A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

Mengjun · 07/22/09 15:07

Another hugely underrated game in my eyes. It's the first, and only full 3D fighter, and the sequel to the popular DOS game One Must Fall: 2097. The main thing is the same, you control a 70-ish ft tall robot, but by a neural link. That way, no casualties occur The story is of not much importance, it's a fighter after all. The arenas, like in the first game, still have hazards as well, but unlike in the first game, some of these hazards have the ability to outright kill you. The freezing water in the ice stage, for example, or the spiky belt + flame thrower combo in Blast Furnace. Also, unlike in the first game, as well as in other usual 2(.5)D fighters, most battles occuring in OMF:BG, involve multiple players. I've just played through the first tournament, in which the fights only get as big as 4 players at a time, but OMF:BG offers support for up to 16 players in a single arena. Also, just like in OMF:2097, you pick a pilot and a robot separately. The pilot determines your stats, the robot determines your moves. The choice of pilot also affects the combos that you can do greatly, but more about that later. There are 8 different types of robots, of which I already tried 4. Namely the three from the demo (Jaguar, Pyros, Force) and Katana. They're quite varied, as it should be, since there is a strength type (Warlord), a combo type (Katana), a speed/accuracy type (Jaguar), and since it essentially is multiplayer, an AoE type (Pyros). (For an AoE type, Pyros is surprisingly easy to combo with, by the way.)

One%20Must%20Fall%20Battlegrounds.jpg
A Jaguar performing one of his supers, Berserker Dash.

It's essentially a four button fighter, with buttons LP (left punch), RP (fa... er right punch), LK (left kick), RK (you can guess), and Evade and Jump buttons. Their light versions can be performed by holding forward while doing the attack. There are special moves that you can do, which typically are done by doing either of the motions ff, bf, or bb, and following it up by one of the attack buttons. Specials are done similarly, but you press either LP+RP, or LK+RK instead. These attacks have an additional property, and that is that they can explode an enemy if the combo is used to finish them off.

Standard controls might seem awkward at first, but are pretty easily adapted to. These controls are:
LP - A; RP - S; Evade - D; Jump - F;
LK - Z; RJ - X;
Movement - Arrow keys.

Explosions!

Now about the combo system. It seems easy enough to combo that they used a combo system that was also available in OMF:2097 as an advanced option called Rehit mode; In a single combo, you can only use any move once. This also means that there is an explicit maximum to the length of a combo. (And some of the few players who did play this game, have found some maximum length combos as well, but they're pretty hard to do, and are pretty pilot dependent. Some combos even seem to require a certain pilot in order to be executed properly. A faster pilot hits the opponent too high to continue, and a slower pilot just plain whiffs. That being said, the combo system is incredibly deep.

An overview of the Desert map.

You can also try the demo (see http://www.omf.com). This demo contains two arenas: Blast Furnace, with its spiky belts and flamethrowers at the end, and the Desert, with hot sand and summonable airstrikes. And three robots: Jaguar, a speed/accuracy type, Pyros, an AoE/combo type, and Force, which I can't really make out what it is. I guess you should call it an AoE/tactical type or something. There are two tournaments to play, the North American Open (the first time I fought the champion Raven I went like: "wtf, I can't kill him? He's at 0 HP already!") and Redemption, which essentially is the story of Raven after you defeat him. It's enough fun already =p.

NOTE: This game has rather poor Vista support, but some things can be fixed.
- Music issue: The game uses MIDI to play music. Some (mostly HD audio) newer sound cards can't play this properly, so sometimes whole instruments will go missing.
SOLUTION: Try to get your hands on an older version of dmsynth.dll, and put that into the game folder (that contains the executable.)
- White screen issue: Caused by buggy glow option.
SOLUTION: Disable it.
- Keyboard issue: You can't type ingame under Windows Vista. So you can't change your online player/server name. This doesn't affect offline play too much.
NO SOLUTION AVAILABLE

Iritscen · 07/22/09 15:07

Interesting, looks neat. When did this come out (too lazy to visit GameFAQs)? I remember enjoying the original OMF on a friend's PC, although it really chugged on their system.

Gumby · 07/22/09 16:07

Looks hawt.

Mengjun · 07/22/09 16:07

Iritscen wrote:

Interesting, looks neat. When did this come out (too lazy to visit GameFAQs)? I remember enjoying the original OMF on a friend's PC, although it really chugged on their system.

2002, I think. I also put it in the title

Lithium · 07/22/09 16:07

looks pretty sweet

Mengjun · 07/22/09 16:07

Well, then, get the demo and lets try out the online multiplayer feature xD

Ether · 07/22/09 16:07

OMF 2097 was the only fighter on PC I really enjoyed and I had been looking forward to this sequel, but at that time, my computer wasn't really good for 3D games, so I forgot about it. I should definitely try it now. Does anyone know the hardware requirements?

Iritscen · 07/22/09 17:07

Mengjun wrote:

2002, I think. I also put it in the title

Lol, reading comprehension for the win.

Wabisuke · 07/22/09 18:07

Gameplay.
Game doesn't look bad, I'll see if I can find torrent.

Gumby note: We frown upon illegal downloading here. Please do not discuss it.

Mengjun · 07/23/09 04:07

Ether wrote:

OMF 2097 was the only fighter on PC I really enjoyed and I had been looking forward to this sequel, but at that time, my computer wasn't really good for 3D games, so I forgot about it. I should definitely try it now. Does anyone know the hardware requirements?

Requirements:

CPU: 500 MHz
RAM: 128 MB
Any decent 3D accelerator (I'd estimate Intel chip and up)

Recommended:

CPU: 800 MHz
RAM: 256 MB
Any advanced (at the time of 2002) 3D accelerator
3D Sound supported sound card

Also, Wabisuke, there's no real need to download the torrent as well; you should be able to find it on online marketplaces, maybe even on stuff like Amazon, for within $5, if you wanna buy it. Try out the demo for now, it has enough features to keep you entertained while you try out the game.

3llense'g · 07/23/09 05:07

Yaay! I loved the original, but it's really slow on my XP machine now. I never even considered that they made a sequel. Thanks for the info!

Is there another fighter with a tournament mode where you can equip and upgrade your fighter with the money you win?

Mengjun · 07/23/09 09:07

Meh, they did take that feature out of BG (wouldn't make much sense anyway, since robots are replaced now instead of repaired), but well, the tournaments are that much more interesting, since they involve multiple opponents and instakill hazards =p Sometimes even cheating opponents. I'm playing through the IFL cup on Amateur difficulty now, and I'm having trouble with the 3v2 match. Yes, I'm in the team of 3, but the team of 2 seem to have more damage and better AI >_> Keep losing that by anywhere between 2-5 and 0-5 >_>

Also, the original works fine on DosBox, try that out =p

3llense'g · 07/23/09 12:07

What? They took out the best part? Meh, I say! MEH!
I did try that out. Same result, if I remember correctly.

Last edited by 3llense'g (07/23/09 12:07)

Mengjun · 07/23/09 13:07

If I recall correctly, you can adjust the game speed of the original ingame. I remember using it to speed it up beyond what's humanly playable, and then watch myself get owned by the CPU xD Dunno if that helps though.

Leus · 07/23/09 21:07

I loved OMF: 2097. But didn't BG only have keyboard controls?

Mengjun · 07/24/09 04:07

Yea, but how'd you expect to play with mouse with controls like that? And the keyboard settings are really intuitive anyway, so that isn't a minus in my eyes. Plus, you could see it as a simulation of the bot's limited turning ability ^^;

Actually, the controls seem like they'd fit better on a gamepad, so if you don't like the keyboard controls, you can also map them to your gamepad using Xpadder or something similar.
(Ingame configuration settings crash under Vista)

Oni Central Forum

#1 07/22/09 15:07

A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#2 07/22/09 15:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#3 07/22/09 16:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#4 07/22/09 16:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#5 07/22/09 16:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#6 07/22/09 16:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#7 07/22/09 16:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#8 07/22/09 17:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#9 07/22/09 18:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#10 07/23/09 04:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#11 07/23/09 05:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#12 07/23/09 09:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#13 07/23/09 12:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#14 07/23/09 13:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#15 07/23/09 21:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

#16 07/24/09 04:07

Re: A jewel of the past: One Must Fall: Battlegrounds (2002, PC)

Board footer