This week's Arcade Archives release is... DINO REX (Taito, 1992)
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This version adds an option to make picking up item easier. While only the Japanese ROM is included, most of the game's text is in English with Japanese subtitles. The main exception is the Character Select screen's explanations of the special attacks, but these also use visual demonstrations so you won't be too lost. Also apparently the title is all one word! However, Western sources usually have it as two words , as does the World version's attract mode, so I've done it this way for clarity.
In a world where dinosaurs and humans co-exist, the Amazoness Queen reigns supreme. She needs a King though, and that title must be earned through combat between dinosaur tamers and their mighty beasts. The one who triumphs over all their rivals will become the King and earn the title of DINO REX! Not is all as it seems though, as a series of strange dreams the protagonist has suggests that this might not be the ancient past, but...
A couple of years before Atari's Primal Rage, Taito created a stopmotion one-on-one dinosaur fighting game, right at the start of the fighting game boom. As a result, this doesn't control like other fighting games, but most of the basics are there- both player dinosaurs need to wear out their opponent's life bar to secure victory, by any means necessary. There's definitely a lot of limitations here- there's only two attack buttons, you can only jump straight up (and even then, you have to press Down first) and if you cross over your opponent, you're forced back into your corner like a boxing match- but this has a few wrinkles of its own. First, you has a power meter you can charge up to three bars by holding Up to roar, and pressing both buttons unleashes a devastating attack that can hit up to three times, sending your opponent cartwheeling across the (very spacious) arena! There's also items like weapons and eggs that grant special abilities, plus the possibility of fighting tamer to tamer if you get a draw game, where it becomes a mini version of Street Fighter II.
Dino Rex is a lot. Like, a hell of a lot. Its development was very interesting to say the least as documented over here because it started out life as a standard shmup planned and designed by Takatsuna Senba who had also done the same for Gun Frontier and Metal Black, making this the third in a loose trilogy of Taito games. However, when Street Fighter II started paying for arcade operators to buy houses, things had to shift and they shifted quickly. A small team had to change this into a one-on-one fighting game! As Senba explains in this 2001 interview about his career, this lead to a lot of bugs and is the primary reason why the game feels so awkward and stiff- a bunch of new hires, unfamiliar with fighting games, had to try and kludge one together from the bones of a shump.
So Dino Rex itself plays very strangely and doesn't exactly adhere to all the rules of a fighting game... But I won't lie, I kind of love it. This Medium article phrases it better than I can, but while it's very simple, it's often about spacing and figuring out what you can get away with without giving your opponent too much of an advantage, and I absolutely love the huge size of the arenas- it makes the dinosaurs feel big and intimidating, and it also means you can send eachother absolutely flying, crashing into walls and obstacles, it's a delight. Additionally, the visual presentation is absolutely amazing, with stop-motion being used to create surprisingly convincing dinosaurs, although the music is more atmospheric than anything and the sound effects are so infamous that there's a fan-patch to tone them down. Oh, and there's also the story, told in cutscenes between stages, where dream sequences imply the game is actually post-apocalyptic as your chosen dinosaurs rampages through a modern city accompanied by chill lounge music. This game is a ride, is what I'm saying, and if any of that sounds interesting to you, you should play DINO REX.
Of course, if you know about Dino Rex, it's probably from the charity tournament from last year that raised over $1000 for the prize pool and even Takatsuna Senba was told it was happening and he sounded pretty pleased about it. Now that's a happy ending!
