Supremacy MMA Review

Posted By Micah C. about 7 months, 1 week ago

Supremacy MMA Review

Mixed martial arts is the big new thing in the sports world. No matter where you go these days, you will hear some utterance of it, whether it be seeing a UFC event advertisement on a website or hearing about a fight on Sportscenter. It’s a growing sport with several interested parties, and all of them know that it can be lucrative due to our society’s fascination with both tough guy competitions and martial arts. Though it has now become an accepted sport with rules enforced by state athletic commissions, some people still remember the old days when there were no rules. That’s where Supremacy MMA comes in. Seeming like a video game inspired by the roots of MMA and the movie Bloodsport, Supremacy MMA tries to take MMA games and make them into a more brutal, arcade style game. So, is it everything that it has been advertising thus far?

Once again, I find myself abandoning my usual outline for this sort of thing due to the fact that a game like Supremacy MMA is really hard to hammer into my usual format. I guess that the best place to really start is the core gameplay. Unlike other combat sports games this generation, Supremacy MMA can best be described as a 2.5d fighter with a ground game. You have your pre-set combos for each character and fighting style, and each fighter has their basic attacks on the ground as well. Depending on fighting sytle, you essentially can interchange special ground and pound moves for different submissions. It almost seems like the thought behind it was “what would happen if Ryu shot a double leg on Sagat?”

Mein Face!

However, not all is perfect within the sphere of play. The biggest issue that the game has is in the controls. To be completely honest, the only way that I can describe the way that Supremacy MMA controls is awkward. Looking at the control scheme, I don’t really understand how this could really be easy to slip into. In my own experience, the biggest problem that I had was working from striking to grappling, considering the controls for both were all over the controller as opposed to having one aspect of the controller for grappling (like the right analog) and the other (face buttons) for striking, or vice versa. If you could imagine having to steer a car with your left hand and right foot, that’s essentially how you will feel playing this game. It’s just really wonky.

The way that the game operates will throw you off as well if you’ve been playing other combat sports games up to this point. The fact that it is, in essence, a 2.5d fighter means that lateral movement is gone. So, slipping and countering is out of the window. You simply have to rely on the blocking and the parrying button. As previously mentioned, the blocking is wonky due to it being up and down on the left stick, and it always feels like the parry system either has you hitting something too early or too late. It’s one of those systems that will throw your timing off quite a bit. Same goes with the clinch system, considering there are some positions that a fighter will grab and throw heavy strikes out of despite it being prime for a takedown, and vice versa. You don’t grab double underhooks to separate a second later and get a free shot in.

Supremacy MMA Review

By Micah C.

Beautifully brutal or just brutal to play?