Martial Champion (Arcade) - All Throws & Grab Moves

Channel:

All Throws

Subscribers:

574

Published on March 9, 2023 12:18:29 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcsMm4fZbJs

Game:

Martial Champion (1993)

Duration: 1:01

1,107 views

26

Character select:

Jin - 0:00
Racheal - 0:08
Bobby - 0:15
Avu - 0:21
Goldor - 0:25
Mahambah - 0:32
Hoi - 0:42
Zen - 0:45
Titi - 0:50
Chaos - 0:54

Note: The names of the characters Titi (Egyptian princess) and Chaos (Jiangshi / Chinese hopping vampire) were switched in Western releases of the game, in case "Titi" was thought to be a comment on the figure of the Egyptian princess. In fact, the name is a reference to the real ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

Hi everyone, welcome to All Throws. On this channel I check out all of the grab moves in various fighting games, beat 'em ups, and action titles. In this video I am pleased to present an obscure 2D fighting game called Martial Champion.

Martial Champion is Konami's third attempt at a versus fighting game, after their Yie Ar Kung-Fu series and Galactic Warriors. It was released in 1993 for arcades, and a home port was produced for PC Engine. The goal of the game is to win the title belt from the current Martial Champion and final boss of the game, Salamander.

As a rip-off of Street Fighter, Martial Champion is a clear attempt to cash in on the popularity of 2D fighting games at the time of its release. However, Martial Champion differentiates itself slightly, by using a pseudo-anime aesthetic. More specifically, the character Racheal has female anime eyes, while the rest of the characters have weirdly enlarged, but more realistically shaped eyes. The art style reminds me of independent MS-DOS fighting games like One Must Fall 2097 or Timeslaughter.

Aspects of Martial Champion are clearly lifted from other fighting games. The main character Jin is a clone of Ryu, and his alternate palette has blonde hair like Ken. Jin is also based on Lee from Yie Ar Kung Fu. Funnily enough, there are spectators bearing a strong resemblance to Ryu and Ken in the background of Goldor's stage. The Kabuki artist Zen seems to be a copy of Kyoshiro Senryo from the Samurai Shodown series- Even having a hair choke as his throw. Bobby is a typical army guy similar to Guile from Street Fighter or John Crawley from Art Of Fighting. The tribal warrior Mahambah resembles Dhalsim. The most interesting character is Chaos, a Jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire) who also resembles The Joker, a villain from the Batman franchise.

While Martial Champion is indeed a Street Fighter clone, Konami still made a concerted effort to provide original throw and grab moves. Almost all of the grappling techniques are ones which are not seen in Street Fighter and are uncommon for fighting games to have in general. For example, Konami could have gone with the same old shoulder throw for Jin, but they instead opted for the Judo throw Ōuchi Gari (Major Inner Reap). I particularly like the look of the air throws by Bobby and Goldor. Only Racheal's German suplex and Izuna drop, and Avu's Tomoe Nage are typical of other fighting games.

The gameplay is rather janky, which I was surprised at because Konami usually has a reputation for making high quality games. The cheap AI blocks most of the time, and seems to be immune to throws whilst doing so. This slows the gameplay down and makes for a boring experience. Oddly, there is no button for doing high or mid-level kicks, but only a low kick.

Some of the characters in Martial Champions are armed with weapons, which can be dropped if they are thrown or receive a heavy blow. A dropped weapon can be picked up and used by any unarmed character. Unlike in Samurai Shodown and Soul Edge / Soul Blade, however, the fighting style of the characters is not affected by whether they are armed or not. They perform exactly the same animations either way. It can look odd when the character Mahambah behaves as if he is still holding his spear after dropping it, or when a different character armed with his spear just uses punching moves. The only benefits of picking up a weapon are to enhance the reach of your character, and prevent your opponent from using it.

The game strangely makes you challenge two opponents at each geographical location, rather than have your character travel to the home of each challenger. This means that some stage backgrounds are skipped in a playthrough of the game. The final boss character Salamander also does not have a stage of his own, but only a unique theme tune which plays over other characters' stages when he is present.

The final boss Salamander is incredibly disappointing. He has no throw moves or unique moves of his own, and merely copies special moves from other characters. It also seems silly that he feels the need to wear his championship belt during matches. Since he has no noteworthy fighting abilities, I didn't show him in this video.

Complaints aside, I do love a good Street Fighter knock-off game. It was fun to check out the abilities of all the characters, even if the gameplay doesn't feel the best.

Thanks for checking out All Throws. Remember to subscribe for more grappling goodness.

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