Flying Dragon

A very Japanese fighter with a couple of nice ideas, primarily in its 'SD' mode, which features RPG mechanics. In its second mode, it functions as a traditional and more difficult barebones arcade fighter.

SD mode sees you earn cash and experience points by playing through circuits of five or so fights, buying, selling and levelling up equipment and consumables. These were pretty embryonic features in a fighter back in '98, though, so the mode has its issues: you can't fiddle with your equipment between fights, only after a full circuit; and the action is painfully slow, fights usually ending after time runs out as opposed to a KO.

Gameplay is basic and there are few moves. Generally, spamming one move will get you a win, so there's little incentive to master blocking or any of the few timing-based techniques. Character models and voices are nice, but the frame rate is low and the backgrounds look 16-bit.

Became one of the better fighters on the console by default, given most released through to mid-'98 sucked.