AA Look - Sega's Other Games

You guessed it. Here are some looks at Sega arcade games we may never see on consoles.

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Arabian Fight
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You wouldn't know it considering this is Sega but Arabian Fight is perhaps one of the worst beatemups ever. While it's an impressive showcase for the System 32 hardware(which also powered the likes of Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder and Outrunners) this is just a disaster on every level and it only succeeds at doing absolutely nothing right.

There's an evil wizard by the name of Sazabiss? Or is it Snagglepuss? Maybe it's Bagapiss? Anyway to show how evil he is he kidnaps a princess to sacrifice to his evil god. Sinbat the Sailor(Shouldn't that be Sinbad?) some tomboy, a burly dude, and a Shaolin Monk must go through several stages to gawk at some neat animations and engage in some of the worst beatemup design ever.

Right off the bat the mechanics are among the worst ever in a game. If you ever wondered how one can fail at mechanics this is the game for you. Most of the player's attacks won't connect to anything and even when they do enemies have a habit of ignoring punches and just going into whatever attack they choose. There's a block but it's worthless and the jump-kicks available to the player are even worse. When enemies are knocked down there's no guarantee that they'll actually hit the ground. Some will just pop back up in mid-air and resume fighting like nothing happened. There are some options for mixing up attacks like performing an uppercut that knocks an enemy into the air. Of course when the mechanics make absolutely no sense it just becomes another worthless attack. When it comes down to it the only way to progress is to just flail away and keep putting those quarters in until the game finally ends.

The enemy variety isn't that bad considering the genre but there isn't a single one of them that isn't completely laughable. The pathetic mechanics lead to nothing but clumsy fights and the stilted animations lead to some silly attacks(like golden skeletons that perform cartwheels, except there's no animation for it so it just looks like they're standing sprite rotating). The bosses are similar in this respect in that they are horribly done. Even if the mechanics are competent these bosses would be little more than dull and frustrating. In a way having the game be such a miserable piece of work actually makes it a little enjoyable. Even when you die you know it isn't your fault because the game is broken so you can chill and just have fun with it.

The only redeeming quality is if you're the kind of person who gets enjoyment out of making fun of terrible games. I promise you'll have a field day with this one as it only manages to get worse with each passing stage. Thankfully fans of Arabian Arcade games still have Arabian Magic, which is a fine hack & slash and certainly not a total embarrassment like Arabian Fight. They also spelled Sinbad right.