Too often, the game ends up in a your turn-my turn pattern, and seldom are the quick, natural, grueling close up battles that immerse players in games like Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, or even Mace. Projectiles are cool looking, but they're almost worthless at even medium range because they take too long to ignite. This makes them painfully obvious to the opponent, who can side step and attack while you're still attempting to project. And despite the 60 fps, response times can be slow and unnatural. Blocks, projectiles, and some combos are mostly guilty of slowness, and will certainly frustrate the player.
Throws are, for the most part, cool.
They're easy to pull off, and the camera zooms overhead to present a cinematic look that best shows the damage done. But there's not too much incentive to perform them because they cause very little damage. Dark Rift shines through its weaknesses, and, for the time being, can be called the best fighter on Nintendo 64. The game is smooth, no question about it. Unfortunately, Dark Rift suffers from a horrible lack of personality and is virtually devoid of any innovation.