![]() They were all well done and quite original, in a style that was closer to the Japanese manga aesthetic than the previous designs which were closer to Chinese manhwa comics. The first thing that most players noticed were the character designs. IGS then improved on the mechanics and took the experience in new directions. Of course it would stand to reason that IGS was producing sprite-based brawlers that looked better than the Capcom classics because they were released almost a decade after Capcom's! Where Gladiator succeeded was in recreating the best elements that Capcom refined, if not introduced into the genre. However it was more refined than IGS’s other popular Knights of Valour series, which was beat-for-beat a better version of Capcom’s Warriors of Fate. It was a brawler set in classic Dynasty-era China. Gladiator: Road of Sword got many things right. One of the greatest brawlers ever was completely dismissed, possibly because it was a rare arcade title unfamiliar to the console-leaning staff. When I read Game Informer’s list I was saddened and dismayed. I’ve played them all, and thanks to emulators played several recently just to refresh my memories. In the past month and a half I had covered over 100 games in my brawling series. Consider also that this title was completely ignored by the staff at Game Informer when they compiled a list of the Top 10 Brawlers in October 2011. I would actually rank it in the top 3 for its designs, control, animation, characters, originality and execution. After that it would be a matter of opinion. I would go further and say that it belonged in the top 5. If I had to rank it among all of the brawling games ever released I would say it was in the top 10 of all-time. It deserves special mention because it was the best game published by IGS and was easily one of the greatest brawling games ever made. I had mentioned this game previously during my Brawler series but decided that it should get an additional mention here. Gladiator: Road of Sword was released in 2001, just a year after Demon Front. ![]()
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