Ultra Vortek is so-so in my opinion. It could have been better gameplay-wise. It's clearly trying to be like Mortal Kombat. It even has the same uppercut, rapid-punch and sweep moves, however, in comparison it's much more limited in basic attack moves. The lower framerate and sluggish nature of the controls keep it from being great, too. The visuals are pretty solid for the most part though and it shows off the smooth 2D graphics the Jag is capable of.
Double Dragon is a port of Double Dragon V from the SNES and Genesis, not the solid Neo-Geo fighting game. It's garbage.
Fight For Life, like Trev said, "baaaarrfff". Terrible game.
Kasumi Ninja gets a pretty bad rap, but a friend and I discussed this one earlier today and we both agreed that it's at least playable.
Mortal Kombat 3 was announced and I believe it was due for the Jag CD.
All in all, there isn't really a single "great" fighting game on the Jaguar. Mortal Kombat 3 would have been that game provided it was a good port and had been released. Ultra Vortek and Primal Rage are both passable for various reasons. I would put PR at the top of the current list, but I don't recommend anybody shelling out the cash for a Jaguar CD add-on, the game, and a Pro Controller to make it playable. It's just not worth it.
Trev wrote:Even Jag fans though tend to admit that the Jag PR should have been better (long load times for one)
It could have been. It's not awful if you have a Pro Controller, but it's hardly worth the price it goes for considering there are better versions out there that are much cheaper. For instance, I picked up a nice CIB copy of the Saturn version for about $10 last week, and got a nice jewel-cased version of the 3DO game (no longbox) for about $6 as well.
If I had to rank versions, the Jaguar CD version would be slightly lower than the 3DO version. It's basically the same game but with slightly smaller sprites and more load times as you mentioned. It can be decent if you have the right tools (a Pro Controller) but it's far from the best. It's sort of in the middle in terms of all the ports available.