Match of the Millennium: A Review
MotM is a MUCK (roleplaying story focused MU*) that pins itself to one of the most unlikely of universes: fighting games. Not just one fighting game but, well, as many as they can manage. It’s impressive how they have woven these worlds together. Granted most fighting game plots are “bad guy runs big corporation and holds global fighting tournament” so it’s not that much of a stretch but their dedication to honoring the characters and plots is respectable.
I don’t usually qualify myself in these reviews but I know a fair bit of fighting games. I was on the “professional” circuit in the 90s winning local and state tournaments as a teenager. I spent every waking hour I wasn’t in school, in the theater or sleeping in an arcade putting quarters on the monitor bezel of a fighting game. My du jour was Street Fighter 2, Soul Edge and Killer Instinct the latter two of which I was state champion in one year.
Sadly my second qualifier isn’t a good one. I’m pretty awful at RPing and especially awful at RPing someone else’s character and setting. This is lore I know and have a history with not lore I was eager, or even expecting to participate directly in.
Starting Out
You’re put into a newbie school right off the bat in Match of the Millennium but there is more reasons for this than teaching you how to type Score, Inventory and North. MotM wants you to be taking the role of one of the available in-universe characters if possible. There is a formal application process but you are still able to jump into the game as persona non grata essentially to try out the combat system.
I can’t speak towards the application process or the formal role play coordination as it’s really not my cup of coffee. If intensive roleplay supported by the game mechanics isn’t your thing MotM probably isn’t in your consideration anyways.
Going into this the idea that I was going to find a few dozen people online in a roleplay focused fighting game was well beyond my anticipation but it was the reality. I idled for quite a bit not talking and just going through the help files and someone said hello and asked if I needed any help. After explaining that I was on to write a review everyone currently active jumped in and were all extremely friendly and accommodating to my questions.
If you want interaction and role-play opportunities I don’t think you’ll be left wanting here.
The Gameplay
For a roleplay focused game there is a surprisingly robust set of mechanics involved in the combat. This is not DIKU style auto combat or even the “repeat enter kick until dead” of the non-auto combat systems you might find in an IRE game. I will say it’s still sort of roleplay driven as it employs a “pose system” like many RPIs, but mechanically it is rather deep.
Beyond mechanical combat “gameplay” is building out story encounters which are recorded and made available to all, including on the website. In this regard you’re going to get what you give as is the case in RPIs in general.
The Lore
I can’t really say much about the lore. It’s impressive, as noted, the maintenance of all of these fighting game universes together as a single expansive narrative. The lore in an RPI isn’t really a point of rating to me since in non RPIs one might rate the lore on how important it is to gameplay or how well it’s represented in the game design. An RPI’s lore IS the gameplay and it is the game design.
Literary quality is mostly thrown out the window with fighting games so how good the backstory is here is anchored to something that’s already a few rungs below what you might find in a bad action cartoon or comic. If you like fighting games you’ll appreciate what’s happening. If you’re looking for the next Game of Thrones or Snow Crash you might want to go somewhere else.
The Web Presence
MotM has one of the most extensive, well laid out and quite frankly useful websites I’ve seen on a MU*. I am left wanting absolutely nothing from the website for information and it set my expectations for what I was going to encounter in game perfectly.
Overall
If you’re into roleplaying and you’re into fighting games there’s no reason you should still be reading this article if you haven’t tried MotM yet. I did not think a thing like this existed and now that I know it does my only regret is I can’t really get into it. I love fighting games but the RPI/MUSH/MUCK type thing is just not my bag. If you like MUSH/MUCK at all I’d still give it a go. At worst you’ll end up meeting some very friendly and interesting people in the who list.