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Have You Have You Heard Of… ‘Way of the Warrior’? Naughty Dog’s Disastrous Attempt at Joining the ‘Mortal Kombat’ Bandwagon

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For Naughty Dog, it wasn’t always leaping marsupials, discount Indiana Jones wisecracking heroes and post-apocalyptic, surrogate parenting. Nah, long before Jak would nab his first Precursor Orb, or our man Nathan Drake would murder a small country in his pursuit of misplaced shinies, Naughty Dog would bring us Way of the Warrior for Panasonic’s ill-fated 3DO home console.

A one-on-one brawler with digitized combatants complimented in turn by some crazy bad CG backgrounds that look like they were forcefully pulled from the rectum of 1989, Way of the Warrior seemed to be a bandwagon jumping attempt to capitalize on the ultraviolent shenanigans Midway had unleashed on the world years earlier with Mortal Kombat.

Quite unlike The House That Johnny Cage Built however, Way of the Warrior was utterly hamstrung by charisma-less characters, objectively horrendous visuals and some of the very worst fighting gameplay this side of Kasumi Ninja on the Atari Jaguar (honestly, look it up). Ultimately, it was so impressive in just how crushingly terrible it all was that you just couldn’t look away.

As one of nine different warriors, with additional secret characters available for selection if you should so choose to prolong the misery, Way of the Warrior’s plot was the sort of trite, face-clawing nonsense you might well expect from an early 90s, straight-to-video venture starring Lorenzo Lamas. Once you’ve beaten all the other warriors, yourself in a mirror match, a massive dragon called High Abbot, and then a skeleton that goes by the name of ‘Kull’ (yeah, I have no idea either), you are then sealed into the Book of Warriors and that’s basically it. Job done, story over.  

Look, Mortal Kombat is hardly Shakespeare in comparison, but at least each character had a somewhat fleshed out backstory, and then there was also the whole broader story of the meta-struggle between the Earthrealm and Outworld cracking on in the background. Though characterization obviously shouldn’t be a massive concern when it comes to brawlers of this ilk, Way of the Warrior seemingly went out of its way to be more on the nose than the rest of its genre stablemates.

From Major Gaines, an aptly named hulking green beret type who clearly consumes a 1:1 ratio of steak and steroids and whose special ability is, in fact, to take a handful of roids to increase his size and damage, to stick-swinging Aussie brawler Shaky Jake who looks about as threatening as pre-puberty Neville Longbottom, the cast of Way of the Warrior is hardly one that strikes fear and awe into players. Put simply, Scorpion and company would ruin these fools pronto.

When it came to the act of actually putting fist to face, Way of the Warrior’s seemingly gleeful descent into terribleness continued unabated. Sure enough, while you have all the expected punches, kicks, throws and crappily CG augmented special attacks that one might expect, it’s crucially the way that it all fails to hang together which really undercuts the whole experience.

You see with Mortal Kombat, when you crouched and let rip with an uppercut to the chin of your foe, the bone-crunching sound that would accompany their journey into the sky was palpable and satisfying. Pointedly, it felt like your strikes actually landed and had a physical impact that was both measurable and satisfying. In Way of the Warrior, however, each of the fighter folk kind of bounce off one another other and can leap improbable distances up into the sky, while the strikes that land are totally bereft of any real kind of heft or impact.

Being very much an offering in the Mortal Kombat mold, this meant that Way of the Warrior also included a whole bunch of suitably violent fatalities. And to be fair, for the time they were suitably gory and pleasingly brutal. Whether it was samurai dude Nobunaga carving someone in twain, or Major Gaines doing the sort of body-splitting backbreaker that even Bane would be proud of, Way of the Warrior at least knew how to end its fights in suitably brutal fashion, even if it didn’t know how to do anything else with them.

Way of the Warrior does actually do one thing incredibly well, however, and that’s provide a decent soundtrack. Somehow making the whole abysmal spectacle remotely tolerable is the fact that you have White Zombie absolutely belting out some cracking ear-ringers from their 1992 metal groove album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One across the whole thing. But then again, you could just listen to the music separate from the game, couldn’t you?

Anyway, clearly emboldened by the success Midway found with Mortal Kombat, Way of the Warrior is the perfect example of a developer jumping onto a bandwagon, spectacularly missing said bandwagon and then caving their face open on the ground instead. The videogame equivalent of a shit-covered firework being let off in a barn, it’s like anything remotely innovative or entertaining about Way of the Warrior was pulled past the event horizon of its lamentable, black hole design brief early on, only to never escape or be seen again.

But at least it had White Zombie. We’ll always have White Zombie.

Read more from John-Paul Jones’  ‘Have You Heard Of…’ Series with articles on Moonstone, DOOM RPG, and DreamWeb

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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