CANCELLED fighting games you'll NEVER play (but actually can!)

[@GuileWinQuote]

45:25... we got getta get the kusoge avengers together boys.

[@StriderRyu]

Fun known fact. Galloping Ghost Arcade has Vicious Cycle and is fully playable. I know because I'm there currently as I'm trying this and standing in front of the cabinet.

[@No0neat]

My guy. You can't just say this a full year ago and not have any sort of footage of it. T.T

[@Danimal4114]

Force Five looks like the lost child of DoA and Bloody Roar (gameplay and characters designs, respectively) Seems like a good time and it would be awesome if any studio would pick it up! Thank you for this insight into the 'cancelled but complete media' library of fighting games!

[@AttitudeIndicator]

Atravia picked it up

[@DioDCynic]

I miss old DoA. Just good reads and footsies.

[@Kenryo81]

Im from Chile and no, we do not have Mesoamerican (Aztec/Mayan) like statues here; we have Moai in Easter Island/Rapa Nui, but that stage in Force Striker is all wrong. Also, it made me laugh out loud when they zoomed on Chile and turned the country sideways!

[@ViciousOS]

It's just way too long, dude, they had to turn it around, lol, and yeah, that statue es Olmeca, neither Aztec nor Mayan, but older

[@davidjsaul]

Sounds like Capcom's "England" stage in SSF2 which inexplicably had a view of the aurora borealis 😂

[@lorpuz4664]

you beat me to comment on that and yes i got confused with the tilt. it was very extrange to hear chile in this context and being a complety random stage :)

[@theblocksays]

If this were a Konami game you'd probably have to FIGHT a Moai brought to life LOL!

[@HeinerGunnar]

The weird inverted transformation when Hong Kong came up made me snortle

[@durazno4948]

Looks like Raven was engineered as a weapon, and you're fighting in a secured room that's supposed to keep her entertained and placated.

[@Guardian978]

She also steps on you when she beats you... fetishy a bit

[@kumaquatro2406]

"I'm getting distracted by these cute elephants!" The most relatable sentence I've ever heard.

[@DrRobby1985]

Whenever Matt triggers a "Not Yet" in Vicious Circle, the sound reminds me of the fail sound in the Police Trainer arcade game.

[@sternj4314]

I'm gonna be real I'd love to see a restoration for Blazing Fists, that shit had alot of charm and seemed like, with balancing and real hit boxes and AI, would be looked at as a cult classic

[@micshork]

It’s still a shame that we never got Capcom Fighting All-Stars, TEKKEN x Street Fighter or Sammy vs. Capcom. Those would have been cool.

[@derekfcc]

I’d be down for TEKKEN x Capcom NOW. Tekken 7 graphics were a little too oily looking. The tekken 8 engine looks really good and SF6 looks a little booty. It would be cool to see SF6 characters in the tekken 8 graphical style. Plus they need to release a fixed version of sf x tekken, make it a tag game where you have to kill both opponents, not just one. And get rid of the gems

[@phoenixdouchebag904]

SAMMY VS CAPCOM?

[@mehlessmidori602]

@@phoenixdouchebag904 Sammy YOU! vs Capcom.

[@VBrancoPT]

Sammy? Ain't that the company who bought Sega?

[@micshork]

@@VBrancoPTSammy vs. Capcom would have been Guilty Gear characters vs. SF and Darkstalkers characters. At the time Sammy owned GG.

[@KyloNeko]

I love it when old unfinished projects get leaked online so they finally see the light of day

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

I love Force Striker's cutscenes of the opponent you just beat giving you a ride to your next fight. Like they were like "Aw, shit, I lost. Well, I'm going back to Hong Kong. Your next fight is in Japan but I guess I can make a quick detour to help."

[@PurpleTurtle-t4q]

man, Force Five definitely looks like a game that I'd be super addicted to as a kid, such a waste that it got cancelled

[@DefyReality-ll2cg]

I agree

[@drakkenmensch]

The movement and speed feels very Virtua Fighter but with better graphics. This one had potential to be big.

[@gc3k]

Force Five looks great for Atomiswave hardware, it's even playable on a Dreamcast apparently. Early 2000s is maximum nostalgia for me so I'm biased

[@CRUMVIII]

Force Five actually looks like a lot of fun. Shame it never came out.

[@micshork]

I actually have some info on TRF. I spoke with Daniel Pesina and both he and Ho-Sung Pak tried to repurpose some of their assets in another fighting game called “Chi Yong” for the PS1 (Which was also cancelled).

[@adamfrazer5150]

5:50 when the production team go home for the night, 'great ideas' somehow find their way into your designs..........like EACH fighter having their own FONT 😵😵😵

[@mrmagpiepromotions]

Vicious Circle had a character called Bolok? That would absolutely be loved here in the UK until parents made them change it.

[@AndreaJensDemetrio]

Nice finds! I think a potential one to check might be KenJu, that was actually found a couple years ago as an unreleased Atomiswave ROM! That game is also clearly unfinished, but it had a lot of potential!

[@Orochi_Otaku]

It's funny that the final boss's stage for Force Striker is in Florida making Florida Man the final boss.

[@matildarose]

Haha, I was just commenting about that and wondered if anyone else appreciated the idea. I mean, it's a very FloridaMan move

[@Orochi_Otaku]

@BetweenTheFog Not only that, but apparently Force Striker's Florida Man is also Dollar Store Raoh

[@wnbrknisezlyfxd2951]

The head in the Chile level is actually an Olmec head. They were found in central Mexico. As a Mexican the fact that they put that in that stage is quite humourous to me

[@ArispeMatt]

Fun boxing trivia for the question asked when fighting G. Gotchev. The older rules of boxing allowed for various grabs and throws, had a 30 count instead of 10, rounds lasted until a fighter went down, and you could have a second - another fighter that could switch places 'between' rounds.

[@LordryuRevived]

Only a matter of time before someone leaks out the ROM for Capcom Fighting All-Stars that was used in that location test prior to it getting canceled.

[@spenserbeckerszs]

I am surprised it hasn’t been by now considering it’s Capcom and by now all the characters that appeared in the game are either high profile or at least are pretty familiar to most gamers by now.

[@pockystyx4087]

The main girl of Force Five looks legitimately cool; it's a shame she didn't actually get to be mainstay in fighting games.

[@Cdr2002]

9:19 the screen going black for a bit feels like Midway took this game’s non-functionality and used it as the inspiration for the Dark Kombat fight challenges in Deception

[@Globalastral5]

54:07 never thought I’d see Dracula fighting old Jesus in a fighting game

[@eternalfailure4081]

Really surprised that Force Five was never completed and released. Although you have said that it lacks a unique mechanic, it looks pretty polished, and (as per your Worst Fighting Game series shows) much worse games have been released

[@AttitudeIndicator]

It's unique mechanic is the air parry, if your getting juggled you can try to react to when your opponent will hit you by pressing p+g in the air, and you'll reversal it and do like a third life, but if they read your going to do it you get bounced up extra high and you get bounded when you hit the ground, so most characters can just touch of death you if you guess wrong.

[@M0rinkashi]

@@AttitudeIndicator This is not the only time the mechanic was used, there was an arcade-only fighter that had the same mechanic called Toy Fighter. To summarize; it's basically the Fighters Destiny games but for kids, this is not surprising as the game's developer (Anchor Inc.) worked all of these four games alongside others like the two Microsoft-only WWE Raw games, the Dreamcast version of UFC, Pride FC and JJBA Phantom Blood PS2 game. Not to mention that Force Five's engine (aside from being turned into a different game by a different developer/publisher) was repurposed by Banpresto for a 3D (not arena) fighter based on an anime series in 2006 (which surprisingly received a Japanese PS2 release) and eventually used as the basis for EF-12 Fighting Game Maker, a fighting game that is similar to MUGEN.

[@DeNice1776]

Would LOVE to know how to play Force Five somehow. I love Fighters Destiny and Mei-Ling (yes she's in both IPs) was my gal, so I'd love to experience that personally (and Toy Fighter too, but I think that game never got ported to the Dreamcast and was Arcade only)

[@sarafontanini7051]

I'd lvoe to see a finished version of burning fists with its intnded cutscenes, final boss and ending sequences. Of the lot i think its the most promising shown here. Force Five's "chosoe your final boss" gimmick is pretty interesting, would love to see that used somewhere else. Otherwise I'm not as blown away by it as Matt. Without much story or real character, all it has besides the aforementioned choose your own boss gimmick is the character designs. VIscious Cycle's animation focus is pretty neat. I like that they have a fully aniamted sequence showing who you'll fight in each arcade round and its all clearly buildig up to the final boss, and I do like that each stage has a unique intro animation to introduce it. it just needs a slower pace, better characters and lss 90's.

[@FA-nd9uk]

Is that Marine from hololive on your avatar?

[@illford]

Tbf I'd rather have something that's fun to play. I also imagine if Force Five were to be finished it would've had all the bells and whistles

[@Alevice]

Interesting references to mesoamerican civs in the second game. The statue is an olmec head. The Olmecs were among the earliest mesoamerican civs (located in southeast mexico and central america to a degree, not chile tho). Mictlan is the name of the Mexican underworld, weird name for a warrior. Still, interesting

[@mateobonavento3939]

When you said that the picture looked messed up in Force Striker I think it was intended and not simply because the game is unfinished. He's a ninja and he teleports away as soon as the match is over. Maybe that's the clearest picture of him the reporters could take for the magazine, I imagine that's what the devs were going for.

[@flophouseplays]

Nope, cuz then there's one later on that's clear.

[@_Jay_Maker_]

i would love to see the rosters of these games get ported over into MUGEN for Saltybet or something similar.

[@SingerOfW]

I assume Empusa's single legging is just a reference to, you know, the Greek empusa, who's supposed to have a single bronze/copper donkey leg. Gotta respect the dedication to the image!

[@IPODsify]

Daraku tenshi officially uncanceled btw

[@BigK13372]

12:46 The Whamey Guitar Diddle during that Fatality have made me blurt out “Yeah this is so 90s”

[@DanKojak]

27:03 Anyone else notice that Shi San Mei apparently borrowed Pretty Sammy's outfit and hairstyle?

[@LeonStephan]

At least they got Chile's location right even if they had to turn it sideways to make it fit the screen 🤣

[@devingiles6597]

Hey, Matt McMuscles. You should definitely do a gameplay of the cancelled Primal Rage II.

[@AttitudeIndicator]

Jingi storms got a movelist and all the moves are the same so you could just use that

[@GleeChan]

Burning Fists looks like it could exist in the Streets of Rage franchise.

[@KyleS.1987]

This is like the coolest damn thing to come from work to. Thanks, Matt!

[@BobardeZanzibar]

It's crazy that Force Five is actually better than Criticom.

[@martincann5052]

Looks like Loki's been soaking up some major gamma rays.

[@flippedoutkyrii]

8:03 Life with Derek! I remember that episode giving me the biggest fucking aneurysm from the 20 seconds of looping 90's CGI the production studio commissioned to run on a loop several times with maybe two alternate scenes recorded off a crappy CRT Television with no UI.

[@craeshendo]

10:22 Scorpinok/Transmetal Rat Trap on his back, but on repeat

[@UndeadEggmiester]

It's a shame that some of these were never released but yet so close. Sure they wouldn't have been revolutionary or ground braking but could have been a good time when released.

[@ViolacTrough]

That ghost pepper stare got me sudating. 36:12

[@cortfoster1543]

Vicious cycle having the same story as MKvDC made me chuckle

[@fritzy8318]

Don’t remind us of mkvsdc 😭

[@tolindaniel]

Vicious Circle is like what movies and TV shows think fighting games are like. Edit: Oh, Matt said that too. That's what I get for commenting early.

[@briangoubeaux5360]

Does Matt wonder if some of these fighting games should be on The Worst Fighting Game as an "unfinished edition" episode? It would be interesting.

[@DelzaArmy]

Would love to see more of this

[@FurryRedCross]

Great video, would love to see more cancelled games or arcade games I've never heard of like Metamorphic force

[@meteor9racing]

Look FF4's Edward Geraldine earned his Edge name by...uh, combining his first and middle names. But still! Ninja!

[@DeaDGoD_XIV]

19:53 I miss that boot up splash screen, it was so advanced to my seven year old self that I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of gaming

[@edgeyberzerker]

The flashing lights from the first game was rough, thanks for the warnings I had to pod cast that section. It’s cool that there are people preserving these even if the quality of some of these games aren’t great.

[@kairuparker9949]

Stiletta with the hi jump with the cracked bones had me in tears!!!! Vicious Circle something else!! Lol

[@ViciousOS]

That statue in Chile is an Olmeca head from Mexico...

[@Crimefighter]

Galloping Ghost Arcade has Vicious Circle in an arcade cabinet for play.

[@thebigoilkanlarry]

Crap. The best looking character in the second one was the Thouser lookalike and he never made it on.

[@Silanda]

The look of the sprites in Thea Realm Fighters reminds me a bit of how a couple of the characters in ClayFighter 2 looked. The digitized images must have required so much manual touch up work that they stopped looking digitized. It always impresses me how much the original Mortal Kombat got right both in terms of gameplay and underlying technology, when so many imitators completely whiffed both.

[@Raytheman581]

The force five models/designs are far better than the game that copied it. Kai was a cool female design and then they went with something a lot weaker.

[@doomtrain5]

Ninja guy is clearly called *dial-up modem tone*

[@joe718gt4]

"Tell your parents to buy 'Vicious Circle' or go to hell"

[@ViciousOS]

Mattho

[@Godkarmachine]

I wonder if Low Ki ever played Vicious Circle. Seeing a character named Lo Chi reminded me of him.

[@alexandermckay9521]

The one legging thing was a Flo Jo reference. Famous athlete.

[@thegrandxbunny2073]

When I hear Force Five, all I think of is Hotwheels' Battle Force Five.

[@fedupN]

Im only on that first game, Vicious Circle and man...so full of 90s edge and grimderp! Seriously, those fighters could be right at home amomgst Image or Darkhorse comic characters.

[@MrSharpClaw]

Whatever happens with such abandoned projects (physically or just the code), are they lost and forgotten in some warehouse ? Do they eventually get deleted when no other company buys the scraps ?

[@MrTechnoSqueek]

The blue bllonde guys in the background of that sega cd game reminds me of Jimmy Lee from Double Dragon

[@Chalk0073]

Prince Pak's sword rain attack is filthy, that would thing would start real fights

[@laughingseal2282]

Glad to see Matty uploading an entire hour of flops to this channel

[@Cdr2002]

“DUUUUDDDEEEE, VICOUS CIRCLE IS THE BEST GAME EEEVVVERRRRRR!!!! IT HAS LIKE, A RAAAGGEE VIRUS, AND BLADES, AND CHARACTERS LIKE CHAINSAAWWWWW, THE ONLY WAY IT COULD BE EVEN BETTER IS IF IT HAD BLUDGUNNNNNN” - 90s Kid, probably

[@Cdr2002]

Kai feels like she hangs out with Mavado and MVC Wesker

[@Mucmaster]

I tried the version of force five with with the weird anime wafuing on fightcade one day on a whim and it honestly plays really well. Made me overlook how weird it is to get anime art as a reward.

[@Volvagia1927]

Most 80s Video Game: Double Dragon. Most Early 90s Video Game: (And, I know this wasn't released in 2000, but...c'mon) Jet Set Radio Most Mid-Late 90s Video Game: Killer Instinct Most 2000s Video Game: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Most 2010s Video Game: Life is Strange Most 2020s Video Game: ?, because the Decade's not over yet, but as of now? Resident Evil VIIIage. Viral Danger? Check. Unable to save people from dying for stupid reasons? Check. Wanting to live anywhere but America as The Dream? Big Ol' Check.

[@Globalastral5]

27:39 isn’t that head in the background the same head that appears in a stage of TNMT tournament fighters for SNES?

[@emperormegaman3856]

I like how Matt switch to the What Happened natation tone when introducing the games.

[@Cdr2002]

I’m ok with a boss being unthrowable if they’re massive but relatively normal sized bosses being immune to normal stuff is lame

[@FinalGamerJames]

That Phantom dude played VERY like Yoshimitsu from Tekken 3, so I have to wonder on the legitimacy of Force Five. Also, the only thing I know of High Voltage is they made the Family Guy videogame so Take that as you will.

[@DieJG]

As a chilean, that game was so funny. They showed the real world map of Chile but they showed a Mexican/Olmeca stage. If they have put a moai it would have work.

[@GiltiatheDarkNight]

The fatalities or "brutalites" from Vicious Circle are something to be seen.

[@ricardosavagestrike]

Muscles got so mad at the low quality of the game he went real-time reaction mode.

[@zaneseibert]

How is it that no other fighting game had a dom girl in a miniskirt have a win pose where she stomps on you while camera gives an upskirt? That's a license to print money, hidden in an unreleased game.

[@BobardeZanzibar]

Society wasn't ready yet.

[@zaneseibert]

@@BobardeZanzibar Watch as Capcom gives that to Juri in SF7

[@improbablyyourdad8458]

Vicious circle could’ve been dope if it wasn’t blatantly a KI clone. They had some unique ideas that immediately caught my eye, like the moving stages for example.

[@Errormacro540]

Moving stages are a cool novelty for casual players but they are almost always banned in tournament because it distracts from the actual gameplay.

[@LupineShadowOmega]

@@thuggeegaming659 Said almost no one ever. More often than not, that's publisher greed.

[@LupineShadowOmega]

@@thuggeegaming659 Competitive gamers never said that. That is literally a famous quote or rather infamous from Capcom because they couldn't mention that Marvel had said no to using any characters in Infinite that they didn't have plans for already... especially the X-Men before they bought the rights back from Fox

[@LupineShadowOmega]

@@thuggeegaming659 Let me stop you right there, that was a lot of meandering and strawman building. First off, I have no idea who that is. Secondly, what makes you think it takes a lot to get from on disk DLC characters that tied in directly to the MCU, not to mention buddy's example specifically being Magneto whom was cut...? And that's ignoring what was going on in comics at the time. You know, that whole push of the Inhumans that had Marvel earth suddenly covered in terrigen mist and it being suddenly out of nowhere toxic to mutants...and before that they'd banned any mention or use of the FF. Wait, there I go meandering myself there for a bit. There was an open statement about Capcom saying they wanted to specifically bring back Juggernaut and Marvel saying no "they didn't have any plans for him". Likewise, Storm, Magneto, Sentinel, and Doom. Man, I wonder what all those cut characters have in common. Weird huh. And no, it wasn't a perfectly fine explanation. Or do you not remember social media at the time. MC3 was long enough ago and had enough picks that people were excited about that it was night and day. Infinite, had a very unpopular roster, social media is up in arms and Marvel/Disney is a way heavier hitter, they have a very petty character ban for very financial reasons and they already don't have the best relationship with them right then. You're right, that's the perfect time to throw them under the bus to an audience that is braying for blood. Yeah, I maybe ignored it because it doesn't matter what some rando you cherry picked wants to do. And instead it matters what actually goes down.

[@Errormacro540]

@@thuggeegaming659 Maximilian Dood has been a strong advocate for stage variety for a long time and has repeatedly spoke out against the blandness of competitive gamers repeatedly playing on only "The Grid". He called out to developers to fix this issue multiple times. You sound like someone who disagreed with one of his takes one time and then never watched ever again. Got lost with this argument.

[@novastorm4187]

Oh Great Hustlin' Muscler..... we desire your epic Fighting FURY. Please show us the way.

[@finalgwen]

24:55 - "Not sure about the half pant leg though, get better gear." Hey Matt, what did Ruby Soho ever do to you?

[@svetaphantom]

The high voltage gag on this channel is the stupidest thing and it makes me laugh every time.

[@aceofhearts573]

Hey Matt I hope one day you make a video on Atari's sort of Street Fighter clone called Tenth Degree / Juko Threat which was cancelled in 1998. It was a 3d fighting game that had one of the artist from street fighter make the character designs if I remember correctly

[@CannotHelp]

Was there footage of the ‘Juko Threat’ name

[@ChaseMC215]

When I heard Anchor Inc's name, I immediately thought of the WWE Raw games on the Xbox, since they developed those two games.

[@Psychospacecow]

Viscious Circle has the same energy as weird bowling alleys

[@Kolbjornelenano]

27:06 those are giant stone heads (not as big as it appears here but still pretty big) from the Olmec culture from Mexico, not Chile. Also Mictlan (the guy with the spear) is the name of the land of the dead in Aztec mythology

[@adamfrazer5150]

I still remember visiting DC as a lil' kid, coming from the UK with only a Spectrum.... My cousin showed me an 'NES' and popped in Nintendo's Kung Fu 😮

[@adamfrazer5150]

The cinematics in VC give off massive Mega Race vibes 😎

[@BoomstarPrime]

I would have loved vicious circle so much as a kid.

[@pedroolivarez572]

Mr. Mcmuscles you are certainly a Waryar of the people for going above and beyond for all of us late 80's and 90's kids!

[@illford]

Waryar?

[@gilga3554]

Vicious Circle is like if KI and Clay Fighter had a baby.

[@coldsoul59]

Early 2000s I would have so got force five really reminds me of bloody roar 3 and kof maximum impact

[@captain0080]

I can confirm we dont have mayan temples in Chile.

[@zer03d14]

"Such a thing as too 90s even for me", that is a downright lie Matt and you know it

[@crazyninjaturtle3]

I dont know if you already talked but there is a canceled arcade Rise of The Robots game. I think its 90%, if not full, complete.

[@fandomfoodie4735]

24:42 I'd have liked Empusa, Shadow Yamato, and Tyris Flare from Golden Axe's 1st ending (where they running into the modern day) with Siba from Fighter's Megamix added to Virtua Fighter on 32X. Make them unlockable for the sake of replay, and you would have a sweet pack-in.