Super FamiComplete #98: TKO Super Championship Boxing

 

 

Title: TKO Super Championship Boxing (NA) Kentou-ou World Champion (JP)

Release Date: 04/28/1992

Developer: Sting

Publisher: Sofel

Here is our third game for the day, and we end with a mediocre boxing game. To be fair, though, we get to see that amazing Japanese box art. 

Background

The developer in this case is Sting Development, a company that actually operated all the way to 2016. They were best known for esoteric RPGs like Yggdra Union, Dokapon Kingdom, and Treasure Hunter G. SOFEL, which stands for SOFTware Engineering Laboratory, is a short lived publisher best known for Wall Street Kid. They still exist to this day, but seem to be focused more on creating RFID chips specifically for libraries (those little chips that go into credit cards, etc). 

Now that dashing gentleman on the front of the Super Famicom box is Jiro Matsushima, who was the 56th bantam weight champion from Japan. Apparently, in the Japanese version, there is a story mode, and you play the career of a boxer that is similar in appearance to good ole' Jiro. 

Gameplay

Now the North American version of the game is pretty bare bones. There is no story mode, just 1 or 2 player exhibition matches, and the ability to fight each of the boxers in order in a "championship" run. You get to choose the boxer you would like to play as, and then your opponent as well. Each boxer has their own strengths and weaknesses: some hit harder, others have the ability to throw more punches before getting tired, and some are faster on their feet. 

Each match plays out in a side view of the ring. You have two meters above your boxer: you have their life/energy meter, as well as their endurance which is measured in boxing gloves. As you throw punches, you lose boxing gloves; I wasn't able to tell, though, if that just signified the number of punches you could make, or the strength of your punches. Overall, though, it is just a simple boxing game where you mash the punch button and try to corner your opponent. 

This game is also really hard. Even though this game is called TKO (a technical knock out which occurs when a boxer hits the mat three times in one round, which indicates that they are getting their ass outclassed and the fight should stop before they get hurt), my poor guy got his face caved in and was KO'd. I tried a couple of different matches against different boxers, and even though the opponents played differently, they all still trounced my boxer thoroughly. 

Music

The music is a solid okay. Give it a listen if you'd like. 

Overall

Boxing, overall, is a tough sport to make an entertaining video game out of while trying to remain true to the sport. Real life boxing is often pretty anti-dramatic, and this game seems to focus on that part of boxing. It is pretty boring. 

Super FamiComplete #97: F-1 Grand Prix

 

Title: F-1 Grand Prix (JP)

Release Date: 04/28/1992

Developer/Publisher: Video System

Okay so the second of today's trilogy, and by far the worst. It's another Formula 1 racing game that plays exactly the same as the couple other formula 1 games that we've played thus far. 

Background

This game is a Japanese only formula 1 racing game. I've written about the sport of formula 1 before, so please look at some of the prior blog posts if you are in need of a refresher. The developer and publisher in this case is Video System Co., a developer I've never heard of before this blog post. Apparently they were founded by a programmer named Koji Furakawa (no huge credits to his name) and mainly developed arcade games and mahjong sims. Their most well-known, at least to me, title that they developed was the NEO GEO game Aero Fighters 3. Eventually they went out of business, and their whole license library was acquired by Hamster in 2018. 

Gameplay

The game is a top down racer that plays in a F-1 style: you have your practice laps in which you race alone in order to make a time that qualifies for the championship. This practice session is also your chance to learn the track to better prepare for the competitive race. You then race against other cars in the championship, and must keep your car intact through the many more laps of this race. Once you win one circuit, you then globe trot to the next location and participate in the next championship. 

The presentation on this is rather bland, and worst of all, the mode-7 vision that this operates with makes the game sickening to play. As I've gotten older and older, I am becoming super prone to motion sickness, and this game has the same effect as something like Mohawk and Headphone Jack. The screen just spins and spins rapidly and constantly, and 30 seconds in I already had a headache. After the first race I was full on nauseous. Now I want to do a good job with this blog and be thorough, but this game was literally physically unpleasant to play. Screw that. 

Overall

This game was a lackluster racing game, and one that was actually painful to play. I see now why this never graced the rest of the planet outside of Japan. 

Super FamiComplete #96: Goal!

 

Title: Goal! (NA) Super Cup Soccer (JP) Super Goal

Release Date: 04/24/1992

Developer/Publisher: Jaleco

Time has flown since my last post, but here we are with three short posts that I am going to knock out at once. I am inching ever closer to game #100 and want to get there by the end of August. With today's trilogy we are also starting with the best of the bunch, a soccer sim by Jaleco. 

Background

This game is the fifth game in the Tose/Jaleco Moero!! sports series that started on the NES, and is actually the port of the NES version of the game called Goal! Two. "Moero" translates to "burning with passion" and is the same overall sports series in which Super Bases Loaded resides. Being the first soccer game for the SNES in this series, they stripped the "two" from the title to make it less confusing (at least that is my head-canon). Of course there is another sequel in this series, so that will be covered down the line at some point (let's be honest there is another soccer game in like 20 games too after some more baseball and golf and boxing and tennis and formula 1 racing). 

That man with the killer gams on the cover is John Brady, an amateur soccer player from London who just happened to be living in the US (not a super well known property). 

Gameplay

This is another soccer sports sim, and definitely a good bit more polished than World League Soccer. Instead of little lego men and a birdseye view, you actually have the traditional "television" side view that you would have if you were watching a match on tv. The soccer players actually look like people, even if everyone on your team looks exactly the same, and there is definitely more nuance to the actual soccer. 

When starting, you have the traditional choice of whether to play a season or just an exhibition. For the sake of this review, I played one match with me as Germany and the computer as Scotland (it should be noted that they didn't get the rights to official emblems and team colors, so it is just generic designs). You can choose the length of each half, and how stringent you want the rules, with the ability to turn off fouls and offsides calls. Finally, before the match begins, you choose the field position of your team, splitting up the ratio between defense, midfield, and attack. 

From there...it is soccer, and a pretty good SNES approximation of soccer. You control the teammate who is closest to the ball, and you have the ability to do short passing kicks, long distance clearing kicks, slides to steal the ball, and can get into little kicking wars to wrest control of the ball from other players. Again, pretty stock standard. The opponent AI is...interesting? Like it seems to be a bit more complex that it should be. I'll give an anecdotal example. After scoring my first goal, I was up against Scotland 1-0, and the computer acted as if it had been slighted. Over the next two minutes of gameplay, the computer seemed to purposefully slide right into my player and cause a foul to be called. This happened five times, I kid you not. There are plenty of little behavior touches like this; perhaps they were trying to simulate some of the hot headed actions soccer players take sometimes? 

Where this game really shines is the presentation: you have a thumping music throughout the match, which slowly gets faster as the game progresses and reaches its climax. As well, the characters are not really well animated, but there is a variety of animations to their movement and kicks. When you score a dramatic goal, you even get a little cutscene of your team freaking out. At halftime you even get a little performance by the Jaleco cheerleaders who do little routines (my favorite is when they make the weird Shiva construct). The big strikes to its presentation only really occur due to the fact that these aren't based on any particular teams, meaning the players don't have names and are all weird clones, but I concede to it being an artifact of this era where the replication of the sport itself was the novelty. 

Music

While not as strong as World League Soccer the music is still pretty good; a common theme with sports games. Due to the fact that it is hard to search up "Goal!" I've included a longplay instead. 

Overall

If you are looking for a decent SNES soccer sim, then this will work for you. The presentation, again, is what sells it over the stellar gameplay.