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Review: Godzilla Domination [GBA] |
Godzilla has appeared in many a videogame over his almost 50 year career, on-the-rails-shooters, Puzzlers and even ‘Godzilla-Simulators’.
When it comes to fighting games, there was a Japan only Super NES game and the unofficial (but clearly influenced) King of the Monsters series from SNK. For some reason it was felt that a new Godzilla game was warranted, and so we got ‘Godzilla:Destroy All Monsters Melee’. Like all big games nowadays, this got itself a downgraded GBA version, dubbed ‘Domination’. Why exactly these got PAL releases, I’m not 100% sure, if Godzilla’s popularity here has risen, then I havent noticed it. Anyway, Domination is a 1-4 player fighting game from Infogrames/Atari and was released without much fuss in late 2002, to very little notice by anyone.
The game does sport a fairly large resemblance to KOTM. It is also some sort of cross-breed between a fighter and a beat ‘em up, kind of like being permanently stuck in the Streets of Rage ‘DUEL’ mode, just replacing Max vs Galcia with Megalon vs Godzilla. Thankfully, Domination keeps clear of the wrestling elements that made KOTM strange, no ‘ropes’ and thank god, no pinning. Its simply pound your opponent(s) until their energy bar(s) empty.
The games controls are fairly simple. L is block, R is jump, A is Punch and B is Kick. Special moves are accomplished by charging either punch or kick for a few seconds and releasing. These vary from Godzilla’s Big Bite to Mothra encasing her opponent in cocoon goo.
By using these special moves and destroying buildings, a second power bar underneath each characters energy builds up in three stages. Each Monster has three super moves levels 1-3, some deadly,some rather useless. Like the special moves, there are set button combinations that apply to all characters. A+B together will produce on super, as will L+R,the final command is pressing A+B while in the air. It varies from character to character which command does which level of super.
The character lineup is rather disapointing and rather strange. There are only 6 monsters on offer. Godzilla, Rodan, Mechagodzilla (the 1993 version), Mothra (adult form), King Ghidorah and the shock character Megalon.
Despite his one movie appearance being met with little popularity, even by Godzilla fans, he sure is popular as far as games go nowadays. A variation of the Mecha-King Ghidora appears as a boss, but I’ll get back to that later.
You cant help but feel a few more characters wouldnt have hurt. I’m also puzzled about Megalon’s inclusion. All the other monsters appeared in the 80s/90s Godzilla movies (or Heisei movies to fags like me), but he was last seen in the early 70s, I would have thought Space Godzilla or Destroyah would have fitted in better.
When the title screen loads up, players are presented with four options.’Story’ the main mode of the game, ‘Versus’, where up to 4 players can link up (using one cart!), ‘Custom’, where the player chooses his beast, and up to three cpu controlled kaiju and the stage for a one of battle, and finally ‘Options’ which is fairly sparse.
The story mode,is presented by the lovely Connie Matsu, a TV reporter for the ‘Godzilla Watch Newsroom’ who informs us that ‘Meteor X’ has appeared over Tokyo and is causing havoc. Magnetic waves from this mysterious meteor are projecting and ‘causing serious neurological damage to several giant monsters’, and this being Godzilla, this neurological damage means that they are all going on paths of destruction accross the earth and on various fictional planets never mentioned in any of the movies. You choose your kaiju, who is the only monster unaffected by these waves, and battle through 7 fights, some one on one, some one against three, some 4 way every monster for himself, before squaring off against the hilariously out of proportion, and hilariously easy Mecha-King Ghidorah for the fate of the earth. Inbetween each duel Ms.Matsu gives us a nice little update on where we are going etc. which is rather pointless, but a nice touch.
The games graphics are fairly decent. The backgrounds and character portraits are very well done, however the sprites are a bit mixed. For some reason Megalon is Aquamarine and orange instead of brown and yellow, but besides that he is fine, the rest of the cast are all presented fairly well. All of them but Godzilla himself. The monsterking has been given comical buck-teeth,and his arms are a bit long and skinny. These problems aside, the graphics are fairly solid, with each stage having a variety of buildings, army and other smashable items.
The sound is another story, highly forgettable tunes, and extremely muffled monster roars. The latter is made all the more comical by the fact that in Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo on GBA, the roar of Godzilla’s bud Anguirus has been faithfully represented in Fei Long’s stage.
The gameplay itself is ok, but nothing more. The collision detection can occasionally be off, but not anything major, just slightly annoying. As I said previously, some of the special moves are rather pointless, its also fairly annoying that to be able to fire one shot of Godzilla’s famous atomic breath, you have to stomp buildings and bite you opponent a lot. It gets even more annoying when said atomic blast only fires half an inch in front of you.
The controls are a very mixed bag. While walking, jumping, blocking, punching, kicking and the special moves are pretty spot on, the supers aren’t the most responsive things in the world, causing extreme frustration in some cases.
The games story has some severe holes. While you might say the story doesnt matter, not just as a Godzilla fan but in general I find these gaps immensely stupid. The Mechagodzilla in the game is piloted by humans. The characters story mode ending even acknowledges this. If Connie is anything to go by, these brain waves are not affecting humans, so why is MG affected? Does this mean people’s toasters will be going apeshit due to this meteor? Also, Mecha-King Ghidora. In the movies, MKG is just a beat up regular KG, back from the future with cybernetic parts. It is also human controlled, but I’ll get back to that. How in the name of Christ do they explain MKG being ten-times the size of KG? Did the dead KG just keep growing? In all the characters endings, Matsu declares that they believe Meteor X was ‘the lair of MKG’, and implies that the whole thing was a plot created by the flipping robot. Which is meant to be controlled by a human.
I could forgive the story faults if the game were really good, but even as a fan of the movies, I cant really give it all that much praise for the simple fact that its gets boring very fast. Even with the various match types, it gets old way to quickly. Story mode offers an ending for each monster, but these are short and rather disapointing, not worth slugging through 8 fights for. The final battle is also a bit of a let down. MKG has the most blatantly
obvious pattern of attack you will ever see, and its the sad truth that you win the final duel using only jumping kicks.
Unfortunately, seeing as none of my friends own a GBA, testing the multiplayer is out of the question, which is a shame because I think that could redeem it somewhat.
Domination is by no means a terrible game, it just isnt all that good. No single aspect of the game is really bad, but they all have faults, which brings it down to a mediocre overall result. Extra characters to unlock could have helped, but seeing as they would have used the exact same move commands as everyone else, it couldn’t have done that much for the game.
As far as portable Godzilla games go, this is top, but on a system that sports Super Turbo Revival, this doesnt really cut it as a fighter. If you like Godzilla, found King of the Monsters fun and have the need for a portable version, then you’ll probably enjoy this. Anyone else: either wait until it’s fairly inexpensive, or just steer clear.
