Ehrgeiz

ehr•geiz. n. German lang.: ambition.

The cover of this game sports a saying: GOD BLESS THE RING. I only know so much about the ring in this game, for much of my time was spent elsewhere in this strange Squaresoft entry.

Ehrgeiz was marketed as a fighting game, true enough. Its main selling point, though, is that the game had playable characters from Square's top selling RPG Final Fantasy VII. The cameos were made by Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart and the über-swordsman Sephiroth. The idea of playing with such popular characters in a fighting game would be a great addition--and help move a rather uninspired-looking fighting game. Some would buy it and some would walk away, claiming Square was milking FFVII for more money than could be possibly made from FFVII itself. The people who did the latter lost out on a very interesting game altogether.

The game itself wasn't just a fighting game; it was a disc that conatined 2 real games and 4 mini-games. The 4 mini-games allowed you to choose all the characters from the fighting game and pitted them against each other in non-lethal combat. The second real game--an RPG(?!)-- was the main selling point for me and is be a test to anyone who wants to try.

In an attempt to review this game as a whole, I'll have to break it down into 3 modes.
First things first, we'll deal with the Fighting Mode. I have tried to play this fighting game and I can tell you this: it's straight-up balls. in addition to the FFVII cameos, there are the original characters in Ehrgeiz. There's the evil Godhand, policewoman Yoko, zombie martial artist Lee, another cyborg named Han, wildchild Jo, wrestler Prince Doza, and other combatants whom all compete for a chance at eternal life in poorly rendered battle arenas. Me no likey fighting game at all.

Second, the Mini-Game Mode. These were some cheapo games, but they are funny to watch. Except for Infinity Battle; that sucked ass. If these events are actually part of the competition to become immortal, I might actually consider partaking in the Ehrgeiz competition.

Above: Koji(bottom) and Claire fight their way out of "THE FORSAKEN DUNGEON".

Last and best of all, in my opinion, is the Quest Mode. This is the RPG I spoke of, titled "The Forsaken Dungeon" and starring 2 sideline characters from Ehrgeiz. One of them is Yoko's dad Koji and the other is Koji's assistant, Claire. They do something stupid and get sent to a town built into the side of a mountain which houses a massive dungeon. The only way back is to defeat the Phoenix at the bottom of the maze & it'll grant your wish to go home. Both Koji and Claire are playable characters in this game and you'll have to equip them so they can go into the dungeon & press on into its bowels. The good thing about the dungeon is that once your characters reach a certain level, you can use the level 10 bypass tunnel to skip ahead. The problem with this may not be as obvious: if you go in there long enough, you'll realize that the entire dungeon is randomly generated. This'l cause a problem if you don't save and get killed after exploring a dungeon; it won't be the same when you come back. The fun part about this game is the Wine Exchange, allowing you to buy and sell found bottles of wine on the wine market. It's a quick way to get money to buy or repair items and weapons, provided you haven't found something better in the dungeons. The ending leaves much to be desired in terms of dialogue and explanation, but at least you got to punk a gang of monsters in a dungeon crawl.

This game could use a revamp & better characters on all levels of this game. I'll have to give this game a rating of 6, and only because they were able to put not only an RPG and a fighting game on one disc, but 4 mini-games as well.

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