Do you remember Shaq-Fu? It’s an early 90’s brawler which has a number of fan sites urging the public to either save or destroy the remaining cartridges, and is arguably one of the worst fighting games in history. Lucky for Shaq, The Cruz Brothers has come along and will likely hold the title going forward.

The title features a story mode following Marcus Luz, whom I believe is a Brazilian MMA fighter (according to Google), in addition to some members of his gym. Featuring static images that appear to be ripped from a failing comic book company, horrible writing that would make a high school English teacher cringe, and laughable at best voice acting, the overall presentation of this mode is a joke of epic proportions. There is an XP and leveling system in place; however, it does not really seem to offer any unlocks or benefits by ranking up.

The game’s visuals during gameplay don’t fare much better. The style is distinct, as it appears that the fighters as well as the partially animated backgrounds move as if they were made of paper, akin to South Park. Sure, this works well for the animated show that’s lasted 20+ seasons now, but I expect a bit more from my games (unless they are South Park games). This means the fighters appear stiff and only move slightly when commands are entered, otherwise they take a fist to the face. Honestly, you get more range by playing an old school tabletop version of Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. Making matters even worse, the game is constantly zooming in and out, and flashes similar to shots fired in Duck Hunt are prevalent when blows are traded between the combatants. I guess the developers thought people wouldn’t notice the motion sickness if they went into epileptic seizures. The only thing that can make this experience any worse is when the people cheering in the foreground block the visuals entirely, which will happen repeatedly on a number of the stages.

The roster is just as disappointing, featuring a number of generic fighters which I am assuming are based off of lesser known MMA fighters, as well as legally safe knock-offs of characters from Sons of Anarchy and Fight Club. Sadly, they didn’t incorporate some of the best characters from the franchises; Tyler Durden, The Narrator, and the guy who worked at the bar represent the Fight Club characters, while Mayhem Man (who looks like El Diablo from Suicide Squad, voiced by a juggalo), Clay Marrow, and Opie round out SOA. These come complete with names that swap single letters or rearrange the characters’ names from the original appearance. With the exception of a few characters having guns that work as long range attacks, making these characters way overpowered, all of the fighters are carbon copies of the others and offer little to no variety outside of their designs.  

The controls are equally Hell-ish, with ridiculously long delays. Since this is a button mash-y extravaganza, if you stop hitting the attack buttons at any point, you’re dead. Making matters far worse, the controls shown on the mid brawl tutorials are incorrect, and the block button doesn’t seem to work whatsoever. While the special moves do work as they should, there seems to be no difference between the attacks regardless of which face button you hit.

The game features a few different modes in addition to the story, which allows the player to pick how they’d like to be tortured. I wish I could say playing with a friend improved the game, but outside of the laughter that ensued while making fun of it, there’s little value to be found here. If you’d like to add to the visual confusion mentioned previously, you can play a 4 fighter mode, which picks 2 random CPU controlled opponents to fight alongside you and your friend/victim. This does little to extend or improve the gameplay, as it causes the framerate to suffer, not to mention double the flashes and zooming in and out of the battle, often putting one or more of the combatants off the screen while the action continues.

In most cases, even the worst of games often have some redeeming qualities; The Cruz Brothers is a failure on every level. In my 20+ years of gaming, I can’t recall a game that was nearly as bad as this title, even Shaq-Fu. I would steer clear of the game, even for free.

1 out of 10

Pros

• You Can Uninstall It

Cons

• Poor Mechanics
• Awful Presentation
• Horrid Visuals
• Lack of Original Characters
• Everything

The Cruz Brothers was developed and published by DCF Studios. It will be released on March 13th, 2018 for PC and PS4. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of The Cruz Brothers, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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