While it might, at times, seem as if I have no real preference in what I play and just skip across decades and genres at random, there is – in fact – a commonality to all games I end up liking — and said commonality is design. A good idea well-realized transcends gameplay and genre and is always the beacon I follow when rooting out Games Worth Playing (even if, sometimes, it's a beacon I only realize was there in hindsight).

One Must Fall 2097 was not a game I chose to play because it was good: it was merely one of the few games I had. For a time In the mid '90s, of a late afternoon – once I got back from school, but before Professor Tanuki came home from university and occupied the family PC – my options for entertainment were limited to Wolfenstein 3D (which was boring and made my head hurt); Privateer (which was great, but I wasn't very good at); and this little fighting gem by an eight-person shop out of Florida, of all places, which sucked me in with its colorful graphics, fluid animation, pulsing beat and, indeed, deeper gameplay than you'd expect from a simple button-masher...

Made by Diversions Entertainment in 1994, One Must Fall 2097 was (and remains) a game ahead of its time. For starters, it had a plot.

In the (for the '90s, at least) distant future of 2097, the World Aeronautics and Robotics company (WAR) develops Human Assisted Robots (HARs): giant, remote-controlled machines which are employed in construction, deep-space exploration, mining and (naturally) security. And while they serve a practical purpose, the public develops a taste for seeing them fight and a new form of entertainment is born.

While, nowadays, network play is pretty much a given, One Must Fall 2097 was one of the first games (and definitely the first fighting game) I encountered that had it as a stock feature (one I, sadly, never got to experience – as I knew few enough people with computers, much less anyone with a PC and OMF2097). The game could also be played in single player (in "campaign" or "tournament" mode) or two-player split-screen.

The "campaign" mode was set up like a traditional fighting game, with premade characters and a story about an internal struggle at WAR over its impending colonization of Ganymede. It was okay for what it was, but – as all of the characters were corporate lackeys of one flavor or another – it was hard to find someone likeable to play as. And their statistics (did I not mention OMF2097 characters had stats!?) were fixed, which sorta limited the mechanic's usefullness...

Thankfully, Rob Elam (Diversions' founder and lead designer) was bright enough to spot the potential of RPG-lite progression and bundled "tournament" mode into the game – which, in my opinion, was the best aspect of OMF2097 and the only way to play it.

Unlike the "campaign," "tournament" mode let you create your own character (whom you got to name and pick out a portrait for from the, okay, underwhelming pool of four). Your character started out with a bone-stock Jaguar HAR and a value of one in all their stats.

From those humble beginnings, you signed on to one of four, increasingly lengthy, tournaments and started clawing your way up. Each victory earned you money, which you could invest into your HAR's six statistics (arm power/speed, leg power/speed, armor and stun resistance); or your operator's three (Power, Agility and Endurance). And because the game was awesome, you could also paint your HAR how you liked, free of charge.

As befits a fighting game, each HAR had a distinct range of abilities and its own set of special attacks, some of which could be expanded by performing Scrap or Destruction moves (an echo of Mortal Kombat's fatalities) on defeated opponents and fighting secret contestants for upgrades to existing moves (like the Jaguar's three-strike Concussion Cannon or the Electra's increased-range Electric Shards); or brand-new abilities ((like the Shadow's Ice Freeze).

Arenas you fought in included hazards, which you had to keep an eye out for, such as aircraft strafing the ground, a high-voltage cage surrounding the ring, protruding spikes with a penchant for impalement or a holographic marker that triggered an eruption of flames from the floor.

And, were that not enough, your earnings were also modified by your HAR's repair costs, with bonuses paid out for finishing a bout without taking any damage.

Compared to "conventional" fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, with their set-piece, premade characters, a lack of narrative and static environments, One Must Fall 2097 was yonks ahead in terms of design and showed a surprising amount of inventiveness and innovation. In fact, the game was so complex (for what it was) that I haven't seen its like since – with a few fighting games adopting a few of its mechanics, but never the whole (or comparable) package.

I played a few bouts today, to grab screens for this review, and OMF2097 hasn't aged a day. The gameplay remains crisp and responsive, Kenny Chou's tracks still rock and while the graphics may look a little dated, by modern standards, they hold up well enough for what they are. I think I'll finish the World Tournament I started and – who knows? – maybe I'll stick around for another...

Or a few more.

The nature of a Great Game is that it doesn't get old: irrespective of technical advancements, competing titles or simply the Inexorable March of Time, its little kernel of Solid Design keeps it engaging, compelling and fun.

And while One Must Fall 2097 may be the a 30-year-old, freeware remnant of a developer that put out a grand-total of two games (only one of which was good) before folding around 2010, it remains a Great Game and nothing if not fun.

Pig Recommends:

• -if you enjoy Classics of a Certain Age or are a fan of fighting games, grab a copy of DOSbox (at https://www.dosbox.com/) and a copy of One Must Fall 2097 (can't Google the download without getting a slew of abandonware sites); even if you don't keep it for as long as I have, it's well worth a play or two;