One-on-One Fighting Games #3

Body Blows (1993)
By: Team 17 Genre: Fighting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Commodore Amiga First Day Score: Too low to embarrass myself with
Also Available For: Amiga 1200, PC

I don't think there can be too much doubt about the huge impact that Capcom's mighty Street Fighter II had on the gaming world. One of the most obvious examples of this, besides the fact that it shifted a crapload of SNESs, was the arrival of many similar games on virtually every system around at the time. Team 17, already the darlings of the Amiga world, therefore needed little motivation to throw their hat in the ring, and the result was Body Blows. As with a few other Amiga games, however, you could initially be forgiven for thinking that it's little more than a tech demo, for there is virtually no set-up of any kind here. Fighting games are seldom ones to have deep storylines or anything like that but even SFII had a bit of background with the ghastly Shadaloo organisation and resultant world fighting tournament and all that stuff.

About all we get, according to the instructions, is a reference to four 'hero' characters with whom you must 'combat the increasingly evil computer controlled opponents' until you reach the evil boss known as Max and 'discover his terrible secret'. That's it. As you may have therefore guessed, there are four fighters to choose from in the one-player (arcade) mode - Nik (street punk), his brother Dan (also street punk), Loray (Shaolin monk), and Junior (a boxer). The evil enemy fighters number six (not counting Max), and in the arcade mode you have to fight the other selectable fighters as well as the evil ones which makes ten best-of-three fights before you can lay claim to... whatever it is you're fighting for. There's also a two-player battle mode which offers a choice of all characters except for Max, and a four or eight player tournament too.

The so-called 'evil' characters are a mixed a bunch as you'd expect. There a fierce-looking Russian guy, a porky wrestler, a ninja, a typical Far-Eastern martial artist, even a business executive who has the power of wind at his disposal (no, not the farty kind, although that would make for some entertaining moves), and the sole female fighter is a typical leapy, flippy example. They each have around 20 moves which includes walking, blocking and the basic punches and kicks as well as the twirly, thundery special moves. You might wonder how these are performed given the lack of buttons on most Amiga owners joysticks. Fortunately, playing the game properly does not rely on keyboard commands, nor the purchase of a special controller. You simply have an action or move for each of the eight directions on the joystick without the fire button pressed, eight more with the button pressed, then four more when jumping.

I guess it's an obvious solution but it works pretty well. It certainly makes it easier to perform fancy moves - something I've had trouble doing with Capcom's games on the odd occasion, and let's not forget the 10+ commands needed for some moves in games like Virtua Fighter. There are no throws here but you've got your usual varieties of punches and kicks along with some more elaborate stuff. Some are a bit of a rip-off actually - Nik, for example, might not look like Ryu but he has what basically amounts to Fireballs, a Dragon Punch and a Hurricane Kick in his moveset - those scoundrels! Despite the easy of performing moves, however, there is a very steep learning curve here. It's not one of those fighting games where you can just randomly pound the buttons and still do okay - you have to actually learn how to use your chosen character here.

Until then, you'll probably struggle to get past your first opponent as I did. That's assuming you have the patience to play the game at all, for there is a phenomenal amount of disk-swapping involved. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but it's a four-disk game and the worst example I've yet experienced was for the fifth screenshot here. I wanted to play a one-player game using Loray and I had to switch disks seven times before I finally squared off against Yitu. Seven! Whether you loved the game or not, it must've been a right pain in the arse to play it at the time. This is just one of several reasons why the Amiga didn't really do arcade-style games well. It wasn't even a game that could be installed to hard-disk. Luckily for A1200 owners, Team 17 did release an AGA version of the game called Ultimate Body Blows which could be installed, and it has a number of additional improvements too, such as new stage graphics.

This version is by far the preferable option for those who have access to it; I don't think I would've had the patience for the basic A500 version (especially not with a SNES sitting on my desk - tee hee!). As a game in its own right, it's not bad. The graphics are quite good - some fighters' stages/backgrounds are really nice, others a bit bland, but the sprites are big, nicely drawn and their animation is varied, if a little stiff. There is in-game choons and sound effects too, a rarity for an Amiga game, and both are good, including a fair bit of speech and a great Allister Brimble title screen track. So, like most Team 17 games - great audio/visuals, but how much fun is it to play? Not all that much, sadly. Even without the disk-swapping, it would be a frustrating and unbalanced experience with little to keep you plugging away. On the other hand, it probably is the best option for Amiga players, but even poorer console efforts are more enjoyable to play.

RKS Score: 5/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at AL82 Retrogaming Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!