Not good

By Benjamin Turner | Mar. 17, 2003

38
Lousy
The Lowdown: I can't think of a reason that you should purchase Tao Feng, except that the cover can be used as a halloween mask.
Pros: Clean graphics; some stabs at innovation; hot mime chick.
Cons: Terrible gameplay; bad animation; lacking "arcade" mode; the innovation fails; AI difficulty scales too quickly.

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How the review scores work
Platform: Xbox
Game Type: Fighting
Developer: Studio Gigante
Publisher: Microsoft
ESRB: Mature

Full Game Information

Ominous Precedents

It's not easy to create a good game, but a good fighter's even harder to make. Fighters are a detail-oriented genre, sometimes down to the last pixel. In the average RPG it doesn't really matter how long an animation takes to complete, or if the collision detection is accurate. Conversely, things like this are of paramount importance in a fighting game, and even the tiniest little detail can have a ripple effect and open (or close) entire avenues of gameplay. Given this inherent complexity, it's not surprising that so many original fighters turn out to be mediocre or worse. Exhibit A? Studio Gigante's Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus. It takes a few stabs at innovating, but alas, it's turned out to be worse than mediocre: it's lousy.

Tao Feng stars a motley cast of warriors, divided into two sects: the heroic Pale Lotus and the equally silly-looking Black Mantis. Both possess ancient tablets that describe the locations of the lost treasures of the Pale Lotus. If obtained, these treasures could be used to obtain immortality. Half of the characters becoming immortal would make for a really unbalanced fighting game, which will hopefully decrease the chances of a sequel.

Modes of Mayhem

Oddly, Tao Feng lacks a standard "Arcade" mode, and I never realized how much I would miss it until this game made me go without. In lieu of Arcade, the game's main single player mode is Quest, which is basically like an Arcade mode would have been except that you're bothered with choosing your next opponent between rounds. I'm not sure if completing every character's Quest mode unlocks anything else as each Quest gets extremely hard when you get to the later fights, even when the difficulty is set to its lowest. That's kind of typical for American fighting games, and not terribly smart. This isn't a coin-operated game designed to suck quarters, and so doesn't need to act like one.

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The other mode worth mentioning is Training. The game offers both "regular" and "advanced" training modes, but both have issues. The regular training is almost there, but the combo counter doesn't know how to count. It would have me believe that X pressed 15 times is a combo for the Fatalist character, but that doesn't work out in actual gameplay. The advanced mode is simply moves training, and asks that you perform each move in your character's repertoire. For some reason the game doesn't actually tell you how to do it, so you must pause, go to a menu, and ask to see a demo of it. Then back out of the menu, and wait for the fight to restart. That's innovative, yes, but in a completely negative way.

Jerky Boys (and Girls)

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Tao Feng can be a pretty sharp-looking game. The backgrounds are both expansive and nicely-detailed. It's not Dead or Alive 3 quality, but the overall look is nice and clean. Character models are very detailed, and their appearance degrades as they take damage in the brawl. Blood spatters are present and appreciated, but are uncharacteristically conservative (this is a John Tobias production, after all). The best touch is that you can use your opponent to destroy the environment -- Being able to smash them into the ground and leave a crater is a nice idea.


Divinity is very powerful, but this is balanced by her tendency to randomly keel over and retch. Unfortunately, the graphics are sabotaged by some shockingly awful animation. It's odd; some of Tao Feng's animations, like the pre-fight warm-ups, look quite nice. The actual gameplay movements can and do look awful, though. Characters snap quickly between their various attack animations with little in the way of transitions, and individual parts of the animations are either too fast or too slow, in turn. Many of the fighting movements are just ill-conceived and silly to begin with. (I have to admit I derived a certain degree of enjoyment by checking out each character's often-ridiculous alternate fighting stances.) Worst of all are the jump attacks, which look truly atrocious. When you get right down to it the game looks amateurish in motion. The (not so) special "Chi" moves even cause framerate hits. Jeez.


Master Sage's transdimensional hat has the power to pass through his arm. Sadly, Tao Feng plays about as good as it moves. The broken animation makes for herky-jerky control and spastic-feeling gameplay, and there's almost no depth. The developers have tried to include some innovative bits, but these mostly fail. For example, if you're near a wall or pole you can launch an assault off of it, but these canned attacks add little to the experience. There is also a limb damage system, wherein arms and legs can be broken to reduce their effectiveness. In practice, it was nearly impossible to tell which part of the opponent I was hitting (or vice-versa) so it's not very likely you'll find limb breaking anything more than a random occurrence. And if it does happen to you, boy, it sure is fun to dole out only half damage.

The music is not worth mentioning. Wait... crap.

Getting Fisted

When I reviewed Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, I said that there was room on the market for non-hardcore fighting games and that I was glad that a good one had finally appeared. Well, now I'm starting to renege on that, because Tao Feng represents everything that's wrong with non-hardcore fighting games. It has no depth, looks like crap in motion, and has little to occupy a lone player. With a superior game widely available (in the form of MK:DA), there is little reason to waste time with Tao Feng. I hope Studio Gigante's next project turns out to be more worthy. They at least have the "cool name" part down, I suppose. •