Fighting Games - The Early Years
Capcom's Street Fighter II in 1991 was obviously a turning point where fighting games took off into much greater popularity than ever before but I was always a fan of the genre much before that.
At what point the genre was born is up for debate but games that involved two characters dueling date back to 1976 with arcade releases like Sega's boxing game Heavyweight Champ and Project Support Engineering's jousting game Knights in Armor. Boxing sort of became its own genre so I'm going to leave it out of the rest of the thread.
Another early fighting game worth mentioning is Vectorbeam's 1979 arcade game Warrior which featured overhead view swordfighting.
The first instance of one-on-one martial arts fighting that I know of is Ultravision's 1982 Atari 2600 game Karate.
Atari was also making a game around this time for the 5200 called Black Belt but it never saw release.
Ebenel released Bushido: The Way of the Warrior for DOS in 1983. I don't think it's a true fighting game as it probably involved roaming and
exploring but I haven't played it so I'm not certain.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/...meShotId,5915/
One of the most important milestones in the history of the genre was Data East/Technos' arcade game Karate Champ(1984). This game greatly furthered fighting gameplay and popularity. It was ported to several home formats. This was the first fighting game I had ever seen and I was mesmerized by it enough to put so many quarters/tokens into it.
Also from 1984 was Broderbund's Apple II game Karateka by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner. While the game does have screen scrolling the action is still one-one-one fighting. Karateka introduced in game cinemas to the genre. It was ported to several other formats.
Konami's arcade game Yie Ar Kung Fu(1985) introduced a wide variety of opponents including female characters.
The MSX and Famicom versions were not ports of the arcade game(although they still ruled); the Western computer versions released by Imagine were.
MSX version
1985 also marked the beginning of Taiyo(later renamed Culture Brain)'s Hiryu no Ken series. The original arcade game was released in the West by Data East under the name Shanghai Kid.
The first couple Famicom games - Hiryu no Ken(1987) and Hiryu no Ken 2(1988) were released domestically as Flying Dragon(1988) and [b]Flying Warriors(1990). The series continued on with several sequels(Famicom, Super Famicom, Playstation, N64, etc.). I'm not a big Culture Brain fan but I enjoyed Flying Warriors as it felt more strategic than many others on the market.
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/nes/0...gwarriors.html
Nintendo's first fighting game was Urban Champion(1985 in Japan, 1986 in NA) for the NES. I know I said I wasn't going to mention boxing games but I think the street combat aspect of this one makes it closer to a regular fighting game.
Beam Software created excellent the Way of the Exploding Fist series, starting in 1985. The first game was a pure fighting game and the second game had an adventure mode which was a non-linear fighting/exploration hybrid, the predecessor to Beam's 1988 game Usagi Yojimbo/Samurai Warrior. Fist + was also released in 1988.
Way of the Exploding Fist(C64 version)
Then there's System 3(better known the developer of The Last Ninja). World Karate Championship/International Karate and its sequels were also excellent fighting games. Data East sued over this game claiming it was a rip-off of Karate Champ. They lost but this outcome would later save their asses when Capcom sued them years later.
Bangkok Knights(System 3, 1987)
http://www.c64gg.com/Images/B/Bangkok_Knights.ss.gif
Also worth noting is Palace Software's 1987 release Barbarian AKA Death Sword. This is not only the first fighting game with fatalities but it also has one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. It's too bad its side-scrolling sequel wasn't as good. It was released on several computer formats. I prefer the C64 version for the audio although the ST version shown here is nicer looking.
Jaleco's Famicom Disk game Fuuun Shourinken came out in 1987. It had a sequel the following year. I liked its style but the gameplay was kind of weak.
Capcom's arcade game Street Fighter never had the success of its sequel but it did lay the groundwork for it and introduced the circular motion attacks like fireballs although the control was much cruder than in SF2. It also had those giant buttons like Nintendo's Punch Out!! series had a few years earlier. Street Fighter was ported to PC and to TurboGrafx CD under the name Fighting Street.
1989's Hippodrome by Data East was a fantasy themed arcade fighter.
Electronic Arts took fighting games into more sim-like territory with their 1989/1990 computer/Genesis game Budokan. The Amiga version is shown here.
Tongue of the Fatman AKA Mondu's Fight Palace AKA Slaughter Sport was released on many computers and on Genesis. Weird stuff.
Please add anything I missed. I left out more mixed genre stuff like Sega's Black Belt and LJN's The Karate Kid although I see nothing wrong with having those in the conversation. Overall for pre-SF2 fighting games I was much more impressed with the stuff being made in the West although that reversed itself after SF2 when Japan took over the genre almost completely.
What are your thoughts on early fighting games?
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Originally Posted by Jorpho
