Today’s guest post is by Colin Crebs.
In anticipation of Injustice: Gods Among Us coming out next month, let’s revisit the Flash’s video game appearances of choice: the Flash in fighting games. Today: Justice League Task Force (“JLTF”), basically Injustice on the SNES or Genesis from 1995.
Pictured Above: What’s you favorite Blizzard game? Justice League Task Force? Mine too!
Initial blanket criticism: The Flash doesn’t belong in fighting games. Unless he’s fighting another speedster or he’s massively depowered, no opponent should have a chance against him. A modest iteration of the Flash is a guy that punches really fast and dodges bullets. Anything above that, he’s a guy that steals the speed of the opponent, freezes time, and executes punches with infinite mass. As Agnes would put it, “He’ll kill you five times before you hit the ground.” Did you lose Round 1? Why not run backward in time for a redo?
Blanket criticism aside, let’s turn to JLTF.
As far as I can tell, both the SNES and Genesis version of JLTF are despised equally, even though they are slightly different from one another. It’s commonly ranked as one of the worst fighting games of all time and Cracked even has a standalone article about it.
The major criticism of both iterations is just “Why would you play this and not a technically sound game like Street Fighter?” To that, I say, “Because you can play as the Justice League, stupid.” It’s easier to justify today though, as these games are just up for emulation or available at a garage sale for 50 cents, so there’s not much investment involved. Back in the day, if you forked over $60 for one of them, you’d probably be pretty mad at how they limited they are. The day you bought JLTF instead of Street Fighter II would probably haunt you the rest of your life. It’s not Shaq Fu-bad though, because nothing but Shaq Fu is as bad as Shaq Fu. It’s fun to say Shaq Fu.
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