Justice League: Task Force

In the early to mid 90s, just about everything was getting turned into a one-on-one fighting game. After the runaway success on Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat, fighting games became a very hot commodity, so much so that fighting games were being made for things that didn't make a lot of sense. Hell, Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft tried to turn Dungeons & Dragons into a fighting game! I guess making a fighting game revolving around characters from DC Comics' stable isn't the worst idea in the world, but Justice League: Task Force was not the best way to go about doing it.

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If there's one thing for which I have to give credit, it's that Justice League: Task Force bothered to provide a story. Darkseid had declared war on Earth along with Cheetah and Desparo, and six of the key members of the Justice League are Earth's only hope. They are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, and Green Arrow. However, they've decided that only the strongest member of the League can fight the invaders; so, they battle each other to see who's best. That premise for why the Justice League members are fighting each other before facing Darkseid is extremely flimsy, but at least Blizzard committed to it. The cutscenes between matches differ greatly depending on which member of the League you choose. It's nowhere close to the elaborate stories provided in the Injustice games, but it still outshone what many other fighting games were providing at the time.

Of course, most people would care more about the gameplay than the story when it comes to a fighting game, and the fighting here is pretty meh. The controls and mechanics are a straight rip-off of Street Fighter 2. While it's easy to pick up due to that, the mechanics don't quite cut it for competitive play. The animation is noticeably slower and choppier than Street Fighter, making pulling off many of the special moves more of a headache. The difficulty settings are all over the place. "Easy" turns the opponents into punching bags while "hard" makes them spam projectiles constantly. Also, only six characters (with three bosses playable in "Battle" mode) may have been fine in 1992, but it was too few by 1995, the year when Mortal Kombat 3 released with fifteen playable. At least the characters were large and well-drawn, and the arenas did look sharp on the Super Nintendo.

Justice League: Task Force could've had a chance to stand out with its story mode. However, it wasn't really capitalized on, and it ended up being just another average fighting game in a sea of "me-too" fighting games. There are worse ways to beat up your group of Super Friends, but there are also better ways. Stick to Street Fighter or Injustice.