As a beat’em up connoisseur, I feel genuinely conflicted about Fight’N Rage. On the one hand, the adventure is a fun time, with surprisingly deep and satisfying gameplay. On the other hand, it hews a little too closely to the trends of the mid 90’s and, as a result, comes off unnecessarily ugly.

Let’s explore the positive first….

If you were a fan of wild, over-the-top beat’em ups like Battletoads then this game is likely to appeal to you. While two of the three playable heroes are normal humans, the majority of the cast here is comprised of “mutants”, meaning anthropomorphic animals. Mice, pigs, wolves, Jeet Kune Do monkeys, ninja crows, giant houseflies, cats cosplaying as M. Bison from SF2—there are all sorts of animal baddies to beat down. Most of these are enemies are good fun, though I must admit that really hate the Electricat’s Blanka-esque electricity attack.

Speaking of the M. Bison cats, it looks like the developer took a lot of inspiration from Street Fighter and Final Fight for its character designs. The second playable character, F. Norris, for example, is clearly based on Guy, with his stance and several attack animations emulating everybody’s favorite Bushin ninja. Hulking minotaur Ricardo, the third playable character, has a default costume and multiple attacks which seem to be an homage to Mike Haggar. To be clear, I think these designs decisions are all good choices. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty of originality on display already. All sprites have been crafted in the same semi-chibi stylized pixel art. Plus, I mean, who doesn’t love Fight Fight?

On the gameplay side, Fight’N Rage does an excellent job reinvigorating the beat’em up formula. The game has only three buttons (Jump, Attack, and Special), yet it manages to provide more combo options than similar titles featuring heavy & light attacks. You can string together very long combos, with juggles and Special moves included throughout. Continue a combo well after an enemy’s life has depleted, and eventually his body will straight-up explode! It’s like Fist of the Northstar in here.

I especially like what they’ve done with Special attacks here, adding an SP meter next to your life gauge. When you use a Special attack—whether to get yourself out of tight spot or just to pile hits onto a combo—your SP meter will be depleted, and then start to refill. If you use another Special attack before the SP has been recharged, you’ll lose a little bit of life as a penalty. This means that if you use your Special attacks smartly (and sparingly), it won’t cost you any health whatsoever. Along with SOR4’s system of allowing you to regain life spent activating Specials, this is another clever way to update the beat’em up staple power moves.

Another big selling point for me: Fight’N Rage has parries! Just like you’ve come to expect from SF3, a parry is performed by pressing forward the precise moment of impact when an attack hits you. This nullifies the damage and allows you to immediately react. Perhaps I love parrying a little too much, but I think this is the single best element in the game. Parries are still challenging to time correctly, so it’s not really something you can abuse. But their inclusion provides a very cool risk/reward incentive for skillful play.

The game features multiple game modes and whole ton of unlockable content, like alternate costumes for your three heroes. There’s a training mode, which might sound weird for a beat’em up, but is actually incredibly useful for learning the various mechanics. Apparently the Arcade Mode features branching paths throughout, which lead to multiple alternate endings. While that sounds kind of cool in theory, this type of game isn’t generally known for its storytelling, and—big shocker here—Fight’N Rage isn’t bloody Shakespeare. So you’re not likely to even care about the story’s premise, let alone what ending you get.

Alright, enough of the good. Let’s talk about the bad….

I’m sorry to say that Fight’N Rage is a somewhat ugly game. For one thing, it is incredibly dark—like dim, dingy, murky, gloomy, unlit basement dungeon dark. While there are a plethora of display options & effects, most of them seem only to muddy the visuals even further. Probably best to go with the brightest and cleanest options possible, in my opinion.

I personally blame the pervasive darkness and visual effects for the game’s general ugliness, because the sprite work itself is actually quite impressive. The pixel art is good, but all the effects drag it down.

On the audio side, the music is almost entirely chunky electric guitar reminiscent of the heavy rock riffs of the xtreme 90’s. This is fine, I guess. While it’s not particularly remarkable, it certainly reinforces the retro vibe this game is going for. Sound effects are also fairly innocuous, with some of the animal death noises leaning way into the comical silliness. One surprising high point is the metal pipe’s sound effect, which emits a truly satisfying hollow clang with each blow. That one’s a keeper.

The single worst aspect of this game, oddly enough, is its treatment of women. The majority of female characters in this game are captive damsels to be rescued or killed off by the villains. The very first level depicts not only woman trying to escape bondage—Wait, is this like a human trafficking situation?—and at least one corpse of woman who didn’t make it out. Then, before that first level is over, a woman is executed by the stage’s boss. That’s a bad look, y’all.

Unfortunately not only is the victimization of women a problem here, but the usual old-school objectification is presented as well. Even the empowered female characters in Fight’N Rage have been made to be ogled. Now sure, this is sexual objectification in a cutesy pixelated cartoon aesthetic, so some folks could overlook it. But it still manages to be plenty objectifying.

Not even the game’s first playable character, Gal, gets a break. With a look seemingly based on Fatal Fury’s Mai Shiranui (or maybe Maki from Final Fight 2?), Gal’s most prominent feature is her sizable cartoon bust. Despite being our primary protagonist, her heaving bosom constantly bounces with jiggle physics reminiscent of a Dead Or Alive game. It’s not just Gal, of course: literally every female character in the game is animated in this same way. I’m sure the weird over-sexualization must be meant as a joke, but it comes off as just kinda gross.

Now, I realize that this game was created by one lone developer as a labor love. And I don’t mean to be overly critical, especially considering the immense amount of work necessary to create a game like this. In terms of gameplay, Fight’N Rage is an excellent beat’em up, genuinely innovative with combos & parries, an impressive homage to genre’s heyday of the 90’s. (Plus all the Final Fight/Street Fighter references are much appreciated.) I do think a lot of people will dig it, especially if you can play coop with a friend.

That said, I don’t think I can broadly recommend a game that treats its female characters like this. The sexual objectification was in poor taste, but the violence against captive woman is just too far over the line. If you can ignore the uglier aspects—both literal and metaphorical—then go for it.