Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring

[Tenshu]

Not many people know about this game. If you've played Kingdom Hearts, this predated it as Square's way of milking the Final Fantasy franchise.

Story in a fighting game is bland as it can be XD. Ehrgeiz's story revolves around a sword called Ehrgeiz.

50 years ago, a weapon with a mysterious materia was found in a German castle ruin. The blade of the weapon was broken, and a mysterious stone was set in its grip. The weapon was named Ehrgeiz. It later became the name and symbol of a fighting tournament that is to decide the world's strongest, and the trophy for the champion.

On the other hand, a secret excavation of a ruin in the Middle East, which was said to contain the secret of immortality, was made under the order of one unknown organization. The organization was called "Red Scorpion," officially an international organization for defending treasures and ruins of ancient time in the world, but its true purpose was to develop bio-weapons utilizing the technology of ancient cultures. "Red Scorpion" has finally found the location of an ancient ruin, they reached the door, but they could not find the key. In these situations, one hypothesis was born that the key was the mysterious stone set in Ehrgeiz. Since the day when the door of the ruin was revealed, the stone has been shining mysteriously, and anyone who takes it in their hand feels that someone calls them, their heart was caught in strong desire to answer the call.

Koji Masuda, who has been a three time champion of the Ehrgeiz tournament and keeper of the sword, was guided to the Middle East by the light of the stone. There he found the secret excavation of the ruin. Though the stone still called him, he had to leave the place due to the attack of "Red Scorpion" guardians. Since then Koji has been chased by "Red Scorpion" who wanted to eliminate him to keep their plans a secret.

The next Ehrgeiz tournament was about to begin. Koji returned Ehrgeiz to the commission of the tournament, but he had to have given up participating in the tournament for the sake of his own life. Therefore he wrote a letter to his daughter, Yoko living far away, asking her to success his will and to get Ehrgeiz again.

Screenshots:














You download it from EmuParadise via this link: www.emuparadise.org/roms/19920/Sony%20Playstation/Ehrgeiz%20-%20God%20Bless%20the%20Ring

[Tenshu]

If you haven't heard of this game, the PSX version is graphically inferior to the arcade version but the system is left the same. You run around freely as you would in Bushido Blade, being able to jump to various plains in the stage. Each fighter has their own set of skills and being developed by Seiichi Ishi, the designer of Virtua Fighter and Tekken's engines, the game follows a weight-class kind of system to determine various things for the character such as jump distance, damage, and falling.

From the screenshots I'm sure you guys might be going "wtf? Cloud?" The game was developed by DreamFactory (previously they developed Tobal No.1 and 2, and later during the PS2's launch the commercial flop, The Bouncer) and as you can see from the character Godhand (Ken Mishima) Namco also had part in the development of Ehrgeiz. Squaresoft originally licensed the game so it had included Cloud and Tifa, but with the names Guardian and Summoner, respectively.

The PSX version is broad as the two Tobals were. There is the main game, Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring, but you are then treated tot he usual assortment of minigames like Survival and Time Attack, but also given a pseudo racing game, and a set of beach-style games. Another prominent feature is an RPG-style Quest Mode which was also seen in Tobal 1 and 2.

[Tenshu]

Battle Panel:


Battle Runner:


Battle Beach:

[Tenshu]

Random Trivia:
The PSX version includes even more Final Fantasy VII characters, among which are Vincent Valentine, Yuffie Kisaragi, Zack and Sephiroth (the only FFVII character in the game to have an FMV ending). The 2nd costume for the final boss also resembles Red XIII.

While some characters are original, some are based off of Tekken. The most obvious being one of the main characters, Godhand. His real name being Ken Mishima, having a mixture of the Mishima style hair and Sephiroth's as well as having Mishima-style moves (Kazuya's Lightning Screw Uppercut and the Tsunami Kick as examples). Han Daehan is an obvious reference to Tekken 3's Hwoarang, knowing Taekwondo and sporting a similar attitude as Hwoarang. Dasher Inoba being the token wrestler, having moves similar to King. A futuristic ninja (more human though) named Sasuke that has the quickness of Yoshimitsu. Lee Shuwen, a martial artist who has moves similar to Akira Yuki from Virtua Fighter as examples.

A creative part of the game's fighting is the inclusion of special attacks utilizing a character's skill or weapon. Tapping the special attack button makes your fighter do a regular special attack (Godhand taking off his arm to expose his armgun and fire a shot, then placing his arm back on). Holding it down however either alters the attack or creates a different attack (Godhand firing three homing shots, Han's Rocket splitting into three homing ones, Cloud and Sephiroth using Meteor Storm, etc).

Ultimate throws are done by moving in a 360 degree motion and grabbing your opponent. Using Cloud or Zack as an example, executing the Ultimate Throw makes them perform Omnislash.

This game was the game to push the PSX to its limit, providing the content of the game while also keeping the fighting running at a smooth 60 fps but not without the sacrifices of the arcade version (pre-rendered backgrounds instead of full 3D, no lighting effects on characters, etc.)

All character can counter by hitting the special attack button when you're about to be hit, but this consumes your special attack gauge.

All characters can perform a blade catch. If Cloud performs Omnislash or Braver or any normal attack with his sword drawn on Godhand, the one controlling Godhand can hit the Guard button at the right moment to catch the blade and toss Cloud aside (as seen in the last screenshot of my first post).

And to those who wonder, Godhand is human. He was a part of the "Red Scorpion" but decided to leave. The penalty is to sever one's arm. As far as I remember, he wants to use Ehrgeiz to get revenge on the organization and so installs an arm cannon with a prosthetic arm to cover it (oddly enough, this arm is fully functional as you can see Godhand can open both hands and close them into fists XD)

Through all this and owning the game for over 8 years, I can give Ehrgeiz an 8/10. One of the few letdowns was the fight ladder takes a page out of Virtua Fighter's book. There is no randomization, you have preset fights. Therefore you cannot fight a CPU Vincent, Yuffie, Sephiroth, Koji, or any other unlockable character. Cloud and Tifa can be fought by defeating your enemies under a certain amount of time up to Sasuke (depends on the difficulty setting and Vitality setting). Your character run to a different exit and proceed to fight Cloud, and then Tifa. As a sidenote, you fight Cloud to a remix of FFVII's battle theme, while fighting Tifa to a remix of Final Fantasy's main theme.

[freshmaker]

Now that I think about it this was probably my first fighting game.

[seraphinari]

This and Einhander: Two PSX games I wish for fervently and will never own.

*emo*

[SA Android Series]

Feb 24, 2009 14:30:02 GMT -4 @seraphinari said:

This and Einhander: Two PSX games I wish for fervently and will never own.

*emo*

I shall join you in your *emo*

-.\\\

[Tenshu]

At least you can download it now ^^;
And Einhander.

[seraphinari]

Eh, not really. This lappy is old and likes to crash if I try to run ePSXe. So I stopped trying.

But even if I did download it, I'd still want to own it. So many things I wish to own. WINNING LOTTERY TICKET WHERE ARE YOU!?

*ahem*

[Tenshu]

Einhander is pretty easy to track down. Ehrgeiz because it did a little poorly on the home market, never got a re-release so finding a copy is a bit difficult but there are ways. *holds his ^^;*