Outside of first person shooters, another genre of games I enjoy playing are the Fighting games. Games like Street Fighter VI, Mortal Kombat 11, Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the 2013 incarnation of Killer Instinct are some of my favorites to play (Not online as I am nowhere near THAT skill level yet to even attempt anyone online) now and then and I do get interested whenever a new fighting game is announced. However, sometimes, one can slip under my radar and go unnoticed by me for who knows how long and today’s game is one such game: Mostrocopy. I had no idea this was even in development until a friend told me about it and I gotta say? This is a fun fighting game though it has some minor issues that do affect my enjoyment.
The basic premise of Mostrocopy is that it’s, essentially, a love letter to monster movies and especially 1950’s Mexican horror films, with the later being something I noticed right off the bat with some of the fighters being luchadors. In fact, the whole cast of fighters are wide and varied, with vampires, the aforementioned luchadors, a skeleton gunslinging mariachi, witches, evil nurses, nuns, and a proper werewolf with a tail (already this game has a point in its favor for including that oft-forgotten piece). Each character comes with their own set of moves but you won’t have to worry about complex button presses or timing. Nope! You just have three buttons - Attack, Special Move, Taunt, and Block - and that’s it. The Attack button handles all forms of attacks, depending on if you’re crouching, standing, or jumping (which is controlled by the thumbstick) and I am so grateful for this style. Again, I enjoy the Fighting genre but one thing that keeps me from going “pro” in it is the somewhat complex button layout each game has and how precise some moves have to be in their timing. Same goes with the Special moves, though I’m a bit more mixed here. In order to pull off one, you hold down the Special button and move the control stick in one of three cardinal directors or hold it in. The longer you hold it in either direction or in, the more powerful the move will be. A great idea, though I will admit sometimes it feels like it’s not registering or it’s doing a different move then the one I was trying to do. I’m also not the biggest fan of having to press in the control stick to execute one of the special moves and I rather it be something other than that. Also, some of the special moves aren’t too impressive, but that might be because we live in an age where games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter have these flashy and over-the-top moves that, when one comes along with simple looking ones, it does feel off. One thing that did catch me by surprise was there is nothing to unlock, outside of achievements. Like, usually, a fighting game would have characters to unlock but not here. The 16 you see on the select screen is all you get, though I read there are more coming, I assume, via DLC. There is a 17th character in the game, but you only get to fight him at the end of each of the 16’s arcade storylines and you can’t unlock him, from what I was able to gather.
Speaking of arcade, the game is surprisingly barebones in regards to modes. Other than Arcade, which is where you play one of the 16 characters story, you have a training mode, challenge mode, and Versus, where you can do Player VS Player, Player VS CPU, or CPU VS CPU. Sadly, if you’re looking for any online modes, then you’re out of luck as this game is solely offline only, which in this day and age is actually nice to see. The Arcade Mode, on the other hand, I’d say is slightly disappointing, mostly because of the characters' stories: They just end abruptly. Once you fight the final boss, that’s it. You get a single comic-book style page detailing their ending and that’s it. Imagine my shock when that happened after my first playthrough and just seeing a page that said what happened to the character.
Regarding the rest of the game, it is good looking and the artstyle is pleasing to the eyes, with each character being distinct enough to tell each other apart. My issue comes in the form of the changing color scheme. Each map has a different color scheme to it, meaning one will be either black and white or one will be raining blood, the later being the glitchiest as I noticed some of the background textures not behaving. While a cool idea and adds to the grindhouse aesthetic, I will admit this does get in the way of the gameplay at times, with the black and white one being a bit of an eye strain. Same goes with the characters as, like I said, each one is designed well and they are animated nicely, some of them had some minor issues with collision detection; like some of the caped characters’ capes would sometimes freak out when jumping or moving around. I have a similar issue with the special moves. Like I said, they aren’t too impressive but, at the same time, it was kinda hard figuring out what exactly was happening with some character’s moves. For example, there’s a witch you can play as and one of her four special moves made it look like she was farting. Which would’ve been kinda funny but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the intention.
Another positive I have is regarding the music as it is pretty catchy, with one track giving me some mad Mischief Makers (N64) vibes, though it does seem the sound mixing in general is not the best. At times, the music overpowers the sound effects as I could barely hear the effects at times. Other times and this is a bigger problem, some sound effects are actually so loud, they overpower everything just a bit. In fact, the sound is my biggest issue with the game on a whole, which is a shame because when it’s working properly, the music is some of the best I heard and I love that there’s an in-game jukebox available from the start so you can listen to the tracks. But, other times? The music is so overpowering, I can't even hear the soundeffects during a match and, when the soundeffects do play, it is stupidly loud.
Truth be told, a lot of the issues in this game I can excuse as the team is small and I shouldn’t expect a game made by a small team to have the level of polish something, like, Street Fighter VI has. Some of the issues, though, like the sound mixing and artstyle, I can’t as it does sorta hurt the game and affect my overall enjoyment of the title, but not to the extent where I hate it or can’t recommend it. My comparison to Grindhouse cinema is pretty apt to this game as those films, while not to the levels of Spielberg or Scorsese, you can still see the love and care the developers put into it and that, to me, is something worth praising. If you like classic horror films and want a fun fighting game that won’t break the bank, then give Mostrocopy a try!
Thanks to Oribe Ware games for a review copy. Mostroscopy is available on Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and Switch
