This 1993 arcade release from Konami is a one-on-one fighting game that was obviously made to counter what Capcom was doing with Street Fighter II at the time. Martial Champion is a fairly bog-standard beat ’em up in terms of presentation, but the gameplay does remain solid, and still plays well today.
Following the Street Fighter II template for selecting matches, there are ten different fighters to choose from, out of a row of portraits of the characters. And, after choosing who to fight as, the bout begins in a flurry of short “versus” animations and logo zooms.
Each bout is a best-of-three match. Win a match and go on to the next fighter. Defeat all ten fighters to beat the game. Easy as that. 😉
Except that it isn’t. Martial Champion is for experts only. You might feel that you’re doing well in a bout, only to lose it spectacularly in seconds… Winning a match is difficult enough, but winning all ten of them is pretty much impossible unless you either learn the game inside-out, or cheat. I played countless bouts to get these screenshots and got my ass kicked constantly… The fighter AI is savage!
But I had a good time doing it, so there’s the rub… Anyone who says they can beat this game wins The King of Grabs Award for best liar… Or The King of Fighter Award, if they didn’t cheat, for best presser-of-buttons and waggler-of-joysticks.
The action itself is controlled with three buttons and a joystick, and each Martial Champion cabinet had two joysticks, for possible versus play. It is of course possible to play the game on your own, and most people will do that because we all know that fighting game fans don’t have any friends… 😉
Martial Champion‘s control system is derived from that of Yie Ar Kung-Fu, but simplified to high, medium and low attacks.
You can use weapons in the game, like swords or fans. And these can be knocked out of your hands. It is possible to have both fighters switch weapons, which is neat. What you get, weapon-wise, depends on the individual fighters taking part.
Overall, Martial Champion is a cheap-looking game, but it is still very playable, familiar, and challenging. It basically steals everything from Street Fighter II, but can’t replicate the stunning graphics and presentation of that game. In truth: it’s a pale imitation of Capcom‘s Street Fighter II, but that’s one of the reasons why we love it. 😉
Final note: I noticed a spelling mistake on the title screen of the game. It’s written as “MARTIALCHANPION” under the game logo, which I was tempted to use as the actual title of this game, but thought better of it. 🙂
More: Martial Champion on Wikipedia
