WARNING: This is a really, really long review, and frankly my jokes during it aren't all that funny.

So why, you ask, is it posted? Well, like Austen says:

"The site's free. This should be a "you get what you pay for" scenario. YOU WANT QUALITY? FUNNY, I DON'T HEAR ANY CHECKS BEING WRITTEN"

So! On that note, if you do brave this review, scattered throoughout are amusing, or at least distracting, pictures. Onward!!

A wise man once said, "Any game where you can beat up Yuffie can't be bad". And then another wise man said "Shut up and write something because we havn't posted anything for a month", so here we are.

The premise behind Ergheiz is, basically, you get a whole lot of games for the price of one. Consider: Not only do you get the below-par fighting game, but you also get a depressing dungeon mode, 'infinity battle', 'evil panel' and 'race mode'. And, uh, another kind of race mode that I forget what the name is.

While this sounds good, the problem is that most of the mini games lack what I will call, for lack of a better description, any reason to play them. Because I can't make a statement like that and then waste a few paragraphs describing the mini-games, I will instead make your eyes bleed with excessive text.

Infinity Battle is, basically, you pick a charecter and keep fighting until you die. Why you can't just play the regular fighting game I don't know. In a sense, this isn't really an "Infinity Battle", as the enemies get tougher and you get less and less life. It's more like a 10- minute battle, or 15 if you're Tifa and you just cheap everyone out.

Evil Panel is Othello, except you can tackle the other player, which I've wanted to do more than once while playing Othello against my dad. The problem here is that the computer is really, really good at Othello, and you are not. What this means is that you run around for a little while laying down panels while the computer kicks your ass. No matter how good you think you might be at Othello or how much you play this, the results are always the same: This game sucks, and it will make you hit on other boys. Or girls. Or whatever gender you are. Shut up, OK? Did I ask for your input?

The first type of race is, basically, you run around a track. That's about all. I'm sort of at a loss here, beceause it's hard to come up with a lot of things to say about running around a track, let alone AMUSING things, so let's move on before I become desperate and make really stupid jokes about its name.

The second kind is a race in the style of that old Power Pad game, Track and Field. The way this works is you keep hitting two buttons. Sadly, it's deceptively amusing for a little while because of small touches like your player panting after the race. But once you realize that a robot could always win at this game by pushing the buttons faster, it sort of loses its allure. I think. To tell you the truth, my memories of this part are sort of hazy. Or I might have dreamed it. Actually that would explain a lot.

Anyway, having just wasted five minutes of your life, let's move on the oxymoronic "big mini-game", which is Dungeon Mode. This is a mode where you are - gasp - in a dungeon. You run around, collect food, money, equipment and whatever else you'd expect. You can also go to the creepy town and have weird conversations with people. However, this mode is sort of creepy because nobody ever moves in the town, there's no way out, and you have to run around a dungeon fighting lizardmen and orange apes. I only wish I was kidding. As an interesting side note, this game gets tedious perhaps faster than any game I can think of besides Carmen Sandiego's Word Search. You'll see what I mean if you play it.

All that aside, what about the main fighting game? HMM? The only thing you need to know about this mode is that you can beat up Yuffie, which is frankly more satisfying than you'd imagine. Unfortuneatly she dosn't say anything stupid like "Can I have some materia!?!" so playing FFVII and then this is a good idea.

I know this review is pretty long already, but I'm going to ramble excessivly about the characters for you here because I thought up a single joke I can insert. Yeah, that English class I took is paying off now!!

First is a fat guy. He's one of those fat guys who is so devoid of personality that he's fat and nothing else. You never refer to him by his name ("Dasher Inoba"), or "That guy with the Moe haircut", but he's always the fat guy. And like fat guys everywhere, he stinks and nobody ever plays as him.

After that is Godhand. I don't know why he's called Godhand, except mabye that he's missing a hand. He has a gun, and like fighting games everywhere except Bushido Blade, getting kicked in the stomach hurts you more than getting shot in the face. I just work here, okay? Why don't you just back up off me?

Next is "Wolf Girl Jo", who, as a special attack, turns into a wolf. Supposedly. What she really turns into is a cheez-doodle with legs and hair. Just like a real cheez-doodle, she sucks. In human form she sucks too. And she looks like a hick because she only wears overalls.

You can also be some guy named When Ho Hee or Ho Well Shit or something like that. He's old. That's about it. He also makes really stupid noises when you hit him, so that it sounds like he's vomiting. Except stupider. Also, he's aging backwards or some crap. Who cares? I don't, and don't try and tell me you do either.

HARRO!

There's this guy named Sasuke who's a ninja from the future. No, I don't know either. Unfortuneatly every time I hear his name or see him all I can think of is Sasuke from Ranma 1/2, which isn't very flattering. Sasuke has a sword and ninja stars, but they don't do very much damage, thus again teaching us that sharp objects are still not as powerful as your bare hands. That's why we fought the Crusades unarmed. Uh huh. Sasuke also has the stupidest ending, which isn't easy. His ending, in case you're wondering, is him polishing his sword. For three minutes.

There's also Yoko Kishogmohgmsomething, or her idiot nickname, which is "Yoyo Yoko". Oh, I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm not. She's a police officer, and instead of using a gun she uses a yoyo. And marbles. I'd just like to point out here that real cops - like, say, the chick from Resident Evil 2 - don't use #$*# YOYOS, they use GUNS. Then again, considering how much damage guns do in this game, I guess there's a reason not to. Am I rambling? Oh, shut up. I'd like to see you edit this better, fuckface.

Lastly you can be various characters from FFVII, half of whom play exactly like another character and half of whom are really cheap. Tifa and Cloud fall into the really cheap category, while Vincent and Yuffie play exactly like Godhand and Sasuke, respectivly. You can also play as Sephiroth, but that's a bad idea beacause he sucks. He's exactly like Cloud, except it takes him half an hour to pull his sword out.

(That's right, I said Sephiroth sucks. Angry, lonely Sephiroth fan girls can send me hate mail right here.)

Personally, I think that this game should have only two modes: One where you have two shirtless Sephiroths grappling around for a while and one with two shirtless Tifas grappling around for a while. Hey, I'd buy it. Then again, I also brought Vagrant Story, so as you can see I have no taste at all. I'll be quiet now.

Actually, as long as we're adding things, I think you should be able to play as Cid. I mean, they have Vincent in this game but not Cid? Havn't we all dreamed of being a angry, probably drunk, abusive middle-aged pilot who can summon rockets from the sky? I think so.

I should probably also mention that the fighting mode is horribly unbalanced, so much so that even Ronald Reagen can win every time by simply picking Tifa. BONUS TIP STRAIGHT FROM THE PROS: What you do is, knock your opponent down, then just keep throwing fireballs, and no matter what they do they'll get nailed. How Tifa gained the magic ability to shoot homing fireballs is still a mystery.

And, just because this review is so long now that I don't mind adding even more, let me mention that you can play as Claire and Koji from the dungeon mode. Claire is pretty hot, and one of her attacks is spanking, so that's okay. Koji's pretty cheap, as he has one attack wherein he breaks his opponent's back, neck, and limbs. Very fufilling against Yuffie.

SPECIAL BONUS I'M A BAD WRITER SECTION!!!

Since I couldn't come up with very many good jokes, here's a few bonus ones from Austen, who wants to be known as "Backward X" for some reason:

Okay. Jo's a slut. She's not wearing underwear under those overalls. She's Red XIII''s ho.

Yoko has a yoyo! Get it?! Yoko/Yoyo?! ROFLROFLFORLFOFORLFL!!!@!!!!!!:)))))))

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That's all. Really. Please leave now.

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Written by Evk and posted on 10-30-00.
This article is ©2000 Nick Hammer.
evk_d@hotmail.com