Unfortunately, Soul Fighter fails to place itself in any of these categories. In fact, it fails at pretty much everything. When I sat down to play this game, I hoped that Toka had learned from the mistakes of games like Fighting Force and would live up to the great potential I thought it had. Sometimes I think I'm too na•ve.

Soul Fighter is a generic single-player 3D-action game in which you choose one of three run-of-the-mill characters (Altus the Fighter, Sayomi the Ninja and Orion the Wizard) and hack-and-slash your way through hordes of mindless monsters. At least that's what it could have been. Let's take a look at some of the "Game Features" are listed on the back of the Soul Fighter jewel case.

Furious 3D fantasy combat - In Soul Fighter, combat is anything but furious. Precise control is a luxury not found in this game. Your character waddles about, and when running full speed, manages to break an amazing 2 miles per hour! You'll wrench your controller around in an attempt to point your character in the right direction to meet your attacker. But just as you begin to smile in triumph as you prepare to bestow glorious, righteous death upon your would-be attacker, the camera whirls around, placing your enemies out of sight and setting your character up for a world of hurt. All you can do is sit and sob quietly. If you still have the game on, that is.

Explore 5 huge worlds and battle over 40 powerfully wicked enemies - If you actually make it through the 5 levels to the end of the game, you'll be amazed at how quickly an hour goes by. I guess my definition of a huge world is just different from Toka's. Enemies are all the same, except that some fly and the rest walk...err...hobble. The game claims to have used motion capture to create the fighters' and monsters' moves. Perhaps in Soul Fighter 2 (shudder) they'll turn the camera on.

The visual quality of Soul Figher is amazing, in still pictures. In motion, the game looks like a poorly choreographed ballet, on ice. The only slightly redeeming quality of the game is that some of the stage music and introduction music is well done, in that techno/rock/classical Castlevania style. However, you probably won't get a chance to hear any of it, as the music changes when enemies are near, and you're almost constantly fighting. Needless to say, the fight music becomes incredibly boring and repetitive. I now hear it in my nightmares.

The only thing that kept Soul Fighter from an F was that some of the stage music was good and that there will hopefully be no sequels made. In closing, let me take a note from Billy Madison: