The Games of my Life

Sango Fighter, again, is a game few will know. It’s a Chinese-made fighting game, in the Street Fighter mold. For MS-DOS. Remember that?

Since the game is Chinese, and not originally intended to be distributed in the West, it’s… well, exotic. The fighters don’t look angry, they look ceremonial, and painting-like epic. Their looks… let’s say me and my friends gave most of them nicknames, such as “the bearded guy” or “the barkeep”. Their battle cries… How heroic does “oyyyy!” sound? And you have to see some of the winning poses to believe them…

But it played great.

It was a game where you always felt you could become a little better - and not, like in more recent games, by memorizing and practicing a 12-button combo, but by using about 5 special moves per character (other than the basic ones). No matter how fast the other guy was, there was always a way to move faster and counter his move - not out of cheapness, but because you really could perform the counter-move faster. When we got good, we were really good - our matches became epic, as we countered move with counter-move with counter-counter-move. Wheels within wheels within wheels, and other Dune quotes.

This is the fighting game I’ve played the most in my life, with the second one being the PC port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. And I still have fond memories of it. Current fighting games seem to be either graphical show-offs, button mashers, or simply combo memorizing games… not Sango Fighter.