Fighter's History: Mizoguchi Kiki Ippatsu!! (SNES) Playthrough [English]
189A playthrough of Data East's 1995 fighting game for the Super Famicom, Fighter's History: Mizoguchi Kikiippatsu!! (ファイターズヒストリー ～溝口危機一髪!!～).
Since the game was a Japanese-only release, I've translated the text for this video. There are no fan translation hacks for it at the moment as far as I'm aware. All of the English text you see in this video was done with overlays in a video editor.
1:24 Mizoguchi's Exercise mode
3:22 Mizoguchi story mode
37:05 CPU Battle mode played as Chelnov (to unlock him, hit down, down, up, up, right, left, L, and R when the title logo appears)
Fighter's History: Mizoguchi Kikiippatsu is the third and final entry in Data East's Fighter's History trilogy of 1-on-1 fighting games. The series began in 1993 with the original Fighter's History (https://youtu.be/XNJoIa4lW1Q) that was later ported to the SNES (https://youtu.be/Htd-NJSt6ts), and it's direct sequel for the Neo Geo, Karnov's Revenge/Fighter's History Dynamite, came out in 1994 and was later ported to the Sega Saturn (https://youtu.be/dJCdZF0mRgU).
Mizoguchi Kikiippatsu was originally meant to be a SNES port of Karnov's Revenge, but once the engine work had been done, Data East decided instead to build a brand new, SNES-exclusive game on that foundation.
Even though it was released on "lesser" hardware, FH3's gameplay represents another solid step forward for the series. The game retains the faster speed, combo mechanics, and super moves from FH2, but they've been further refined, and as a result, the flow of the action is more fluid and feels better than in either of the previous titles.
Several popular characters were relegated to cameo appearances, but the playable character roster is well balanced and full of colorful personalities. There's also a new villain, Chelnov from Atomic Runner (https://youtu.be/mDn3nxRCEmw), who fits in well with the rest of the crazy cast.
Since it was designed specifically for a home console, there's a lot more content here than in most 16-bit arcade fighter ports. In addition to the usual arcade and versus modes, there's a brand new cutscene-heavy story mode that follows Mizoguchi in one of the most absurd fighting game plotlines ever (and different characters appear in one of the cutscenes depending on the difficulty level the game is set to!), and there is also a new practice mode that'll teach you the basics of the combo system. The tutorials are great for anyone who wants to learn how to blow the system wide open: they'll teach you how to stylishly blast through 80% of an opponent's life gauge in a single combo. The challenge posed by the AI becomes a total joke once you master these techniques, but who cares when the gameplay is this fun?
The game looks and sounds fantastic, too. It's obviously a step back from what was done on the Neo Geo hardware, but FH3 is one of the best-looking and sounding fighting games on the SNES. It's crazy to think that the game is just 24 megabits. It's only slightly larger than the 20 megabit cart the SNES version of FH1 shipped on! The character art and animation work is superb, and the backgrounds are filled with moving elements and change between rounds. The music is catchy (especially the remix of the Atomic Runner theme!), the sound effects are as loud and over-the-top as always, and there are tons of high quality digitized voice samples to help carry that arcade-style feel.
Mizoguchi's scream (46:02) is especially epic. Whatever his voice actor was paid, it wasn't nearly enough.
If you enjoyed Fighter's History and Karnov's Revenge, you'll love digging into everything Mizoguchi Kikiippatsu has to offer. It's a shame that the series ended just as it was finding its way out from under Street Fighter II's shadow, but it went out on a real high note.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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