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For such an early game, it's neat to see a lot of those early fighting game fundamentals at play. High block vs low block, Light/Medium/Heavy attacks, range and footsies, etc. I also love that the player character is this cute, pudgy li'l Japanese guy going up against this blonde Adonis (who I'd call an Ivan Drago stand-in, but Rocky IV was in '85). There's not much else to this game, but for a pre-Punch-Out boxing title, and especially a pre-Mike Tyson's boxing title, it's pretty solid.
Roleplay as Martin Prince as you jab, straight and upper punch your way to victory. Juke, block and choose your attacks by scrolling through a jrpg-esque menu of attacks. It's not the most complicated game but there's some strategy to be had with the five difficulty levels. Nicely detailed characters with satisfying punch and reaction animations, however there's only two characters so visual variety isn't a strong point.
Champion Boxing is the first videogame directed by Yu Suzuki. I like boxing games a lot so i figured i'd check this out.
It's footsies type of game, as you can easily go back and forth to bait your oponent and keep winning. Blocking can be useful but I wasn't able to punish a lot. The cheapness from good old boxing games comes when your oponent randomly decides to unleash a flurry of attacks on you until you're knocked down but most of the time, I was able to get up, worst case scenario you get TKO'd which seems to be random.
Very visually appealing, I wish the fighters would change when you beat them as you always fight the same dude and it's just keeps getting harder, but hey it's an arcade game from 1983. Always cool to visit videogame developers first works.
It's footsies type of game, as you can easily go back and forth to bait your oponent and keep winning. Blocking can be useful but I wasn't able to punish a lot. The cheapness from good old boxing games comes when your oponent randomly decides to unleash a flurry of attacks on you until you're knocked down but most of the time, I was able to get up, worst case scenario you get TKO'd which seems to be random.
Very visually appealing, I wish the fighters would change when you beat them as you always fight the same dude and it's just keeps getting harder, but hey it's an arcade game from 1983. Always cool to visit videogame developers first works.