MMA Manager 2021 Review: Poor AI but Enjoyable MMA experience
2021-09-27
MMA Manager 2021 is a sports simulation game from Tilting Point that puts players in control of their own MMA fighters. We’ve seen many sports management games on the mobile platform over the years but rarely do we come across the ones that find just the right balance in terms of sports and management as Tilting Point did with MMA Manager.
The game offers an in-depth, complex, and physics-based combat which, despite being fun to watch to a certain degree, ultimately offers a poor AI interface. Here fighters throw random punches at each other that may or may not hit their target no matter how much training you put them through.
Despite relying heavily on its mechanics, which is usual for its genre, MMA Manager offers a satisfying complexity to how these various mechanics interact with themselves while also offering of being right there amongst the mob of spectators that form during a college yard brawl.
MMA Manager Gameplay
Like every other manager game, MMA Manager does not give you control over the fighters throughout their careers. Instead, your job is to manage and help them become champions. You will be given access to various equipment that will help you train and manage your fighters well.
You can recruit fighters from several weight classes and have them undergo thorough training while also setting up fights against other strong fighters. With the game being multiplayer, there is no schedule or calendar for you to follow, which allows you to challenge any random player in a quick fight.
As a manager, you’ll be in control of the gym, where you’ll need to purchase new equipment and hire trainers that’ll help keep your fighters in good shape. This is typically done in the game by retrieving money earned from gym patrons and winning fights. As you play and make a name for yourself by gaining enough prestige, you’ll be able to upgrade to much better and larger buildings where you can comfortably grow and maintain your gym.
THE GOOD
Controls are very simple
MMA Manager does not allow players to control the fighters, which makes it irrelevant to write about the game’s controls because all you can do when a fight is underway is watch or hit the pause button. Other than that, the controls are pretty basic on the homepage.
You can easily buy items from the shop and arrange them as you want in your building. The game allows slight flexibility in arranging your equipment which makes it a little bit fun. Changing the fighters fighting styles is also very simple with the controls.
You can change them from Balanced, Advanced, etc., while also choosing trainers and other equipment is easy to do with the game’s controls. Ultimately, the controls are simple and don’t involve much handling - just basic tapping here and there on a couple of menus.
Graphics Is good considering the size of the game
The graphics are surprisingly satisfying for a game of its size. It’s not UFC level, but it still manages to get the job done in letting you watch your fighter go toe to toe with another fighter in the ring. The game offers three graphics levels, which are Fastest, Balanced, and Beautiful.
Beautiful being the highest allows you to gaze upon the fighters in smooth HD both during training and in battle. The fight rings are also well-formed to give a solid and bold look of real-life MMA.
Music & Soundtrack – Would’ve been fun to see the fans cheer
The home menu music is cool and consists of several tracks that play continuously on end unless you enter into a fight. The soundtrack in the middle of a fight is pretty solid as well.
You can hear the punches, blocking, and even hear the screams of fans as they chant for whoever appears to be winning a fight. However, it would’ve been a little bit preferable if players could hear all the sound effects such as rolling on the floor, evading kicks, and others.
The cheer of the invincible crowd is loud enough to make those other sounds effects very hard to hear, even if they are included in the game.
Ability to Skip a match
One of the best features about this game is that, unlike other manager games that force you to watch every game and every fight to the very end, MMA Manager allows players to skip a fight if they simply wish to go through the game faster.
When a match begins, you can simply hit the pause menu and skip the fight. This will automatically declare the winner of the fight and return to the game’s menu. It’s pretty cool and especially relevant to old players who really don’t like spending time against weaker opponents and just prefer to skim through fast.
THE BAD
Lack of zoom feature during matches
The game camera, while allowing players to zoom near on your building and get a better view of your fighters in training from the game’s menu, fails to add this feature to matches as well. While allowing you to rotate the camera as much as you want, you can’t zoom in on matches to get a clearer view of the punches, evading, and special attacks.
We’ve found this to be one of the game’s setbacks which, if worked on, would make MMA Manager a very satisfying game to play for hours on end.
Slow-paced training system
The game rates equipment and trainers in the form of stars, and they become easily attainable as you grow and expand your gym. The more stars you garner, the more training benefits your fighters will experience. But the thing with the game’s training is that it can be very slow.
Fighters take a while to complete each training, and as they grow more powerful and reach higher levels, their training takes even longer to complete. The time slated for each training will increase, which means if it used to take 2 minutes to train a fighter, after reaching a certain level, it might take them 15 minutes to finish a training session depending on the equipment and trainer.
VERDICT
MMA Manager offers fights that are clean and well laid out. There’s no thorough learning curve that’ll tire you out before the actual game even commences, and despite having the ability to skip matches, it’s pretty exciting to watch them play out.
If you’re looking to get your hands on your next manager simulation game in order to while away a couple of hours either at work or school, then MMA Manager is really the way to go.
Just like many wrestling games out there, the game is poorly represented on mobile compared to EA’s UFC. However, if you sincerely want a good and enjoyable MMA experience on your phone, then look no further than MMA Manager.
