Bundesfighter II Turbo
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| Bundesfighter II Turbo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Colour Colliders |
| Publisher | funk |
| Director | Schlecky Silberstein |
| Designer | Nino Werner |
| Programmer | Athos Kele |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platforms | |
| Release | Browser, MacOS, Windows
|
| Genre | Fighting |
| Modes | single-player, multiplayer |
Bundesfighter II Turbo (lit. 'Federal Fighter II Turbo') is a parody fighting game, developed by Austrian studio Colour Colliders on behalf of German satire format Browser Ballet and published by funk in 2017. While drawing inspiration from Capcom's Street Fighter II Turbo, it features stages and characters based on caricatures of the leading candidates of the 2017 German federal election.[1]
The browser game gained notoriety when the public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart refused to investigate the game for its use of the swastika, leading to a rekindling of the debate on the ban of unconstitutional symbols in German video games as well as the definition of video games as an art form, ending in a reform of the USK's ruleset.[2]
Playing like a traditional 16-bit fighting game, the aim of the game is to have two characters face off against each other. Different characters have different attacks, serving as a means to deplete the opponent's health bar. Like in the Street Fighter series, these attacks consist of unique light and heavy attacks with a jumping and ducking variation each, in addition to special attacks which require a filled "power bar" to activate. Furthermore, each character has their own home stage, based on real-life locations.
Players can choose between a story mode, where they have to face off against a series of CPU-controlled opponents on a set path, or a versus mode, in which human players take control of both fighters.[3]
Characters
The playable cast of Bundesfighter II Turbo consist of satirical depictions of the leading candidates of the 2017 German federal election, representing the CDU, SPD, Left, FDP, AfD and A90/Greens parties.[4]
- Merkel: Then-serving federal chancellor and leading candidate of CDU. She is depicted as a lizard person (in reference to the Reptilian conspiracy theory), which is why the majority of her attacks consist of hits with her tail and tongue, whereas her special attacks have her summoning former federal chancellor Helmut Kohl or a literal wave of refugees. Her stage is based on the German Chancellery in Berlin.
- Schulz: Portrayed as a muscular, roller-skating saint, SPD's candidate mainly fights by kicking or beating his opponents with a club wrapped in an imperial armband (referencing the German expression "to swing the Nazi club", meaning to accuse someone of far-right ideologies as a discrediting tactic). While one of his special attacks is based on Street Fighter's Shoryuken, the other has him transforming into the "MEGA-Schulz hype train", based on an internet meme that put Schulz at the center of an ironic cult of personality, intending to mock then-US president Donald Trump's MAGA politics.[5] This meme is also represented in Schulz's home stage, which takes place during a SPD party meeting in Würselen.
- Wagenknecht: Being the leading candidate of The Left, her moveset contains - among some ordinary kicks - hits and slashes with a hammer and sickle as well as a Pioniergruß. For her special attack, a Berlin Wall watchtower marked with a Circle-A sprouts from the ground. She is fought in front of the Karl Marx Monument in Chemnitz (called Karl-Marx-Stadt in-game).
- Lindner: While his special attacks consist of him poking his opponents with a selfie stick or transforming into a locust (in reference to the Heuschreckendebatte, a controversy surrounding German politician Franz Müntefering's comparison of international equity traders to a plague of locusts), the majority of his moves satirise the FDP's stigma as a "rich man's party".[6] This is expressed via his use of golf clubs and champagne bottles as weapons, the advertisement of Thermomix in his post-battle lines, and his home stage being the rooftop bar of a Frankfurt skyscraper.
- Gauland: As the leading candidate of the AfD, his moveset consists mostly of punches, kicks, and pokes with his nose, which he can extend in a similar way to Pinocchio. Additionally, one of his special attacks has him use a garden gnome as a projectile in a similar manner to Street Fighter's Hadouken, while he transforms into a German Dachshund for the other. The duel against him takes place during a Pegida demonstration at the Neumarkt in Dresden.
- Özdehardt: The candidate duo of Alliance 90/The Greens, Cem Özdemir and Katrin Göring-Eckardt, has been combined into this game's only joke character. Both are stuck together in an organic waste bin and can only punch themselves in the face. Their stage is a Waldorf school in Freiburg.
