Little Fighter 2

Little Fighter 2
Developer(s)	Marti Wong, Starsky Wong
Engine	PC
Platform(s)	Windows (98/ME/2000/XP)
Release	1999
Genre(s)	Beat 'em up

Little Fighter 2 Chinese: 小朋友齊打交2(LF2) is a popular freeware PC fighting game for Windows and is the sequel to the game Little Fighter (LF1). Little Fighter 2 was created by Marti Wong and Starsky Wong in 1999, and released in a long series of updates.

The game supports up to 4 human players on one computer and a total of 8 characters using online play or computer-controlled opponents. Characters are controlled using the keyboard or a gamepad. All keys can be set via a configuration menu.

The game has a commercially-released sequel, Little Fighter Online. In 2009, in celebration of Little Fighter 2's tenth anniversary, Version 2.0 was released. The update fixed minor bugs and added a gameplay recording feature, a new stage called 'Survival', a browser toolbar that is not mentioned in the installation process and ads being displayed while the game is being loaded .Version 2.0a was released in late 2009, with only a bug fix.

Gameplay

In LF2, characters can be moved by pressing the respective up, down, left, and right keys. The defend, jump, and attack buttons are used to make the character perform an action. Attacking another character causes him or her to lose HP (health points), represented by a red bar on the heads-up display. Each character also has special attacks that can be activated by pressing a certain combination of keys. Most of these special attacks take up MP (mana points), represented by a blue bar on the heads-up display.

Items may occasionally fall into the screen to assist players. Occasionally, a bottle of beer or milk may drop down from above, which can be drunk to restore health and/or mana (milk restores mainly HP, and a little amount of MP, whereas beer only restores MP). Once a bottle of beer or milk is finished, the character drops it and the empty bottle breaks and disappears. There are also a variety of weapons that can be used in combat. These include knives, baseballs, baseball bats, hoes, crates, boomerangs, and boulders. All weapons take damage in combat and will eventually break.

Game modes

1. VS Mode allows human and computer players to fight each other in a setting of the player's choice.

2. Stage Mode, like in many classic beat-'em-up action games, allows the players to fight their way through five stages, with bosses here and there. You can choose a stage and difficulty at startup.

3. Championship Mode sets up a tournament bracket to determine a winner. You can choose to fight individually, or with a human or computer partner.

4. Battle Mode is a team-based mode involving two sides commanding mass customizable armies of computer players.

5. Demo Mode creates random teams of computer-controlled players, creating a zero-player game.

Difficulty can be set to Easy, Normal, or Difficult for all modes except demo. Additionally, "CRAZY!" mode can be unlocked when the player types in a secret code ("lf2.net") on the select player screen. The code can be used in VS and Stage Mode. There is also a small online game feature which enables you to connect and experience any of the modes listed above with another person via IP address (public IP), using port 12345. This only allows connection to one other computer.

Version 2.0 added Playback Recording, a new mode that allows for playback of recorded gameplay. It also added Survival Stage, a new independent stage in Stage Mode, in which players fight their way through as many waves of opponents as they can before they die. A new cheat code ("herofighter.com") was added in Little Fighter 2 v2.0 that refers to Marti Wong's new game 'Hero Fighter', and that also unlocks all the function keys in all modes except 'Stage Mode'. Which is highly odd, since Stage Mode would have benefitted greatly by unlocking: [F6] unlimited mana, [F7] recover all health, [F8] drop objects from the sky, [F9] destroy all weapons. However, these four function keys do not work in Stage Mode, even after typing in the code.

Characters

There are twenty-four characters available, thirteen of whom are hidden and must be unlocked by a secret code. Third party characters are also available for download. Each of the characters have different abilities.

• Template: The base of all characters. He has no special moves, so he attacks by normal punching and kicking. He can be replaced by the bitmaps of a player's own self-made character.

• Deep: A swordsman. Unlike the other characters, he has to be within close proximity of the enemy for his shots to reach their target. He is an exceptional melee fighter and can do devastating damage in close range.

• John: A magician who sends out magenta-colored energy blasts and discs. He can heal himself as well as others. He can create shields and energy disks which make him a defensive player.

• Henry: An archer. He attacks by shooting different types of arrow shots, which makes him a far-range character. When he plays a flute all the enemies near him levitate while their health steadily decreases. He has a Dragon Palm attack, which when used, pushes all enemies on the side he is facing flat on their backs.

• Rudolf: A ninja. He has the powers of speed, duplication and invisibility. He can also transform himself into enemies and use their special moves. He is a fast far-range character who throws ninja stars.

• Louis: A fighter who wears armour to prevent damage to himself, though it has its own drawbacks evident in his speed. He has powers like Thunder Punch and Thunder Kick. He also has a power like Henry's Dragon Palm, (called Phoenix Palm in Louis' case) which creates a shock wave and pushes opponents on both his sides. He can also pick up opponents, swing them, then throw them into other enemies. He has the ability to transform into Louis EX when his health is under 33 percent.

• Firen: Controls fire. He can throw balls of fire, create explosions and use Blaze (a move where he sets his body on fire and runs, leaving a trail of fire behind). He can also blow fire out of his mouth. Firen can sometimes injure his teammates as well as opponents, which shows that his fire is difficult to control, even for him. He can fuse with Freeze to form "Firzen".

• Freeze: Controls ice. He can create whirlwinds and icicles. His Ice Blast travels very slowly. He can also summon a sword made of ice, which will freeze anyone it touches. If Freeze's hand, ice blast, or sword comes in contact with energy blasts from some of his opponents, the blast will turn into ice and change its course back to the opponent. He can fuse with Firen to form "Firzen".

• Dennis: Strikes others through kicking with kick-based attacks. He can throw blasts of energy, which are similar to Davis' energy blasts except they use less MP and do less damage as a result. He can also create a chasing blast, which will chase the opponent and hit him/her.

• Woody: Has the energy of the tiger. He can teleport himself to friends or enemies. His Tiger Dash move is rarely stopped once started. He sends out energy blasts in waves and can kick in different ways. He is best for linking attacks together and possesses great agility to setup combos.

• Davis: A boxer and uses punch-based attacks. He is a good close-combat character, though he lacks more ranged attacks. His Dragon Punch causes a lot of damage and is rarely intercepted.

Through a special code (lf2.net), the characters Julian, Firzen, Louis EX, Bat, Justin, Knight, Jan, Sorcerer, Monk, Jack, Mark, Hunter, and Bandit are unlocked, with the exception of Damian. This has to be entered every time Little Fighter 2 is opened to activate/deactivate the characters. This code will be revealed when a player beats the 'Difficult' difficulty in 'Stage Mode'.

• Bat: Named after his ability and association with bats. He has an eye laser, a speed punch which can be used to dodge attacks as well as to surprise the enemy, and an attack by which he summons bats which will track down the enemy.

• Louis EX: The fastest fighter in the game. Louis can Transform into Louis EX, by doing so he creates an explosion which sends his armour flying in different directions and transforms his chest armour into a staff. He can fire five-hit Dragon Palm combo if have maximum mana.

• Firzen: A user of fire and ice which proves to be a deadly combination. When Freeze and Firen fuse, they'll turn into Firzen.

• Julian: The most powerful fighter in stage mode. You'll fight him as the boss of stage 5-5. He has class-2 armour which is able to block both fire and ice, and boasts a set of powerful attacks.

There are also nine common enemy characters that players will fight throughout 'stage mode' who include Bandit, Hunter, Mark, Jack, Monk, Sorcerer, Jan, Knight, and Justin.

• Bandit: The most common and arguably weakest character in the game. He has no special moves and is restricted to close combat fighting.

• Hunter: A far-ranged character who uses a bow and arrows to fight. He lacks close range capabilities.

• Mark: A strong bodybuilder who does a great amount of damage in close range.

• Jack: A fighter who uses both his Energy Blast and Flash Kick to make him able to fight in both close and far range.

• Monk: A Shaolin monk who is able to do his signature Shaolin Palm to hurt multiple enemies.

• Sorcerer: Has abilities similar to John, Firen and Freeze; he has a fire and an ice blast, and has the ability to heal himself and his team members.

• Jan: The only female fighter in the game. She is able to create devils that strike the enemy from above and angels to rapidly heal teammates.

• Knight: A well armoured fighter with class-2 armour. He does not have any special moves and is quite slow, but his brute force makes up for this.

• Justin: Julian's minion who uses dark energy similar to Julian. He looks very similar to Julian, but is weaker.

Hero Fighter

Hero fighter is a free web-based fighting game created by Marti Wong. This game is still under development but an alpha version was released in the end of July 2009. This game is created solely by Marti Wong.. The game has five characters: Drew, a boxer good at close range; Lucas, a swordsman who is a balanced all-rounder; Shawn, an archer; Jenny, a defensive spear-wielding fighter (introduced in Version 1.04); and Gordon, a mid ranged axe-fighter (introduced in Version 1.05).

Network mode was added in v0.2 which allows players to connect to another computer via the IP address or to join a room hosted by other players, with a maximum limit of 4 players per room.

Critical reception

CNET Download.com rated Little Fighter 2 four stars out of five. The November 2007 edition of PC World magazine described the game as addictive and easy to play.

External links

• Official website
• LF-Empire Fansite