Dogma (15.3MB)
I intended posting this as one of last years anniversary games, but just couldn't motivate myself to post many games over 2011. I posted a list of about 20 games that I'd intended posting last September for the third anniversary of the free games project. I think I posted about four of them. Chazzo had been posting regularily over the past year which gave me an opportunity to take a back seat posting game for the project, because I needed to recharge my batteries big time, plus there were loads of other things going on here in Sunny Poynton (where I live). Unfortunately Chazzo has retired from the forums so I though I'd better start posting games on a regular basis again. Whether or not I manage to do so remains to be seen, but I will endevour to continue. Thankfully we now have a couple more community members posting games, namely Txgoogoo and Keith, though our good friend Idunno has also posted a few as well.
I thought I'd start the ball rolling with a Street Fighteresque game called Dogma. As someone in one of the reviews I've posted below mentions, the game appears to be unfinished in that there is only one background used throughout the game, only one piece of music, plus other things like the lack of configurable keys. Apart from these and a few other minor issues we have a really good fighting game. It's the game play that's imporant, so hopefully, those of you who download this game will find an enjoyable and decent looking game to wile away those hours on a cold and windswept January day. :)
Dogma is another Japanese fighting game, with quite similar graphics and gameplay to Street Fighter. Each player has their own unique skills and special moves, and certain players have weapons as well. The retro graphics are crisp and the special moves are well animated. Best played with a game controller.
Reference accessed HERE Sept 2011
This game reminds a lot of the SNK arcade classic "Samurai Shodown" ("sho-down", without a w!). You have a dozen of different fighters, each one with his or her own fighting style and abilities. Most of the fighters are girls, there are only two men. All the figures look a lot like characters from oddly known Manga and Anime series, like Ranma 1/2. You can choose between a fireball-tossing angel, a cute schoolgirl with a dangerous scarf, a tall girl who likes to slash up her enemies with a long sword and many others. Unfortunately the characters have no voices, only different attacking sounds. But the graphics and the music are very nice. Another flaw is the fact that the game contains only one stage and some undone graphics. Probably the game hasn't been finished yet, so this might be a beta. But there's a program to manage stages and record replays, so I guess there must be some more stages to be downloaded and added. Would be nice, I like this game a lot and recommend it to anyone who likes the good ol' arcade beat'em up genre.
Reference accessed HERE Sept 2011
Dogma is really an excellent Japanese fighting game that is very similar to Street Fighter.There is a total of 9 players to choose from and four different modes of play. Sequence is the story mode where you battle your way through each player. In VS-User and VS-Comp mode you can either play against a computer player or a friend. Watch mode is for just watching the computer fight.
The in-game story is all written in Japanese, but you don't really need to know whats going on in order to play.
As with these fighting type games, each player has their own unique skills and special moves, and certain players have weapons as well.
The graphics are a bit old school, but are still very crisp and clear and the gameplay is awesome. The controls make the game a bit hard to play but you will get used to it eventually.
All in all this is a brilliant fighting game and is a must download for fighting fanatics.
Review by Zero
Dogma is a Japanese fighting game that suffers a bit for being not completely finished. For some reason, the development stopped, so we have only a single background, a single BG music (though it's quite a good one), no endings (not even some credits rolling), practically not configurable keyboard controls (you can only change functions between the predefined keys) and no difficulty levels - the only way to get an easier challenge is reducing the other player's energy in the options screen. There should even be a secret character named Sayuri, but... There are no files related to her...
The rest, however, makes up greatly for these lacks. The nine characters are well-done in every aspect: good characterization (and don't forget their portraits in the selection and VS screen: beautiful), great and fluid animations, many special moves with a lot of spectacular graphic effects. Each one is available in eight different color palettes, and there's even a secret menu in the options to edit them! The most powerful moves require the pressure of two attack keys together, and for this reason there are four shortcut keys too. I had many problems with the standard layout, which forces the player to use the left hand to move, until I found out that the "Dolphin-Mode" option enables another keyboard layout (see the reference card). There are no more shortcut keys for easier super moves this way, but it isn't a big deal since the keystrokes detection is always flawless - in fact, I hardly ever used the shortcuts even in normal mode :) Fast, fun gameplay and combative AI ensure a good challenge for a game that, if brought to 100% completion, would rival many commercial productions in quality. If you like fighting games, however, don't miss it in any case.
Reference accessed HERE January 2012
Download:
You can download Dogma HERE, or HERE. You can also download a manual for the game from the latter link (old games.com)
