I've said many times, I'm not a fan of fighting games, I think that just during all the years I've been playing video games I've played a maximum of 10 titles, including the classics Mortal Kombat and Tekken, however, there is a fighting game that is not like the others because it implemented a very different mode to what was known in those years, I'm sure that possibly before this game there were others who shared this particularity, but this was the first I knew a game had this style of gameplay.
Today's Retro Review is about a rather particular fighting game: Destrega.
In fighting games I never focused on the story, as honestly they are always quite mediocre, but I remember that due to the Destrega gameplay, I paid attention to their plot and everything that had been created around the world of this game.
The history of this game takes us back in the past and tells us that about 1000 years ago from nowhere appeared some individuals who have by name "Destrega" they are basically magicians with great powers, these magicians were in charge of teaching the country where they found the use of their magical powers through some artifacts or also called relics, but as every human being is easy to corrupt thanks to his desire for control and power over others, that's why they started a war with a neighboring country, causing all sorts of misfortunes and destruction for many years.
After many years and due to the excessive use of the power of the relics they had obtained, the power of the Destrega diminished every time and there were few humans who still had power. All this, and due to the loss of the power of the Destrega, they are being hunted by the Empire, commanded by an Emperor who has under his power the "ancestral relic", which is in charge of giving power to the other relics.
In this game we will embody the last Destregas that will fight against the empire, in order to maintain its power and avoid further destruction in the world. Destrega is not a game with a very elaborate argument, but if I consider that under the standards of fighting games, had a decent enough story compared to other games, however this game gave for more and later I will tell you why.
Destrega is a game entirely in 3D, it's not a graphic wonder, but I think even today it doesn't look so bad, that is, it hasn't aged so bad at all and it's a title that can be played regardless of its graphic quality.
The scenarios are ample and recreated in their entirety in a 3D environment, with some details in them that recreate a battlefield very well, within the limits of the game itself and PlayStation 1.
As for the characters, I think they are very well modeled and designed, the characters, for obvious reasons, have a better quality of details, especially in their clothes, they are very different from each other and I have to admit that they look pretty good, clearly it's a very simple game as far as graphics is concerned but it does it in a good way.
In spite of being a fighting game, in Destrega there will be few combat body to body, since the strong point of this game are the magical attacks and these have a very simple quality level, the attacks do not stand out much, in fact they look too simple if we compare them with the scenarios and the design of characters, but even so, they fulfill their mission.
Unfortunately one could say that this is the least worked aspect of the whole game, that is to say, the music is not completely bad, but it is too generic and there is no song that is considered the flagship song, or rather, no song that is representative of the game itself. The soundtrack is not bad, but I think they could have done a better job, the sound effects are decent, but nothing spectacular, but if we talk about dubbing here is where all the sound aspect loses points, because, the voices of dubbing in Spanish (which is the version I played) is completely bad, bad performances, without any kind of rhythm, essence or charisma, the worst aspect of the game by far.
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Destrega unlike other fighting games that are in side scroll and will move in only two directions, in this title we can move around the entire battlefield, the battlefields of this game are extensive therefore the mobility in the battles is much greater than the classic fighting games, that is, Destrega has a much freer game mode and with possibilities of dodging greater attacks to other games of the same genre.
As I said before despite being a fighting game, there are going to be few moments in which we will have some close combat with our enemies, that is, if there will be some moments in which we can hit a fist or kick to our opponent and vice versa, but the strong point in the gameplay of this game is the use of magic, so our battles will only be based on launching magical attacks on our enemies, the battles are more rank than melee.
Having such a big battlefield, in many occasions the objects that will be on the stage will be able to play in our favor, because thanks to these objects we will be able to cover ourselves of some enemy attack. In total we will have 12 characters available and as usual each of them will have different abilities, they are:
Destrega is not a perfect game, it has a lot of mistakes, but it's a game that is part of my childhood and to which I invested a lot of time, a very forgotten game, but it's worth playing.
