animal in the world. The Pantha – A panther who is a member of a sinister cult. Karate Croc – A crocodile bar brawler. Dali Llama – A llama who is currently the holder of the Belt of Heaven championship. Notes: Karate Croc and Dali Llama are only playable by means of inputting a secret button sequence. Also, The Pantha and Karate Croc are absent from the 16-bit versions of the game. Brutal Unleashed: Above the Claw introduces two additional characters: Chung Poe – A mole who transforms into an anthropomorphic bat-dragon hybrid during battle. Psycho Kitty – A cat who apparently suffers from hyperactivity. Development The Amiga port of Brutal: Paws of Fury is a straight port of the Genesis/Mega Drive version. Despite the Amiga's smaller memory, the Amiga version includes the two characters from the Sega CD version which the Genesis/Mega Drive version had to drop, Pantha and Croc. This was possible due to new compression techniques for the Amiga and the exclusion of the left-facing character sprites from the disk; the left-facing sprites are instead created while the software is running by flipping the right-facing sprites. In the Genesis/Mega Drive version, each character has its own 16-colour palette. Since the Amiga cannot easily accomplish this, the Amiga version instead uses one palette for all the characters. Since the Amiga version is controlled by a single-button joystick, the three different attack strengths (weak, medium, and hard) are determined by how long the button is held down before being released, and special moves are more joystick-based. Reception Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the music and the cinemas as stunning and among the best seen on the Sega CD, and also approved of the mechanic of learning special moves. However, they criticized the gameplay action as sluggish and unresponsive. GamePro commented that the game "tries a few new things", but shared EGMs stance that the Sega CD version plays too slow, and also criticized that the way the backgrounds often block the view of the action, while intentional, is unduly frustrating. Reviewing the Super NES and Genesis versions, though Electronic Gaming Monthly again praised the idea of learning special moves, some of their reviewers commented that this mechanic ultimately makes the game less exciting rather than more, and all of them remarked that the controls are weak. GamePro, in contrast, remarked that the controls of the Super NES and Genesis versions