Once you make it into the actual fighting game portion, Ehrgeiz offers arcade, versus and practice modes which all look serviceable right up until the match loads in. The cursor movement sound is pretty ear-splitting and can be spammed repeatedly by just mashing around the directional buttons to drive all of your friends nuts. Upon loading the game up, you'll be greeted with a PS1-era CGI intro with the cast which leads to perhaps one of the worst fighting game menus I've encountered which actually take you to completely different game choices. "The cursor movement sound is honestly ear-splitting and can be spammed repeatedly by just mashing around the directional buttons to drive all of your friends nuts" Now, all of this sounds very enticing on paper, which it is, but sitting down to play Ehrgeiz is let's just say not the best experience in the world.
![tekken 1 roster tekken 1 roster](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Tekken-7-fight-2000x1270-1.jpg)
When the game made its way to the PS1, Sephiroth, Vincent, Yuffie, and Zack Fair were all added to the Namco and Square collaboration with the latter three being hidden characters that must be unlocked and share moves with other fighters on the main cast - Yuffie plays like Sasuke for instance.
![tekken 1 roster tekken 1 roster](https://img.maximummedia.ie/joe_co_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/screenshot-2019-07-16-at-11-16-45.png)
Godhand even features some of the same fighting moves / style as the Mishima's though he also apparently has some attack similarities to Jin and Paul as well. The real thing listed under his imaginary birth certificate says Ken Mishima, meaning he shares the same surname as Heihachi and Kazuya from the Tekken series. The fighting game was also built from the ground up for the Namco System 12 arcade board which both Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament used around the same time period and the similarities don't stop there.Įhrgeiz's main character is called Godhand within the game, but that's not his actual name. To give it some of that Final Fantasy flare though, all of the character designs in the game were actually done by Tetsuya Nomura, who'd of course go on to direct Kingdom Hearts and FF7's remake.Įhrgeiz's Final Fantasy 7 portraits done by Tetsuya Nomura Seiichi Ishii, the original designer of Virtua Fighter and director of the first two Tekken games, actually directed and designed Ehrgeiz as well with his new company at the time, DreamFactory. If you take a closer look at Ehrgeiz, you may notice that the game bears more than a striking resemblance to Bandai Namco's beloved Tekken series, and there's some good reasons for that.
![tekken 1 roster tekken 1 roster](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k9mHZYnJul0/VOXsq_qF15I/AAAAAAAAAcU/-CdHRmff3lc/w550-h309-no/edition0004-CharRoster1%2B.png)
That moment of their reveal may be lost on us now, but it must have been nuts to see FF7 characters randomly show up one day in a Namco arcade machine. "Originally, the arcade version of Ehrgeiz only featured Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart among the playable roster which had an interesting time-based release function to hide them away when it first released"