What if I told you that there was a fighting game roster that includes a villainous snowman, a pile of green goo, a pumpkin-headed poltergeist, a voodoo tribesman, an obese opera singer that looks like Wagner's Brunhild, a cyborg, musclebound rabbit and a living being made of saltwater taffy? Well, as much as that sounds like a fever dream, it isn't. ClayFighter is that series, and let me just say - it's one of the strangest, yet creative fighting game franchises that I've ever seen.
The first game came out in November of 1993 for the Super Nintendo and this was the version I grew up with. I remember being obsessed with this game, although I was (and still remain) terrible at fighting games. The colorful roster of characters and the hilarious, irreverent spirit, an essence I miss quite dearly in this uppity, modern era, created a wholly unique experience. The game was essentially a parody of icons of the genre, like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.
The developers, Visual Concepts, along with their publisher, Interplay Entertainment, partnered with an animation studio called Danger Productions to bring ClayFighter to life. They took roughly a year to develop the game, designing eight fighters. Then the team at Danger made clay models of each fighter and spent months capturing the models in various poses and positions. Not every fighter was designed the same way, so a very thin character like Taffy (the creature made entirely of saltwater taffy), had to be specially made with a stronger type of clay. Another fighter, The Blob (shown above) had almost seventy different models constructed just for him, because of his shape-shifting abilities and moveset. While ClayFighter was initially designed as a parody of Mortal Kombat, the era in which the game released was very controversial for Mortal Kombat. Violence in video games was at the forefront of many discussions, and famously Mortal Kombat is one of the most violent series ever made; so Interplay brilliantly began to market ClayFighter as an alternative to the graphic fighting game series.
The following year, ClayFighter received an updated version, dubbed ClayFighter: Tournament Edition, which fixed several glitches and added features like: difficulty options, new stage backgrounds, etc. The strangest thing about the Tournament Edition is that you couldn't actually buy it anywhere. It was developed as a rental exclusive game for Blockbuster in North America. Interestingly enough, that wasn't the only time that Blockbuster had a rental exclusive version of a ClayFighter title - more on that soon. After the Tournament Edition, there was a port of the base game to the Sega Genesis, which was largely preferred by fighting game fans, as the Genesis controller had more buttons to utilize in your flashy combos. There was set to be a port on the Atari Jaguar as well, but Interplay pulled the plug on the project.
The series returned with another Super Nintendo entry, ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay on January 1, 1995. The sequel conspicuously skipped the Sega Genesis, though it was advertised for the Sega 32X, but ultimately never saw release. There was also a port in the works for the ill-fated 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console that never came out. Interplay approached ClayFighter 2 a little differently than the first game. One major component being that the game was developed internally at Interplay, instead of through Visual Concepts, though many of the same developers from the first game did carry over to the sequel. ClayFighter 2 was done on an entirely new engine as well, as they thought of the engine from ClayFighter and Tournament Edition as being primitive. ClayFighter 2 was reviewed quite well. Reviewers stated that the game felt darker and grittier, more violent and that the combos were much more satisfying. The developers were displeased with one major component though - the claymation. They contracted a different team, instead of Danger Productions, who handled all of the stop-motion and claymation in the first game. Though ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay seemed to be a success for them, they attempted a bit of a course correction in the development of their next game.
After the release of ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay, the series departed from its 16-bit roots to try a foray into the newly introduced world of 3D gaming. Cheekily dubbed ClayFighter 63 1/3, this new entry in the series released on the Nintendo 64 in October of 1997. There was a version in development for the PlayStation as well, under the name ClayFighter Extreme, but it was scrapped following various developmental delays. Interplay once again developed this game themselves and sought to make a legitimate fighting game, though still utilizing the series' trademark lighthearted, irreverent style and humor.
They innovated on a few key aspects of the gameplay. The stages now had multiple rooms that you could access by throwing your opponent through doorways, adding a fun, dynamic sense of scale to the various arenas that you battle in. They've also now added a super combo system that is inspired by the Street Fighter Alpha series, as well as a parry mechanic. Following Interplay's disappointment with the artistic style and quality of the claymation used in ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay, they decided to return to the technical wizards at Danger Productions for this game. These various additions and upgrades led to the team at Interplay feeling like they had finally achieved what they had wanted from an aesthetic approach for the series. Unfortunately the reviews for ClayFighter 63 1/3 didn't reflect the developers' enthusiasm. While critics enjoyed aspects of the goofy humor, they largely derided the gameplay and art style of this game, leading to mixed to negative reception pretty much across the board. Interplay ultimately released one more attempt at the ClayFighter series, and it wasn't a brand new game; rather it was an enhanced edition of this N64 title, similar to the Tournament Edition update for the first game.
ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut released in May of 1998 on the Nintendo 64. As I mentioned earlier, regarding the Tournament Edition having a bizarre release format, this enhanced version of ClayFighter 63 1/3 was also a Blockbuster rental exclusive. Blockbuster at one point hold a contest that awarded the winner a copy of this game. The truly interesting piece of ClayFighter lore though, is that the Sculptor's Cut version only had 20,000 copies produced; which has resulted in it becoming extremely rare and valuable for collectors. Below, I shared a screenshot of an eBay listing that is currently live for Sculptor's Cut.
Sculptor's Cut fixed many of the technical issues of its preceding version. Combat was adjusted, as well as simplified menu navigation. Substantial content was added in Sculptor's Cut. Five characters were removed from the base game during development, and four of those were added back in the updated version. The only missing character, Hobo Cop, was left out due to Nintendo's protest - the character was an alcoholic vigilante. Sculptor's Cut also included a new intro sequence to the game, and new storylines. Reviews were never shared for this updated version of the game, but I have to imagine they would've been more favorable.
You've probably noticed that I haven't touched on any sort of plot elements. The games really don't feature any sort of a coherent, interesting storyline, which is part of the reason why critics were harsh on the series. The games, more or less, live and die by their wacky roster of characters and their crude humor. Even when they attempted to focus more on the fighting game mechanics, the critics and players weren't thrilled about their innovations.
Within a five year period, ClayFighter released three full games, and two enhanced "definitive" editions in between some of the games. The series spanned the early nineties to the late nineties, and truthfully, given the aesthetic and crude tone of the games, they feel right at home in that decade. They have attempted a few times to bring the series back, to no avail. At one point, a ClayFighter game was in development for the Nintendo DS, under the name ClayFighter: Call of Putty (screenshot shown above), and it was said to include all of the content from Sculptor's Cut, but this game never saw release. There was also a full-blown remaster of the original game under development in 2016, but it was cancelled and the rights to the IP were sold by Interplay; a sad ending to the series, in my opinion. To my knowledge, no ClayFighter game is currently available on any modern platform, and the last I heard of anything involving the series was that a line of toys were being produced by the controversial company Megalopolis Toys (recently rebranded to Premium DNA).
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