In 1998, Interplay made a version of ClayFighter that you could not buy. ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut was a Blockbuster Video exclusive, rental only, and it never got a retail release. When the rental era ended, most of the carts went wherever rental stock went. The ones that survived turned into some of the most expensive Nintendo 64® cartridges out there.
That is the squishy, ridiculous, claymation fighting game we are putting back on shelves. Not as a rental. A copy you finally get to own!
The Director's Cut Of A Game Nobody Could Finish Buying
Sculptor's Cut is the expanded edition of ClayFighter 63⅓, which hit the N64 a year earlier. Interplay went back in, rebalanced the roster, and added the four fighters that got cut from the first release: High Five, Lockjaw Pooch, Lady Liberty, and the Zappa Yow Yow Boyz. That brings the lineup to 16 clay-molded weirdos, which is as many as the series ever had.
The joke of ClayFighter was always that it looked like a serious fighting game and refused to act like one. Bad Mr. Frosty is a snowman with a grudge. Taffy is a piece of candy. Sumo Santa is exactly what it sounds like. Every character is modeled in clay, animated frame by frame, and then thrown into a tournament with the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon that got out of hand.
Earthworm Jim Is In This Game
If you picked up Earthworm Jim on Chromatic in August, he is here too, this time in clay and swinging his own head as a whip. Boogerman is on the roster as well. Interplay owned both characters at the time, so they got pulled into the ring alongside the ClayFighter regulars, and the two of them have been fan favorites in this game ever since.
Breakthroughs, Claytalities, and a Second Controller
The thing people remember most is the Breakthrough. Knock your opponent hard enough and they go through the wall, the window, or the floor, and the fight keeps going in a whole new area. Stages are built in layers, so a match that starts in a kitchen can end somewhere else entirely.
Then there are the Claytalities. The series was never shy about who it was parodying, and the finishing moves here are the clearest example. They are gross, they are loud, and they are the reason this one is rated Teen.
Sculptor's Cut is built for two players. Grab a second M64 Pro Controller and settle it the way it was meant to be settled.
