Ehrgeiz

, fully titled Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring, is a 3D fighting video game developed by DreamFactory and published by Namco in 1998 for the arcade platform. It was first ported to the PlayStation and published by Square Co. in 1998, then to Japan's PlayStation Network by Square Enix in 2008.
The game includes characters from "Final Fantasy VII". Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart are playable in the arcade and the PlayStation versions; in addition, Sephiroth, Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, and Zack Fair were added to the PlayStation version's roster.
Gameplay.
Battle system.
"Ehrgeiz" differs from most 3D fighting games by drawing heavily from the concepts of wrestling games and Dream Factory's own "Tobal" series, which allows for full 360-degree movement and does not require fighters to be facing one another at all times. This restricts the camera to a more or less fixed position, zooming in and out with the action, but not tracking around the arena as would be common in most other 2D and 3D fighting games. The fast-paced fighting allows for characters to move freely in a 3-dimensional stage which is filled with many interactive objects and changes in elevation, allowing characters to leap on top of crates or use them as weapons, for example.
Quest Mode.
The PlayStation version includes a Quest Mode, similar to "Tobal No. 1" and "Tobal 2", titled "Brand New Quest: The Forsaken Dungeon". Players fight through an extensive dungeon crawl, much like the Blizzard title "Diablo", and can equip different weapons and items. There are also several smaller minigames, such as a race mode, where players run laps around a course while engaging in combat to slow down their opponent, and a board game similar to Reversi.
Quest Mode is a hack and slash action RPG mode of gameplay in Ehrgeiz. It begins in a dungeon in a parallel universe, and later moves to a nearby inn. The player can explore the town and enter the dungeon, which contains randomly generated maps. Somewhere on each floor of the dungeon will be a stairway to the next level downward in the dungeon. Since the main characters are archaeologists, the goal revolves around going as deep in the dungeon as possible in the hopes of finding great artifacts. Two characters are available for this mode: Clair Andrews and Koji Masuda. The player can switch between the two by visiting the inn. If one character dies in the dungeon, the other can "resurrect" him/her by finding the corpse.
The character development system revolves mainly around a five-point chart representing which statistics will be increased in the character upon raising his/her level. Consuming Protein, Vitamins, Minerals, Carbohydrates, or Lipids will in turn increase Attack, Magic, Dexterity, Speed, or Defense, respectively. The diagram points and stretches towards each of these points. As one point is focused on, the diagram will contract on the other points of the diagram. Thus, increasing how much one stat will raise will lower how much the other stats will raise.
A major facet of the Quest Mode is hunger management. Each monster can drop a food item which will fill the hunger bar slightly, and supply the player with one of the previously mentioned nutrients. Eating while the hunger bar is full will increase the maximum size of their stomach (though the actual size of the bar on the screen remains the same, the number of units represented is greater). This effect also applies when drinking health potions while the HP meter is full.
There are several recipe books hidden throughout the Quest portion of the game's dungeon. Wine trading is available after getting the second recipe book and talking to a man in a restaurant in the town. The player can buy and trade wine here much like a stock market, where the value of the wine will go up and down periodically. Players can then trade back the wine either to earn or lose profit.
Plot.
The sword Ehrgeiz, legendarily powerful, was sealed away and could only be opened with the Ehrgeiz stone. This stone was made a prize for a fighting tournament, and whoever won, would take the sword.
"Final Fantasy VII" characters.
In the arcade version, Cloud, Tifa, and Django were revealed after thirty, sixty, and ninety days, respectively, after the initial install and boot of the game.
Development.
"Ehrgeiz" was developed by DreamFactory, who previously developed the "Tobal" fighting games for Square. The game was directed and designed by "Virtua Fighter" and "Tekken" designer Seiichi Ishii. The game's characters, both the original ones and those from "Final Fantasy VII", were designed by Tetsuya Nomura. "Ehrgeiz" was announced as the first project to result from a licensing agreement allowing Square to develop games for Namco's Namco System 12 arcade board. It was released in arcades in 1998 as a joint venture between Square and Namco. After the game's US release on the PlayStation, Square Electronic Arts sponsored the "Ehrgeiz Championship Tour," a series of contests in which players competed against one another playing the game. The contests were held at Electronics Boutique and Babbages stores across America, beginning on July 10, 1999 in New York. In 2000, "Ehrgeiz" was re-released as part of the Square Millennium Collection in Japan. It included a collectable digital clock and character diorama. The PlayStation version of the game featured characters from ‘’Final Fantasy VII’’ as well as several mini games and a new section called “Brand New Quest: The Foresaken Dungeon”.
Music.
"Ehrgeiz Original Soundtrack" contains sixty-one musical tracks from the game. It was composed by Takayuki Nakamura, who previously composed the DreamFactory and Square collaboration Tobal 2. It was released on November 21, 1998 by DigiCube.
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Ehrgeiz" on their April 15, 1998 issue as being the sixth most-successful arcade game of the year.
"Ehrgeiz" sold over 222,000 copies in Japan by the end of 1998, and sold 340,937 copies in Japan by December 2004. It has scored a 32 out of 40 points by the Japanese gaming publication "Famitsu". "IGN" rated the game a 7.5 or "Good", citing the game's beautiful graphics and presentation but noting both its generally simplistic gameplay and very difficult combination move executions. "GameSpot" concurred, writing that the blocking controls were "unintuitive" and generally disappointing mini-games outweighed the games beautiful graphics and Full Motion Videos. In November 2000, the game was ranked #73 on the magazine's top 100 PlayStation games of all time. "Ehrgeiz" currently has an aggregate score of 76% on GameRankings based on twenty-one media outlets. Later reviews reflected the strange use of famous Square Enix characters with "generic moves" and primarily wrestling-based combat.
"Next Generation" reviewed the PlayStation version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "Technologically speaking, "Ehrgeiz" is an impressive fighter, but it does have balance problems, especially the one-button gameplay of the one-player game. Still, it's good to see developers straying from the accepted formula with new fighting designs that truly work."