(All Tizoc's work, I'm just the middleman!)
The CPS3 was the last arcade board that Capcom had ever developed under the CPS line, and released commercially. The most well known game released under the CPS3 is the Street Fighter III series. Lesser known is the fact that the JoJo Part 3 fighter games were also released on the CPS3.
However the FIRST game to ever be released under this hardware is an unknown little diamond in the rough titled Warzard, aka Red Earth outside Japan, in 1996.
Warzard is a an RPG and fighting game hybrid that harkens back to early fighting games such as Street Fighter and Fatal Fury 1; there are only 4 playable characters in this game and all other characters are CPU-controller opponents. You can play versus mode using the 4 playable characters only as well.
Warzard for the time was an interesting evolution of the single player arcade mode playthrough as it mixed RPG elements the gameplay. As you keep playing through the game your character gains EXP and levels up becoming stronger and having access to additional special attacks and supers.
The level cap in Warzard is Lvl. 32 and a player cannot reach this cap in a single playthrough, as such the game uses a Password system, and if the player wins or loses a battle against a CPU opponent they will get a password for them to continue from that point in the game.
The CPU controlled opponents also level up as the character does so facing the first opponent in a playthrough at, say, Level 10 will have them with more health than if the player fought them at Level 5. EXP can also be obtained from playing versus mode as well.
Capcom's 2D sprites and animation do not get enough love; you can praise the Neo Geo all you want, but Capcom's CPS was more than capable of matching the Neo Geo and that shows even in this game.
Warzard is one of the few, if not only, 2D Capcom fighting games to utilize sprite scaling ala SNK games like Samurai Spirits/Showdown due to some opponents being larger in size than the characters and to make the fighting screen be as fully visible as possible when they are distanced away from each other.
The game’s intro though basic in its premise does a nice job of setting up the mood of the game, esp. As it has elements of SF Zero 2’s intro-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmBj2CLypg
Street Fighter III gets praise for its animation and fluidity, but all of it is rooted since the early games of Capcom's CPS2 board (the CPS1 had some nice animations as well in certain games but they are more apparent from the CPS2 era) and Warzard shows off Capcom's wonderful sprite animation here as well (although there are a few hiccpus here and there the overall animation, shading and coloring is top notch).
The most difficult thing to discuss with Warzard, IMO, is the actual gameplay. Granted it is a 2D fighter as its combat base, but the enemies you face don’t get into hitstun from single attacks. This makes fighting the opponents pretty awkward esp. as we are used to chaining attacks together for combos. This would turn the game into a poke and random special execution to get the best results.
When battling enemies, various gems and items will appear on the ground that when picked up will grant you EXP, among the collectable items are orbs. These orbs serve two purposes: Either to perform a super move, or cast a magical spell such as summoning meteors. The magical spell that is cast depends on the orb you pick up and in general up to 3 orbs can be held at any time by your controlled character.
After defeating an enemy your health is restored and you recover more health if you had any orbs you’ve collected. Following this you are taken to a new screen that notes your character leveling up and what special moves or passive abilities they obtained such as increased defense etc.
Taking a page from SamSho and Mortal Kombat, the game features some gruesome kill animations such as Leo cutting opponents in 2 and their inner organs showing if he kills them with a sword attack, or Kenji/Mukuro ripping out the opponents heart and crushing it in his fist.
One of the interesting oddities of 90s Capcom is that character names get changed up in the English release, this is apparent in the Street Fighter, Muscle Bomber and Darkstalkers/Vampire series. Warzad is no exception esp. when only a handful of characters' names are the same in both regions of the game! Warzard takes place in a Sword n' Sorcery setting with nations and locations named after real life countries such as Greece.
The story of Warzard is about the powerful wizard Scion (Eng) aka Valdoll (JP) [Valdoll the Scion!] who wants to conquer the world or some shit and has his allies and generals go about pacifying any who would stand against him. His second in command and commander of his armies is the dread knight Blade who wields a drill cannon and wears a badass red cape. Four warriors set out to stop them, each with their own motivations.
Leo
Leo's design is a simple beast man Conan the barbarian archetype, but that doesn't stop him from being a rather cool design.
Leo's movelist is pretty simple consisting of a body charge, slamming his sword on the ground and doing a pile driver and stabbing the opponent with his sword when he slams them.
As Leo levels up he gains access to use different elemental swords which alter his sword slam attack (he can switch the swords by entering QCB+K). Initially Leo's super is
Tessa (Eng)/Tabatha (JP)
A sorceress from Icelam who sets out to research the storms caused by Valdoll's magic and attack on the nations. Tessa's cloak and attacks have a dragon motif to it.
Initially Tessa's moves consist for a fireball and uppercut-like attack. As she levels up, she can perform her projectile in the air, summon a cannon to fire an element projectile, get a special move that'll summon ghosts to deal damage over time, and a special move that'll have cats deal damage to the opponents if it connects.
Her initial super will have her toss a flask that'll create 3 icicles, and she can learn another super where she fires an elemental canonball.
Kenji (Eng)/Mukuro (JP) (Kenji Mukuro/Mukuro Kenji)
Kenji's moves include firing kunais and a Hurricane Kick. As he levels up he gets a yoga flame-like attack, the ability to double jump, summon a pillar of flames, a dashing punch/elbow attack, a dash move and a sword wave attack.
His supers include a powerful variation of his kunai special and a powerful variation of his yoga flame-like attack.
Mai Ling (Eng)/Tao (JP)
Tao's movelist initially consist of a projectile and anti-air kick attack. As she levels up she gets the ability to air dash, a Jaguar Tooth-like attack, a dashing kick attack and a command grab.
Her supers include a super projectile attack and a multihitting kick attack.
The game consists of a total of 8 CPU opponents and the order of fighting them is different for each character as they travel all around the world looking for Valdoll's castle, and by travel all around the world I mean going to Egypt then flying all the way to Greece, then Japan, then to Iceland before realizing they have to go the middle of the world or some such to take on Valdoll. Maybe his castle is made invisible by magic and beating the bosses destroys this barrier, who knows.
Gi Gi is a mechanical statue that is fought in an ancient South American themed Temple area. Gi Gi is interesting in that he has a changing color palette.
You can tell Blade is final boss material from his huge armor, cape, crazy awesome weapon and from how he shows up during cutscenes throughout the game.
Voldoll/Scion is the final boss and like any jRPG final boss has multiple forms, in this case he has a second form which looks like he has a giant’s brain sticking to his back.
Music-wise the game has that CPS2 era Capcom feel to it, but my fav. Track in the game is Leo’s theme which is all kinds of badass
Theme of Leo
All in all despite whatever flaws Warzard has, it has its own charm, and while it won’t appeal to everyone it is an interesting game merely from its concept as it is something you rarely if ever see being made. Only time would tell if an official release on modern platforms would happen but I think an SF3 series+WZ compilation release would be the best way to get it out of obscurity.
HG101 Article on Warzard/Red Earth
Super moves exhibition & fatalities
The CPS3 was the last arcade board that Capcom had ever developed under the CPS line, and released commercially. The most well known game released under the CPS3 is the Street Fighter III series. Lesser known is the fact that the JoJo Part 3 fighter games were also released on the CPS3.
However the FIRST game to ever be released under this hardware is an unknown little diamond in the rough titled Warzard, aka Red Earth outside Japan, in 1996.
Warzard is a an RPG and fighting game hybrid that harkens back to early fighting games such as Street Fighter and Fatal Fury 1; there are only 4 playable characters in this game and all other characters are CPU-controller opponents. You can play versus mode using the 4 playable characters only as well.
Warzard for the time was an interesting evolution of the single player arcade mode playthrough as it mixed RPG elements the gameplay. As you keep playing through the game your character gains EXP and levels up becoming stronger and having access to additional special attacks and supers.
The level cap in Warzard is Lvl. 32 and a player cannot reach this cap in a single playthrough, as such the game uses a Password system, and if the player wins or loses a battle against a CPU opponent they will get a password for them to continue from that point in the game.
The CPU controlled opponents also level up as the character does so facing the first opponent in a playthrough at, say, Level 10 will have them with more health than if the player fought them at Level 5. EXP can also be obtained from playing versus mode as well.
Capcom's 2D sprites and animation do not get enough love; you can praise the Neo Geo all you want, but Capcom's CPS was more than capable of matching the Neo Geo and that shows even in this game.
Warzard is one of the few, if not only, 2D Capcom fighting games to utilize sprite scaling ala SNK games like Samurai Spirits/Showdown due to some opponents being larger in size than the characters and to make the fighting screen be as fully visible as possible when they are distanced away from each other.
The game’s intro though basic in its premise does a nice job of setting up the mood of the game, esp. As it has elements of SF Zero 2’s intro-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmBj2CLypg
Street Fighter III gets praise for its animation and fluidity, but all of it is rooted since the early games of Capcom's CPS2 board (the CPS1 had some nice animations as well in certain games but they are more apparent from the CPS2 era) and Warzard shows off Capcom's wonderful sprite animation here as well (although there are a few hiccpus here and there the overall animation, shading and coloring is top notch).
The most difficult thing to discuss with Warzard, IMO, is the actual gameplay. Granted it is a 2D fighter as its combat base, but the enemies you face don’t get into hitstun from single attacks. This makes fighting the opponents pretty awkward esp. as we are used to chaining attacks together for combos. This would turn the game into a poke and random special execution to get the best results.
When battling enemies, various gems and items will appear on the ground that when picked up will grant you EXP, among the collectable items are orbs. These orbs serve two purposes: Either to perform a super move, or cast a magical spell such as summoning meteors. The magical spell that is cast depends on the orb you pick up and in general up to 3 orbs can be held at any time by your controlled character.
After defeating an enemy your health is restored and you recover more health if you had any orbs you’ve collected. Following this you are taken to a new screen that notes your character leveling up and what special moves or passive abilities they obtained such as increased defense etc.
Taking a page from SamSho and Mortal Kombat, the game features some gruesome kill animations such as Leo cutting opponents in 2 and their inner organs showing if he kills them with a sword attack, or Kenji/Mukuro ripping out the opponents heart and crushing it in his fist.
One of the interesting oddities of 90s Capcom is that character names get changed up in the English release, this is apparent in the Street Fighter, Muscle Bomber and Darkstalkers/Vampire series. Warzad is no exception esp. when only a handful of characters' names are the same in both regions of the game! Warzard takes place in a Sword n' Sorcery setting with nations and locations named after real life countries such as Greece.
The story of Warzard is about the powerful wizard Scion (Eng) aka Valdoll (JP) [Valdoll the Scion!] who wants to conquer the world or some shit and has his allies and generals go about pacifying any who would stand against him. His second in command and commander of his armies is the dread knight Blade who wields a drill cannon and wears a badass red cape. Four warriors set out to stop them, each with their own motivations.
Leo
Leo is an ancient warrior king of Greedia who was resurrected as a lion man...or he was cursed to become a Lion man and upon hearing that his nation of Greedia was under attack, returns to stop the invasion.
Leo's design is a simple beast man Conan the barbarian archetype, but that doesn't stop him from being a rather cool design.
Leo's movelist is pretty simple consisting of a body charge, slamming his sword on the ground and doing a pile driver and stabbing the opponent with his sword when he slams them.
As Leo levels up he gains access to use different elemental swords which alter his sword slam attack (he can switch the swords by entering QCB+K). Initially Leo's super is
Tessa (Eng)/Tabatha (JP)
A sorceress from Icelam who sets out to research the storms caused by Valdoll's magic and attack on the nations. Tessa's cloak and attacks have a dragon motif to it.
Initially Tessa's moves consist for a fireball and uppercut-like attack. As she levels up, she can perform her projectile in the air, summon a cannon to fire an element projectile, get a special move that'll summon ghosts to deal damage over time, and a special move that'll have cats deal damage to the opponents if it connects.
Her initial super will have her toss a flask that'll create 3 icicles, and she can learn another super where she fires an elemental canonball.
Kenji (Eng)/Mukuro (JP) (Kenji Mukuro/Mukuro Kenji)
Kenji is a badass blue ninja with a scarf and Kamen Rider-esque head guard who is sent by his lord to look into Valdoll's actions.
Kenji's moves include firing kunais and a Hurricane Kick. As he levels up he gets a yoga flame-like attack, the ability to double jump, summon a pillar of flames, a dashing punch/elbow attack, a dash move and a sword wave attack.
His supers include a powerful variation of his kunai special and a powerful variation of his yoga flame-like attack.
Mai Ling (Eng)/Tao (JP)
A young girl whose village was attacked and destroyed by Valdoll's minions. She sets out to avenge her people by finding and destroying Valdoll.
Tao's movelist initially consist of a projectile and anti-air kick attack. As she levels up she gets the ability to air dash, a Jaguar Tooth-like attack, a dashing kick attack and a command grab.
Her supers include a super projectile attack and a multihitting kick attack.
The game consists of a total of 8 CPU opponents and the order of fighting them is different for each character as they travel all around the world looking for Valdoll's castle, and by travel all around the world I mean going to Egypt then flying all the way to Greece, then Japan, then to Iceland before realizing they have to go the middle of the world or some such to take on Valdoll. Maybe his castle is made invisible by magic and beating the bosses destroys this barrier, who knows.
Hauzer is a large dragon that looks like a T-rex who breaths fire and attacks with headbutts.
Kongou is an oni who stirs up trouble in Zipang and fights with a giant mace.
Ravange (JP)/Secneto (Eng) is a chimera fought in the Egypt stage and one of tougher early opponents.
Hydron (Eng)/Nool (JP) is a blue kraken that uses electricity and can summon mini squids to aid it in battle.
Lavia aka Laun is a harpy from Gora that attacks rural villages.
Gi Gi is a mechanical statue that is fought in an ancient South American themed Temple area. Gi Gi is interesting in that he has a changing color palette.
You can tell Blade is final boss material from his huge armor, cape, crazy awesome weapon and from how he shows up during cutscenes throughout the game.
Voldoll/Scion is the final boss and like any jRPG final boss has multiple forms, in this case he has a second form which looks like he has a giant’s brain sticking to his back.
Music-wise the game has that CPS2 era Capcom feel to it, but my fav. Track in the game is Leo’s theme which is all kinds of badass
Theme of Leo
All in all despite whatever flaws Warzard has, it has its own charm, and while it won’t appeal to everyone it is an interesting game merely from its concept as it is something you rarely if ever see being made. Only time would tell if an official release on modern platforms would happen but I think an SF3 series+WZ compilation release would be the best way to get it out of obscurity.
HG101 Article on Warzard/Red Earth
Super moves exhibition & fatalities
