When Indian Joe, the self-declared reincarnation of Satan, and his two generals, Widow and Joker, sends a shockwave of fear across the United Nations by killing off top-ranking government officials, eight fighter champions steps up to face the three in personal combat. But first these eight must determine who is the most powerful of them all, for only one champion is allowed. And so the game begin...

The different characters are all very nicely drawn with very fluid animations, but what really draws the eyes are the amazing pixel backgrounds. My personal favourite is the Buddhist Temple, as it only uses a very limited number of colours and still manage to look fantastic. There's no doubt that the people responsible for the graphics and artwork were highly skilled.

As for playability, every fighting game needs lots of different attacks that are not too difficult to perform. Something Super Fighter manages quite satisfying, with some extremelly easy moves and others that are a bit more difficult - but none of the commands will be impossible to perform. However, there is one small downside to this. The controls are divided into eight different directions, making the game ver difficult to play on a keyboard - especially a laptop. Even so, it doesn't pose a too big challenge as soon as your fingers are used to work very close to eachother. Your best and easiest choice would be to use a joystick for this game.

If you decide to use the keyboard, then know this: Player One punches with TAB and kicks with the left SHIFT, while Player Two punches with ENTER and kicks with the right SHIFT. This means that if you play the game on Windows XP, you should switch off the "Slow Keys" aid that is standard in XP. Just press SHIFT fast five times in a row. If "Slow Keys" is active, a pop-up window will inform you of this, and give you the choice to switch it off. (You will have to switch off the hot-key command, so don't just press cancel in the pop-up window.) If this window doesn't pop up, then you are all set to play.

Each character have their own unique style of fighting, and their own special aspects (like Pho Huang, who will do a back-flip whenever she falls or jumps backwards), giving them all a nice unique feel in the game. And as with every fighting games, every player will be able to find a favourite. Another thing you'll discover is that the characters, like most games in this genre, are not perfectly balanced. Onimalu is the annoying fighter that only uses dirty tricks, and can reach you from the opposite side of the screen with a fast and powerful attack - just like Dhalsim in Street Fighter II. Simply repeating the attack over and over will win every battle. Pho Huang is the fast moving character that uses incredibly fast kicks to stun any opponent within seconds, while she will dance away from any close-range attack by performing her athletic back-flip at the right time - giving her opponenst the same frustration as Rayden in Mortal Kombat gives his challengers by constantly teleporting. And Lan is the champion of the champions, and without a doubt the creator's favourite, having the most effective techniques and some of the simplest commands for executing them. Lan can easily pummel any opponent with a series of powerful hits and kicks from anywhere on the screen. His fearsome Tornado attack (Down, Down/Back, Back, Kick) will seriously damage any unlucky opponent who forgets to block - just like Liu Kang's Bicycle Kick in Mortal Kombat. But as long as you keep your guard up (or down, if fighting Onimalu), you should come out on top after some practise. You can find a list of the different moves HERE:

The game is in Chinese, but it's not very difficult to understand. The first button is 1 Player, the second is 2 Players, the third is Options, and the fourth is Quit. I suggest you look at the Options first, and have a look at the movement controls. Perhaps even decreasing the difficulty a little, until you are familiar with the controls.

When the Taiwanese company C&E Inc. released Super Fighter in 1993, they had no idea the impact this game would have. The first proof that they had created a great game came shortly after its release, when Panda Entertainment stole the sourcecode for the fighting and implemented it in their own game Sango Fighter. Unfortunately for C&E Inc, Sango Fighter got more publicity, and Super Fighter was overlooked by the general populace. However, they did release the game in the West under the name of Fatal Encounter for a short amount of time. Sadly, this version has dwindled off into history, and has never been seen of since. But the greatest impact of the game came when it landed in the hands of Brandon Cobb - an American gaming enthusiast and independent producer...

The past history of Super Fighter is a sad one indeed, and if it wasn't for Brandon Cobb, Super Fighter would probably not been around today. He bought the rights for the game from C&E Inc, and released it as freeware for everyone to enjoy. In addition he is currently working on remaking the game with better graphics and a better engine, plus putting in some extra effects like new backgrounds and some new characters. And from what I have seen of some of the new backgrounds and sprites, SF v2.0 will look awesome!

The world holds its breath while a great classic is being reborn.