Ultraman Review

In the vast array of pseudo-martial arts games, it's nice to see Ultraman in the mix. And until and unless you obtain a Japanese Playstation or mod chip equivalent (in order to play Ultraman: Fighting Evolution), this is about as good as it's going to get for Ultraman fans in the U.S.A.
The game is not actually based on the original Ultraman from circa 1968, but rather an Australian version of the series (hardcore Sentai/Kaiju fans know this superhero as Ultraman Great). But the principles are the same, a Godzilla-sized hero who uses karate chops and energy weapons to defeat Godzilla-like monsters.
I'd give the game 5 stars just because this soothes my severe affliction of Ultramania, except that the game betrays the TV show in some respects: A monster must be completely pummeled until it has effectively no life left before Ultraman can use his Specium Ray to kill it. (In the show, monsters were sometimes very much unhurt when they were fatally zapped by Ultraman's ray. Still others died without the ray's use.) A big drag here is that the lethal ray cannot be fired until it completely "charges," which takes way too long to be satisfying. (At least that explains why TV's Ultraman would use karate moves for a couple of minutes before finally applying lethal force.)
Related issues might tick off purists, like why can't Ultraman fly away during battle, or switch back temporarily to human form when his three minutes run out, since these were tactics used in the TV show. Just roll with the game rules, and you'll still have a good time.
Until you get a number of games under your belt, you'll find that Ultraman gets beaten into unconsciousness a lot more often than he did in the TV show. The monsters are all pretty close to the same strength after the first two (which are considerably easier), and the game becomes more of an endurance test thereafter, to see if you can hang onto enough lives to battle the final monster.
One more note: The rules change subtly as the game progresses, in some cases making Ultraman's jumping or running anywhere from more difficult to impossible. This is a pretty dull way to add difficulty; shouldn't tougher monsters with more interesting tactics be the new challenge?

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