Dark Rift

Bought this assuming it won't start on a Windows 11 system and I was right. Managed to find a "music" directory in the game files and guess what: the awesome soundtrack is there in ogg format and every track is available in a very hight quality! Well, almost every track. The theme from Morphix is missing, which kind of explains why the Steam trailer for this game uses the low quality N64 version of the Morphix track in the background. Weird.

Awful version. Probably it's on me, but I was expecting a port/remaster similar of the ones by Nightdive studios.. but no... It's just the old PC port repackage.

Dark Rift is an ancient Nintendo 64 game from last century, 1997. It's a whopping 27 years old at the time of this review. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions (or widescreen monitors), hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware. Dark Rift is just another rejected 2D arcade fighter/versus game, although this one is notable for being one of the earliest of this genre to be 3D rendered on the Nintendo 64. That doesn't mean it was a good one, most reviews from last century put the game at or below 5/10. It was garbage then, it's worse now. You may be wondering why a crap rejected 1990's N64 game belongs on Steam and the answer is, you're right, it doesn't. This is another abandonware cash grab by Piko Interactive, who swindle their hands onto old abandoned/broken/dead games then try to swindle Steam gamers into paying them for someone else's old abandoned game. Ethical? Nope. This was never a good arcade arcade fighter/vs game, it was at best a cheap nasty ripoff of Virtua Fighter. The game did score some points for mocapped animations, but everything else was a dismal failure, including the most important aspect, the fighting. The developers just didn't "get" what makes a game like Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter work. All you need to do to win here is mash buttons hard and fast... that's all. It's a dud. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. The game only displays in 4:3 pillarboxed aspect ratio, due to the age of the game, it predates the 16:9 widescreen gaming standard established back in 2006. It's possible they're marketing this towards people using an old CRT they found in a dumpster, or this game is being specifically marketed towards people gaming on PC's from 1995... either way, this isn't really acceptable in the modern era of PC gaming. It's obviously not going to look right on a modern 16:9 gaming display. Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH. The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Dark Rift is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $8 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again. For comparison, the $8 asking price for this game could get you games like "Battlefield V", "This War of Mine" or "Mass Effect 3". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. There's also thousands of free, superior quality games on Steam. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]

everyone that didn't recommend this game is wrong best game soundtrack ♥♥♥♥♥ certified hood classic

I highly enjoy Dark Rift.. Released in 1997 for PC and N64, Dark Rift is kind of like a futuristic Soul Calibur in that it's a 3D fighting game where each character has unique weapons. The PC version has fantastic controls. You can play with either keyboard or gamepad, though I prefer keyboard. And the reason I prefer keyboard is because the buttons are re-mappable, which allows me to optimize how I see fit. I got highly invested in this game, and found myself pounding my keys with abandon. Thankfully, my keyboard survived the abuse. Graphically, Dark Rift has a lot of 90s charm. I'm glad it was re-mastered because I want the original polygons in all their janky glory. That said, it really would have been nice if there were options to play this at a higher resolution. I like the sound. The effects are pulse-pounding and the music is glorious. Sadly, Dark Rift doesn't work on Steam Deck. I understand it's unsupported. It would have been nice to play it there since this is the kind of game that would shine on the Deck. Some folks are angry because this is not a re-master. Personally, I only like re-masters when the original game is available. If someone wants to re-master Dark Rift, go ahead, but keep the original game intact! Dark Rift is definitely a hidden gem, and something worth playing if you want a 3D fighter that's off the beaten path.

The game does not work for me (OS: Windows 10). When I attempt to start it, it crashes after just a few seconds. There is no error message or anything - the title simply stops working. Other users have also experienced this problem and asked about it, but received no answer from the publisher and there seems to be no easy fix currently.

Garbage. This makes Urban Champion look good. Half the animation frames are missing, the CPU is a cheating mofo and the movements are stiff af and do not look right.

[h1] Very clunky but at least playable on Steam. Controller sometimes doesn't work. To beat the last boss I used some exploits because it was genuinely hard. Game feels a bit like a stiff sock in your mouth - unoptimized, controller issues and lack of any manual. Giving thumbs up for the nostalgia reason and because getting rid of another N64 game. Grab it while you can because it might disappear from the store someday! [/h1]