505 Games’ pit fighter style MMA game, Supremacy MMA: Unrestricted has come to the Vita, with all of the same brutality as it’s console counterparts. From the moment you start the game you’ll notice a wealth of content. You have everything from your “Supremacy Stories” in which you can play through all twelve of the fighters’ stories, to your training and tournament modes.
The “Supremacy Stories” take you through each fighters rags to riches story. Almost every fighter and character in their stories is a punk, jerk, dirtbag or some variation, which really left more to be desired. Playing through the stories is something I did almost solely for trophies. The stories are told through 2D cutscenes that capture the games grimey vibe all the way down to a grainy movie visual style. The music as well fits the game’s down and dirty unsanctioned parking garage brawl feel, for instance Expendable Forces by Warpath is in the game. Now that you kind of know what you’ll be seeing and hearing, let’s get into the good stuff, the fights, the knockouts and some of the modes.
Every fighter has their own martial art they practice, so every fighter has a different feel then the next. You have fighters like Jens Pulver (a real fighter and one of the best MMA fighters back in the day) that only uses boxing for his stand-up, while another’s strength will rely on submissions. You really have an extensive list of options when it comes to engaging your opponent. The problem though is the depth of these attacks are very limited. Everything basically comes down to variations of 3-5 hit combos, parries, counters and submissions. While standing you can parry, counter or do a combo. After a takedown, you can do a 3 hit combo or submission.
With that being said I still found myself enjoying the combat for the most part. The fights go from moments of being extremely fluid to awkward pauses after a combo or takedown. You can chain together a nice combo and then the moment it gets parried it’s like hitting a wall, where all the action halts there and has to pick up steam again. When the combat is flowing though, it’s engaging and tense. Supremacy MMA: Unrestricted relies heavily on it’s parry and counter system. Any and every attack towards you can be parried then immediately countered. This was this biggest hump for me being able to enjoy this game, but once I figured it out, it was on.
The parry and counter system is what will keep you on your toes in this game. Once you parry then counter, the other fighter can now parry your counter, then counter themselves. Follow? So, it turns itself into a nice volley of, “Who’s going to screw up first?” The only thing about once you master this parry counter system, some of the fights can become very stale as you steamroll your opponent with very little challenge and it starts to feel repetitive.
Last but not least, let’s briefly talk about some more of the modes. You have two tournaments to choose from, Battle Royale and Survival Ladder. The Battle Royale is your standard eight man tournament and Survival Ladder is a little more challenging then that. Survival Ladder has you fighting against each fighter consecutively. The more health you lose in a fight the less you’ll start with in your next fight. This mode may be the most enjoyable as it forces you to master the game and steamroll your opponents in order to make it to the end. There’s also Femmes Fatales mode with Felice “Lil Dog” Herrig and Michele “Diablita” Gutierrez returning. You play through a very short Supremacy Story for each of them.
Supremacy MMA offers a ton of content and had potential to be a great game, that’s not to say it’s not a good game or enjoyable, because it is. But offering a little more depth such as the ability to customize your own fighter or even the abilities you use in the game may have given it more of a hook. If you enjoy MMA style fighting games give this one a shot, just know that it doesn’t offer the customization that a lot of other MMA games offer.
