Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring

Ehrgeiz, fully titled Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring, is a 3D fighting video game developed by DreamFactory and published by Namco in 1998 for the arcade platform. It was ported to the PlayStation.

The main game mode is an arcade-style fighting game. Charismatic fighters from around the world compete in a tournament for a mysterious sword as the prize. In addition to your archetypes of kick boxers, wrestlers, and mixed martial artists there are also animal type fighters, homing missiles, characters with swords, and many other attacks that shake things up.

The standard balance in fighting games is speed vs. damage. Whether it be ranged or melee attacks, the 'damage per second' should be the same - as every character has an equal health bar. Ehrgeiz is a very balanced game, despite the complexity presented by how fundamentally different most characters are.

The vast differences between certain characters require the player to devise separate strategies for different opponents. The animal type opponents, for example, can only be hit with roughly half the attacks of the normal opponents - head kicks, many long range attacks, and most throws will hit empty air, especially since animal characters can 'duck' even lower to the ground. Fighting a gun wielding character will result in a battle where you must chase and pin down.