MARTIAL CHAMPION:
-As I've said many times before, the game
Street Fighter II changed EVERYTHING. Defining the "Competitive Fighting Game" for all time, the game created a HUGE fad of "Me Too" game designers, each trying to be the first one to cash in on this new money-maker in various ways. Some more or less copied the series wholesale, while others added bits-
Art of Fighting is borderline litigiously the same, but changed stuff like adding Super Meters and adding a Story Mode.
Mortal Kombat hit huge by using ultra-violence and digitized graphics to make it look more "real" and violent (and itself spawned a legion of garbage imitators). Some used licenses from other things- we saw the Ninja Turtles, Jimmy & Billy Lee, the Justice League, and others all join the herd desperate for more of that sweet, sweet Fighting Game money...
And one of these... was
Martial Champion. A game with the most generic name ever, and so unknown that I'd literally never heard of it until FuzzyBoots mentioned it- even THEN, people had to dig to find the name. This game came out in 1993, two years after
Street Fighter II had hit arcades- it was technically Konami's THIRD Fighting Game, but the previous two were the simple affairs of '80s gaming (1985 & 1986)- this was a true
Street Fighter Knock-Off, containing a weird cast of selectable characters who engaged in best two-out-of-three matches.
The buttons were handled differently from the Capcom fighter, however- it mimicked the control system of Konami's prior effort,
Yie Ar Kung-Fu, with high, medium and low attacks on different buttons. The game features some of the "high-jump" extra stuff that Capcom later used in the
X-Men fighting game. Also, a few characters carry weapons which can not only be disarmed, but USED AGAINST THEM. These are all pretty inventive variations on what had by this point been an established theme (this game's other contemporaries included
The Art of Fighting and
Fatal Fury), but weren't really major game-changers.
It frankly looks really terrible. Compare this to Neo*Geo fighters, especially
Samurai Shodown, and it looks like barf, with bad character animations and weak, boring designs. "Guy in pants" is a design. "Guy with huge eyebrows" is another. The "static" animations are literally 2-3 frames at best, giving them a very herky-jerky appearance, despite the large sprites. Jin's Fireball knock-off just appears to come from his sternum while he leans forward- it's really bad. Avu, a Scimitar-Wielding Arab, instead of looking scary, is short and fat.
The game... wasn't a major hit. It was only ported to two consoles, and neither version left Japan- the PC Engine (Turbo-Grafx 16) and Super CD-ROM). The arcade machine did, but didn't even earn enough to get a sequel. And keep in mind this is a genre where
WORLD HEROES received at least two.
Fighter's History, best-known to history for being sued by Capcom for ripping them off so hard, earned two! Friggin'
RISE OF THE ROBOTS, an infamously-terrible game, got one! But no- we never saw the continuing adventures of... Bobby, Jin, and Titi.
The cast of characters is equal parts inventive and utterly boring- one guy is just "Martial Artist in Baggy Pants" because people weren't quite used to thinking outside the box just yet. Notably, one guy is basically a Guile rip-off, because almost all the early Fighting Games felt that "Military Guy" was just such a necessary genre convention. Chaos looks pretty unique, at least.
THE CAST:
Jin- Ryu Rip-Off.
Bobby- Guile Rip-Off.
Mahamba- Spear-Wielding Kenyan (oh jesus)
Avu- Fat Middle Eastern guy with Scimitar.
Goldor- No relation to one of the Space Giants (or our fellow poster
), he uses a three-sectioned staff as a weapon.
Hoi- Chinese Guy.
Racheal- Token Sexy American Blonde.
Titi- Egyptian Princess.
Zen- Kabuki Fighter from Japan.
Chaos- Chinese Jumping Vampire.
Salamander- Final Boss.
Power Levels:
-You would not believe the amount of thought I put into garbage like this, LOL. I mean, I'm experienced enough at building characters that at a glance I can usually surmise where a
Street Fighter,
Samurai Shodown or other SNK character would end up on the PL list. Their place in the story, their repeating nature in the franchise, their canonical victories, etc.- Haohmaru, Ryu and Liu Kang are former Champions, having beaten Final Bosses. Shang Tsung was once a Final Boss, but downgraded, as did Goro. Yun & Yang are more minor characters, but recurred after their
SF III debut, so they at least earn SOMETHING.
But...
How in hell do you place guys from BAD games? Or SHORT-LIVED ones? Where does a
Brutal: Paws of Fury character sit compared to a
ClayFighter one? And
Martial Champion is just a one-off, so its characters don't even earn the baseline PL 8 status of a
World Heroes. PL 7 almost seems to high- that puts them on the level of minor SNK & Capcom characters like Axel Hawk, Juli, and Juni. Does this game's Ryu Rip-Off match up to the legendary might of AXEL HAWK? Entire FANFICS could be written about this!!!
Ultimately, I copied my
Brutal builds and went with a PL 6.5 as the baseline. It's weaker than a bottom-tier
Fatal Fury character, meaning they SUCK, but they suck one half of a PL less than a one-shot
ClayFighter character like Helga, and about equal to the one-offs like High Five (the walking hand) or whatever. Importantly, I felt that they deserved one PL less than the standard
Fighter's History character- those guys earned rounded-out PL 7 stats, as they were three games in that series.
One unusual thing is that every character can easily disarm their opponent with a few strikes, and then use that weapon with impunity- this means that the guys have high baseline Fighting scores, rather than lower Fighting and lots of "Close Combat (Unarmed)".
