Howl!
You're not impressing anyone, you know. For our mind, though (and we haven't given the game a thorough playtest yet), the combat could be a bit lacking in the depth department. There's not much to it as far as the basic moves are concerned, apart from a repetitive button jabbing, and yet, perversely, the advanced moves are very difficult indeed to access, making things somewhat unbalanced.

It looks nice from where I'm standing.
Sure. The character details and the shading and textures of the environments are what you'd expect of a Square game, and the response time and frame rate are good, so there are few complaints on that score.

You mentioned some special extras.
Ah! So you were listening. For starters, and unusually for a beat 'em up, Ehrgeiz has an RPG quest (a real-time combat one, not turn-based) which you can take your characters on if you want to, and it's fun if you like that sort of thing. It should take most gamers a good 15 hours or more to complete and it certainly adds to the game's value for money.

And those mini games?
Very good! There are four of these: Infinity Battle, Battle Runner, Battle Beach and Battle Panel. Infinity Battle is a one-player fight mode where every time you defeat an opponent your energy is replenished. You aim for the highest score by defeating as many characters as possible. Battle Runner and Battle Beach are two-player foot race games with a bit of argy bargy (which is nice), while Battle Panel is quite simply high-speed, high-kicking Othello, which is bonkers.

The question is, though, does Ehrgeiz work as stand-alone beat 'em up?
Go to the top of the class. The mini games are fun, but Ehrgeiz will only be a hit if people appreciate the combat system of the main game, and the jury's still out on that one. Stay tuned for the full review.

Do say...
God Bless The Ring - that reminds me of this dodgy website I once visited.

Don't say (yet)...
You've got to be anal to get into Ehrgeiz.