Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring – Обзор и особенности файтинга Final Fantasy VII

the unrelated animated series

, 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 first ported to the PlayStation and published by Square Co. in 1998, then to Japan's PlayStation Network by Square Enix in 2008. The game includes characters from Final Fantasy VII. Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart are playable in the arcade and the PlayStation versions; in addition, Sephiroth, Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, and Zack Fair were added to the PlayStation version's roster.

Ehrgeiz differs from most 3D fighting games by drawing heavily from the concepts of wrestling games and DreamFactory's own Tobal series, which allows for full 360 degree movement and does not require fighters to be facing one another at all times. This restricts the camera to a more or less fixed position, zooming in and out with the action, but not tracking around the arena as would be common in most other 2D and 3D fighting games. Characters can move freely in a 3 dimensional stage which is filled with many interactive objects and changes in elevation, allowing characters to leap on top of crates or use them as weapons, for example. There are four action buttons: guard, high attack, low attack, and special, which is a weapons based attack that is different for each character.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Ehrgeiz on their April 15, 1998 issue as being the sixth most successful arcade game of the month. Ehrgeiz sold over 222,000 copies in Japan by the end of 1998, and sold 340,937 copies in Japan by December 2004. It has scored a 32 out of 40 points by the Japanese gaming publication Famitsu. IGN rated the game a 7.5 or "Good", citing the game's beautiful graphics and presentation but noting both its generally simplistic gameplay and very difficult combination move executions. Ehrgeiz currently has an aggregate score of 76% on GameRankings based on twenty one media outlets. Next Generation reviewed the PlayStation version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "Technologically speaking, Ehrgeiz is an impressive fighter, but it does have balance problems, especially the one button gameplay of the one player game. Still, it's good to see developers straying from the accepted formula with new fighting designs that truly work."