an all-but-forgotten fighter released in december of 1991, by people you'd probably never heard of until they did e.v.o.: search for eden on the SNES. actually, you've still probably never heard of aicom or ALU, as they did e.v.o. under the name almanic corporation.
that game was famous for its unique mechanics, having you start as a prehistoric creature and evolve through one of multiple pathways, but also known for its poor controls. sadly, fighting masters, like most early fighting games, is no exception to the poor controls issue.
but! we are here for the lizards, and it does have those. specifically it has drason (JP) or xenon (NA), a fire-breathing anthro dragon. you can also play as "mastodon".
xenon can breathe fire, and, well, that's your only attack pretty much. this game is a two-button fighter, with one of the buttons being used to jump. yes, instead of having "up" be the jump, they assigned a whole button on the MD's controller to it, then left the third button unused. the jump also includes a flying kick attack, but only sometimes.
as detailed here, you can't block, if you jump near a wall you'll bounce off it, and the effects of attacks are random. there is no excuse for having any of your moves, in any fighting game, be random.
no, that's not a glitch; it just looks like that when you KO someone.
the whole thing makes for absolutely soggy, sorry gameplay, to the point where i was checking my controller multiple times because it felt like my character was acting on their own. what was actually happening was i was bouncing off the walls, which takes up a huge chunk of your movement time and makes it feel like the game is on demoplay.
in the last review i called beast wrestler "barely playable", and now i regret that, because as clunky and uncertain as it is, it does manage to obey the basic laws of videogame control. you press up, you move up. you press left, you move left. in fighting masters you're bounced about like a pinball, repeatedly slapping one button until someone dies.
this just isn't a fun experience at all, even if xenon is nice and there are many, many anthros. 1/10.
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