Flashback to 1997. Hong Kong programmer, Marti Wong of Sofstar releases Little Fighter as freeware. Thanks to freeware sites such as Home of The Underdogs, (www.the-underdogs.org) it became a hit. The graphics were old school Nintendo style and it went perfect with the addictive gameplay. But the true fun was when you played 4 player w/ your buddies against or with the computer. Like many fighting games, the game had specials where you throw fireballs (In some cases, freeze balls) at your oppenents. There were 8 fighters, and each had their own unique set of attacks. Along with special moves, the game offered available power-ups and weapons during the game, making it even cooler. The only drawback was the sound and lack of music. 2 years laer, Marti Wong and his brother, Starsky Wong stared working on the sequel and it is almost near completion.
Little Fighter 2 is a major improvement on Little Fighter in all areas. Offering Anime' style graphics, 4 modes of gameplay, and much better sound, Little Fighter 2 looks like it will be one of the greatest freeware games on the net. The same basic gameplay is in the heart of LF2, but the improvements found in version 1.9 require a full page to explain.
First off, the modes of gameplay. 1.9 offers players four modes of gameplay. The first mode, is VS. play. This gameplay allows players to fight against each other head on or against the computer. A very basic type gameplay. Second, there is 1 on 1 Tournament play where players fight in a tournament to become the champion. But to become the champion they must fight a computer or human controlled oppenent. If they win the first bout, they move on to another fighter (computer or human) who had fought someone else in the first bouts. They keep fighting others until they become champion...or are defeated. These two had been featured in the Little Fighter, but the next two, battle and stage mode, are new. In Stage mode, player(s) select their characters and the amount of computer controlled characters they want on their team. The team must take on a group of weaker (depending on the difficulty) characters to complete each stage. In V.1.9 there are 3 stages. Last, but definately not least, is battle mode, which lets player(s) select a cerain numer of "chamipons." (Original characters from Little Fighter 1) After that, they can select an amount of weaker characters. These characters can do limited or no specials. An example of a weaker character, is one named Bandit. Bandit cannot do any specials but can punch, kick, etc. After they select everything including the amount of power ups, they go into an all-out battle w/ the two armies fighting each other until one of the armies is defeated and wiped out.

In LF2, there is a character that you can select a figure which is just called a template. This character can be edited in the Character files in LF2. Many fans have already came out with such characters and available for download.
The character graphics look astonishing and the backrounds are good enough to suit the gameplay. There are very few things that need improvement from V. 1.9. LF2 will surely rock and probably already rock the freeware world.


Info on Marti Wong gained from www.the-underdogs.org and www.littlefighter.com