Toribash

Fighting games are usually fast-paced and full of special effects, much like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. In essence, it’s all about who mashes the buttons faster and scores the best hits, because there’s not much time for strategies. In some cases, players can at least perform a counterattack to exploit the opponent’s weakness, but even those are rather difficult to achieve.

Toribash is exactly the opposite, because the action takes place in turns, and the two fighters have to make their moves during the pauses. Not only that, but you also have to come up with your own fighting moves and techniques, by manipulating the fighter’s joints and limbs. As you can probably guess, it takes a while to get used to the mechanics, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

In the beginning, you should play through the tutorial, otherwise you’ll find yourself unable to understand how to proceed. There, you can learn a few basic moves and how to come up with your own techniques. Each joint can be clicked to change its state, such as ‘relaxed’, ‘contracting’ or ‘extending’. With the right combination of states, your character can perform outstanding moves.

After a while, the moves come naturally, and you may get bored of playing against the bots. When that happens, the game allows you to take the fun online and compete against other human players, which is tougher than you think. Even if the game does not have a very large fan base as of right now, you can still stumble into a few players to start a brawl with. A ranked mode is available as well, in case you want to get serious about it.

One of the more disappointing things about the game is the graphics engine, because there are no actual fighters involved in the combat. Instead, you use practice dolls that look like robots, which is not very pleasant to the eye. On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter how it looks, as long as you are able to bring your own ideas to the table when it comes to bare-handed decapitations.

In the end, Toribash has what it takes to become a fan favorite, as long as the mechanics are polished and the designers do something about the basic visual appearance. Other than that, the game is definitely worth a try, because the idea is unique and quite tantalizing.