Pocket Fighter: Street Fighter with a super-deformed twist!

If one were to consider Street Fighter Alpha 3 to be the high point of the Street Fighter franchise, then you might consider Pocket Fighter to be the comic relief. Pocket Fighter basically pokes fun at two of the big Capcom fighting game franchises: Street Fighter and Darkstalkers. There are super-deformed characters, wacky occurrences, and some wicked combos. If you take the time to play this game a bit longer, though, you'll find that there's a fairly solid fighting game under the humor and wackiness that's easy enough for novices to get into, and yet has challenging enough AI to keep veterans amused. While the game is nowhere near perfect, it does supply a good time and might be a good pickup, especially for novice fighting game fans, younger players, and Capcom fans.

Let's start by looking at Pocket Fighter's graphics. The characters are super-deformed and well... rather cute. When's the last time you heard THAT about a Street Fighter game? If you were to envision a fighting game called "Capcom Kids", these characters would fit the bill very well. The characters are pretty well-animated, including a bunch of super moves and hyper combos that are basically the same as in the original Street Fighter and Darkstalkers games. Ken and Ryu have their fireballs and dragon punches. Morrigan has her monster fireballs. There is decent character representation from both series, so fans of either or both will get a kick out of this game. The backgrounds are also fitting, and contain many other Capcom characters that are not playable characters, such as M. Bison, Blanka, and more. The graphics are colorful and, while they are not as detailed as in many other Street Fighter offerings, they convey the atmosphere of the game and do the job well. The music is sugary and cute, with fairly upbeat tempos; more importantly, the music in unobtrusive. The sound effects are your basic Capcom fare, with some cartoon-like wackiness thrown in for effect.

Gameplay, even in this game, is still a strong point and is at least as tight as its Capcom brethren. The control scheme is simplified, with only one punch and one kick button, along with a special button. Wacky chain combos are now possible, like Morrigan dressing up in a nurse's outfit and charging you with a wheelchair. Characters have three special moves than can be leveled up three times each via gems. These gems (Super Puzzle Fighter II fans will recognize them instantly) can be obtained by hitting opponents and then picking up the gems for power-up purposes. Super moves will starting connecting for multiple hits and more damage. Much like the Street Fighter Alpha series, there is also a Hyper Combo Meter so that you can pull off some serious combos for even more serious damage. These combos can register some Marvel vs. Capcom-like hit counts, so if you like decimating your opponents, this is a great game for that. As with other Capcom titles, there are multiple game modes in Pocket Fighter, as well, including Arcade, Versus, and Survival. The game is fun for one or two players, so either way, you'll have a blast.

Pocket Fighter isn't a serious game, so serious fighting fans will more than likely be turned off by this game's silliness; however, casual fans, beginners, younger gamers, and Capcom fans will more than likely find Pocket Fighter to be right up their alley. Don't be fooled by the game's cartoonish nature... there's an above-average fighting game here that is not only fun, but can even pose the occasional challenge. Kudos to Capcom for taking a walk on the silly side... I think that Pocket Fighter is a lot of fun, and I think that you might, too.