Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring

Ehrgeiz is a 3-D fighter released as an arcade game in 1998 and later for the Playstation in 1999. It was developed by Seiichi Ishii for Dream Factory and published by Squaresoft.

For the Playstation, it received the tagline "God Bless the Ring". The word "Ehrgeiz" means "ambition" in German. Ehrgeiz also happens to be the name of Zell’s most powerful weapon in Final Fantasy VIII.

Ehrgeiz met with mixed reviews in the United States and was never released as a Greatest Hits game, thus defining it as a rarity to some.

Gameplay
Ehrgeiz differs from the traditional 3-D fighter because it allows the players to roam freely in the battle arenas. This means that characters do not always have to be facing each other during a match. Ehrgeiz featured arenas with platforms to jump on and backgrounds to interact with. The Playstation version features some mini games based on track and field events and one based on the board game Othello. It also features a quest mode in which the player fights through dungeons finding items such as armor, weapons, and spells.

Final Fantasy
Ehrgeiz’s main tie to the Final Fantasy series is the ability to play as a number of characters from Final Fantasy VII. These characters are Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Sephiroth, Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, and Zack Fair. All of them have a Limit Break ability, where they turn red and their power increases. Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth are playable immediately, while it is necessary to unlock the rest by beating the game with different characters. The Buster Sword and Masamune can be drawn and wielded in a combo, but the game relies more on brawling. Though Red XIII is not in the game, the boss character Django bears a slight resemblance to him when played with in his alternate coloring. Ehrgeiz also features music arranged by Nobuo Uematsu.