Power Instinct (Arcade) - All Throws & Grab Moves

Channel:

All Throws

Subscribers:

574

Published on November 21, 2023 6:23:04 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSsLmw67EpA

Game:

Power Instinct 1993 (1993)

Duration: 1:30

3,101 views

21

Character select:

0:00 - Reiji
0:06 - Annie
0:14 - Keith
0:22 - White Buffalo
0:31 - Angela
0:42 - Saizo
0:51 - Thin
0:58 - Otane
01:41 - Young / Super Otane

Note: The unplayable final boss character Oume (not shown) is merely a palette swap of Otane.

Power Instinct (Gōketsuji Ichizoku in Japan) is an 2D versus fighting game by Atlas. It was originally released for arcades in 1993, and ported to both the SNES and SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive.

In the story of Power Instinct, fighters are competing to take over the Gogetsu Clan, which is lead by the final boss Oume. Each fighter is assigned a small personal assistant character called Kuroko. They resemble the referee from Samurai Shodown, and have winning animations specific to each character. The Kuroko characters also help train the player in the bonus stages.

Power Instinct is undoubtedly a Street Fighter clone, with similar looking characters and special moves. Reji is an obvious rip off of Ryu, who can launch Hadouken-style fireballs and do a Tomoe Nage throw. Annie has a similar fighting stance to Chun-Li. The blonde fighter Keith is the "Ken" of the game, although his appearance is more like Cody from Final Fight 1, or Axel from Streets Of Rage 1. The Shaolin Monk, Thin, is reminiscent of Dhalsim, but with a fighting stance like Dictator (Vega / M. Bison). He wouldn't look out of place in a Mortal Kombat game. Angela has the lower body of Zangief, with similar clothing and stripes on her muscular legs, plus Blanka's hairstyle. White Buffalo is conceptually similar to T. Hawk, and may have in turn inspired the Native American grappler Condor in Breakers (1996).

Something which makes Power Instinct more distinctive as a Street Fighter clone is it's unique art style outside of the actual gameplay. The game has rather unattractive character portraits. For example, Angela, who is supposed to be an attractive woman, has a grin resembling The Joker from DC's Batman universe. Curiously, her alternate palette is green and purple, which are colours that The Joker predominantly wears.

Power Instinct also features an elderly woman as one of the combatants, which is extremely uncommon in fighting games. Ironically, Otane is the strongest character, due to being a superhuman. Otane can transform into a young version of herself, resembling Trini from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series. Disappointingly, the final boss Oume is just a palette swap of Otane. This doesn't make any sense, as she is supposed to be Otane's older sister rather than her twin. She even transforms into the same young woman. At least she has a unique stage background.

I found some of the characters to be conceptually strange. It's not clear why Reiji, for instance, is fighting in a military style base. Angela is possibly supposed to be a dominatrix character, given that she has a whip, and characters in her stage background are wearing alternative fashion. Her stage reminds me of the one Matlock has in Fighter's History (1993), and even has a punk rocker playing an electric guitar in the background. However, Angela's costume is strangely more colourful than the background characters of her stage, making her look discordant.

All characters have one normal grab / throw move, and can perform the same move in the air. It seems lazy for Atlus to simply reuse the same throw animations for the mid-air moves, even when they were not a good fit. Strangely, many of the ground throws involve the character jumping with their opponent anyway, meaning they go even higher if starting in the air.

I was particularly disappointed with Angela's grab move, where she jumps on her opponent and stabs them with hair pins. Since she has a physique comparable to Zangief, I was expecting her to perform some pro wrestling moves like a suplex, piledriver, or body slam. I thought White Buffalo's moonsault slam was pretty cool, and it reminded me of the throw Hawk does on Brucks in the Cobra Kai TV show. However, I do think he should have been given some command grabs like T. Hawk has. Thin's throw also stood out to me, as he initially inverts his opponent as if to do a piledriver, but then throws them backwards over his head. Hattori's Izuna Drop is typical of a ninja character, but it is uniquely animated nonetheless. Otane and Oume seem to damage their opponent just by kissing them. Given that their grab move initiates a transformation into their younger selves, it would make more sense if they were shown sucking energy / life force out of their opponent to reverse their age.

Overall, Atlus made a reasonable effort to give each character distinct and high quality grab moves. I only wish that the air throws had been different from the ground throws, and that command grabs had been added, at least for the grappler characters.

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