Little Fighter 2

I wrote a review for Little Fighter 2 (LF2) three years ago saying its easily the best freeware game in town. Three years later, I stand by those words. The Wong Brothers crafted a masterpiece that's not only perfect, but downright addicting. In honor of this games sheer brilliance, I'm gonna re-review it, but in greater detail...

Presentation:
OK, I always begin by talking about the presentation of a game, because its the first thing that you notice, and some times even decides if you even want to play the game at all. While LF2's presentation isn't the greatest you might have seen in a freeware game, because there's no opening, well, no story for that matter. Despite that, the menu layout is straight forward and easy to navigate. It gives you the impression that you are indeed playing an arcade style game. With that said, the presentation is simple, because that's all it needs to be.

Graphics:
Next up, it's what a lot of people judge a game by, its graphics. Rest assured, this game will not disappoint. The whole game is based on a collection of sprites, but it's the number of sprites, and its detail that make the graphics awesome. There's no fancy 3D special effects here, my friend, just good ol' sprites. Everything you do has its own sprite, from drinking a bottle of moo moo juice (milk) to executing a fire ball attack. I'm talking everything is detailed, to the point where blood is shown on your chin when your life is low (OK, I know that's OUT OF THIS WORLD material, but it was nice for the Wong brothers to do that). But you may ask "Coci, what if I don't like the sprites?" well my friend, make it yourself. No seriously, make it yourself. The game supports making your own sprites, and encourages you to make your own backgrounds. If you know DCing (Data Changing) and know how to sprite, or at least know people that can do all this, you can make your own characters along with his or her own set of moves.

Sound:
Remember how I said that the graphics are detailed? Well, so is the sound. Every collision type, no matter it be an ice column striking a wooden box , there's a sound for it. There's even sound effects for the characters foot steps for crying out loud. Sadly, there's no music, but that really doesn't matter. Just boot up the trusty iTunes, and sing away, sing away, my friend. Like the graphics, the sounds are customizable too.

Gameplay:
Here's the meat of the game. Where the game shines with the light of ten suns. When you play LF2, you realize something, the battle system is amazingly responsive and intuitive. Wanna shoot a fire ball? Block, Forward, Attack. Wanna summon your ice sword? Block, Down, Attack. It's easy to input your attack combination, because the system is flexible enough to read your commands no matter how slow or fast you input them, just as long as you do them right. This is a game that's easily picked up, hard to master, and even harder to put down. Even after you beat Stage Mode in the Crazy Difficulty (yea, I want to see you TRY to do that...no seriously, go ahead) you can take the game online. It's simple to connect to a friend, just type in their IP (and make sure firewalls are off) while their waiting, and connect. Just don't try to play somebody who say lives, in say, I dunno Mexico, when you live in the US, because you will most likely experience lag. Its easily to get hooked in trying to improve your skill and learning new combos and techniques, that you may find yourself role-playing the master of LF2 with your friends on MSN. Tired of the same old LF2 attacks and such? Well, there's PLENTY of MODs on the internet that you can use to enhance, or completely change your LF2 experience. Once you play this, there's probably no way out. Dozens of characters to choose from, so little time... in the day time...

What can I say except for "Perfection"... woah man, Deja vu...

It’s hard to explain how great Little Fighter 2 is. It’s a fighting game, like street fighter, but with different and more effective graphics as well as much better gameplay. There are a variety of gameplay modes: tournament modes, battle modes and a few more very interesting types.

Little Fighter 2 is multi player with up to 4 players at a time. Not to worry if you don't have people to play with, one area Little Fighter 2 excels in that many other freeware games fall short is AI. The computer players are very challenging.

The makers of the game (Marti Wong & Starsky Wong) are continually updating the game and adding new characters so it will never get boring.

One tip: Download Little Fighter 2 Now!

I'm not kidding people. This IS the greatest game ever created and I'm not talking about freeware games alone. Only three words to say: Download this Now!

Okay, despite that fact that I will always rank LF2 as second-best, it gets the first review from me. Why? Because if Marti and Starski had added a couple more aspects to this gem, it would have been the undisputed best of all freewares. Although the character design is not original (the real credit goes to LF by Marti Wong), their development from cute little kids fighting in their backyard in Little Fighter to full-fledged warriors in LF2 is unbelievably awesome. You will not believe the work that seems to have gone into making this game.

The gameplay is almost incomparable, and involves each character having his strengths and weaknesses, varied jump heights, melee speed, melee power, melee reach, attack pattern and also reach. The AI is probably the most intelligent among freeware games. Non-human characters do not simply hop around and use the same attack pattern over and over again. Instead, they carefully judge your movements and often predict your moves, finishing it off with a swift counter. Another good thing about the AI is that they are unpredictable, so it is not a rare sight to get beaten up black and blue by the same character whom you KO'ed without taking a hit at the same difficulty level.

Otherwise, the presentation is nothing short of fantastic. Every sprite is heavily detailed and every action has a smooth co-ordination with perfect sound effects. However, the catch here is that the game lacks a playlist, the addition of which would have made this the ultimate gaming package. The other drawback is that there is no story at all, so both of these together might render the Stage Mode quite boring after a while...