You fight in tight spaces. The literal translation of Fights in Tight Spaces it is sincere and clear, like a punch to the throat. It does not deceive you, it leaves you breathless after trying it and you wish it did not happen again. Although then you really want to break the jaw of the bastard who has an attack range of two squares and moves every time you use a movement card.
After an Early Access process, we finally have with us the full version of the Ground Shatter title. A work that proposes us distribute bullets as if there were no tomorrow, but with head and calm. The turns are imposed on the unbridled action and a misused card can put us on the ropes, so much that I already suffer flashes of Vietnam remembering the final combat.
To see that deck
One of the most iconic scenes in the history of action cinema was starred by two true titans of the genre: Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee. The couple clashed in Return of the Dragon, with combat included in the Roman Coliseum and for those who have seen that scene, it has been etched in their minds.
With a similar spirit, like those sequences in which Lee was able to disarm and knock down five men with his bare hands, Fights in Tight Spaces presents his proposal. Like a chessboard, we fall into a scene, be it a prison, an elevator, a seedy alley or an apartment, and what it is divided into different grids on the floor.
Each character occupies one of them, the protagonist included, and the main objective will be take down each of the villains and minions. But this is not about a beat’em up or a Devil May Cry hack and slash, nothing like that. Our best ally will be the deck we have in hand, with different cards that enable the skills and movements that we can perform at all times.
Therefore, you can already imagine what kind of ballet awaits us. Because the action pauses at the moment in which we have to decide, we must take into account details such as the square to which we move or what reaction we can cause in the enemies. To the equation of possibilities we must add we have more than 200 cards to choose our own deck, adapting to measure to our style of play. Although we can also choose to choose a default one, based on characteristics such as evasion or attack and forget about this concern.
Every slap counts
With an argument that is discarded faster than the joker in a Spanish deck, the structure plants us in levels that we have to overcome until we reach the final boss of the gang we want to destroy. We can choose in which scenario we want to enter, be it an open one with more enemies or a very reduced space, with obstacles, but fewer little guys to break their noses.
Depending on how we progress, we will have the opportunity to access a gym or the doctor. In the first one, we can buy cards, discard them or improve them with the money we accumulate by finishing each area. In the second, the tickets will be aimed at healing wounds, recovering life or increasing maximum health. AND what we choose can be essential in the final stages.
Each card in the deck has its usefulness and it is in the combination of all that victory is found. Kicks that move the enemy one square away while dealing damage, punches that knock out a bully for the remainder of the turn, or slashes that cause multi-round wounding. There is not even a reason to cause harm at all times, but many times it is better to retreat with a slip, a change of position or a sprint to move away several squares.
To act, we need inertia, which starts from a value of three that we can increase if we use the appropriate cards. The number of the inertia to use a card is the cost of using it, so the situation may arise in which we do not realize it and we remain at the mercy of the attacks because the inertia has been exhausted. Luckily, depending on the level of difficulty we impose, we can undo the last turn several times and rethink in a better way what we are doing.
If with each blow or movement we make we lose inertia, instead we increase the number of combo we have. Several special actions can only be executed through this meter, such as kicks that divert the enemy to some side or iron defenses that allow us to counterattack. However, the real challenges of Fights in Tight Spaces are the enemies themselves and the stage.
I curse those who cannot be pushed
Yes, the headaches they give do not cure us even in the doctor of the game. We are not just talking about common enemies and petty thugs, here variety is the order of the day. He quickly begins to climb the range of opponents, each of them with different skills to take into account.
We have the classic who shoots, the one who responds with an attack in the same turn if you hit him, the ninja who has three rank squares, the brute who crushes no matter who is in front … there are all kinds, you have to think about each of them individually to combine them into a collective. Especially when many times you have to reduce their blocking capacity or we literally cannot push them, so a possibility as helpful as throwing enemies off the stage disappears.
The repertoire is expanded with those who not only do not attack, but impose different states on the protagonist or camouflaged informants who go for our neck, but who if we avoid defeating to the end, we will be rewarded. In the same way that there are special characters, who do not make any movement and that we can protect so that the wallet is filled with more money.
On the other hand we have the stages. There may be a motorcycle, a wall, a box or a bed; Each of the game elements has a key role that we can use to our advantage. If we cause an opponent to hit anything around them, the damage will be increased. The true masters of the game are those who own a deck that is not attack based and that cause precise movements so that each enemy hits each other.
If we want to be true professionals, there are small secondary objectives, in the form of a challenge. They usually consist of finishing the levels in a certain amount of turns and believe me, if you try it, it will cost you a lot. And above all, what is most important: Fights in Tight Spaces hooks and a lot. You will be immersed in a loop of hours of play, thinking about the strategy to follow, evaluating your deck and turning each turn. Wonderful, because unless you screw your foot very deep, there is always a way out of danger, an optimal method of solving the situation.
However, the work suffers from one of the keys to the genre it represents as the action is. The technical section is sober and visually reaches a practical minimalism, enough to perfectly recognize what is happening on the screen. But what is far behind is in the moment of the blows and movements, since the animations do not go beyond being correct, a better worked choreography would have been appreciated and some plans that enhance what is happening.
No less important is how much the title punishes long-term mistakes. It may be that you receive a severe correction for failing a turn, it will reduce health, but you will probably get out of that area. What you don’t know is that the levels are long, they have many scenarios until they are finished and life does not recover when starting the next fight. Therefore, you are advocated to the doctor and if you do not have money, you will not be able to pay for his services. If you lengthen the fights, the tickets will not rain, you will not fulfill the secondary objectives and you will complicate the next attempts much more.
VidaExtra’s opinion
I had a great time playing Fights in Tight Spaces. I had my eye on him for seeing him glancing at a demo festival, casual gameplay or God knows in the middle of what event in this saturated industry. The more than 16 hours that I have invested in it have hooked me like few games have this year. Every time I finished a session and looked at the hour meter, it was clear to me that Ground Shatter has done a good job.
Not only does it drink in a story way that gives us a lot of content, but we can complicate our lives as much as we want if we increase the difficulty. Luck for the bravest. The key to the play spending more time than I expected in my library is that it has its own daily game section, with new tests to challenge us. And few better challenges I can think of than to think of how to kick the spine of a mob boss.
Fights in Tight Spaces
Platforms | Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC (analyzed version) |
---|---|
Multiplayer | No |
Developer | Ground shatter |
Company | Mode 7 |
Launching | December 2, 2021 |
The best
- The multitude of deck possibilities
- It hooks you hopelessly
- Makes your brains rage
Worst
- It lacks a lot of showmanship
- How inflexible he is with long-term mistakes