 3D fighter, it is purely 2D, and that the ability to fight in multiple planes, while a decent effort at innovation, ultimately has little impact on the gameplay. He concluded that "From graphics to moves to sound effects, almost every element in this game is more-or-less average and is not likely to stand out from the enormous 2D fighting library of Neo-Geo."
Aggressors of Dark Kombat was awarded Strangest Game of 1994 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.