When we think about cool 3D fighting games from the 1990’s Ehrgeiz is one of the few games that instantly come to mind especially for those who were fans of Final Fantasy VII. Ehrgeiz was originally received an arcade release in Japan during 1998 before being ported to the PlayStation console back in 1999. This was a pretty cool game because of the inclusion of Final Fantasy VII characters in the PlayStation version of Ehrgeiz. Along with Ehrgeiz having its own characters players had the opportunity to choose people from Final Fantasy VII including Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Tifa Lockhart and others. Ehrgeiz was probably one of the first games where you play as Final Fantasy characters in a fighting title. The gameplay for Ehrgeiz was also very exciting because unlike most popular 3D fighting titles of the 90’s such as Tekken and Virtua Fighter players had the ability to move around in a 36o motion. Many 3D games that were popular during the 90’s only allowed players to sidestep while moving back and fourth in terms of gameplay. The way Dream Factory had developed Ehrgeiz was fantastic because it made this title stand out more in comparison to many other 3D games that utilized the same style of gameplay. Along with having innovative 3D gameplay the Quest mode was one of the features that stood out the most.
The Quest mode in this game made the game feel like an Action RPG title even though it was a fighting game. When it comes down to contemporary gaming in relation to fighting titles many people would probably agree that we often see a lack of creativity in terms of game modes. Generally, fighting titles of the 2010’s feel limited because they include basic game modes such as arcade, versus, training, survival and online. Back in the 90’s and early 00’s video game developers were more creative in terms of trying to make a particular game series stand out from its competitors when a title was released within the genre. Ehrgeiz is one of the few 3D fighting titles that stood out during the 90’s for reasons that one would not expect. The concept for Ehrgeiz along with the fighting mechanics had contributed to the overall appeal of this title because it was something that was different from what we got from some of the mainstream 3D games within that genre. Ehrgeiz may not have been one of the most popular 3D fighting titles of the 1990’s but it was definitely one of the more interesting games to have been released during the later part of the decade.
Gaming Hearts Collection 