287. Violence Fight (Taito, Arcade (PS2), 1989)

I never expected a game called Violence Fight to have an interesting story hook but here we are. Violence Fight takes place in America during the early 1950s when a kind of underground gangster fight club (the titular Violence Fight) has emerged and you are Bat, a new fighter to the arena hoping to prove himself and become the best. I guess the only interesting part about this setup is the 1950's setting, when I think about it. other wise it's pretty much the plot of every fighting game.

Despite the intro screen being all about the character Bat (who is also referred to as "Bad" interchangeably), there are actually 4 characters to choose from: 3 increasingly muscular white dudes and one kung-fu asian guy with a mustache. Each has their own stats, but Bat/Bad was the most well rounded. I will say that the various characters at least play decently differently, though they all share the same attack commends, with a punch, kick, and jump button.

Once a violence fight starts, you are presented with 2 gigantic sprites (like I wouldn't be surprised if these were the biggest sprites in a fighting game in 1989) of your fighters ready to duke it out. Violence Fight being a fighting game in the years before Street Fighter II really codified the genre, there are no health bars (just numerical counters) and the action takes place on a 2D plane instead of a one-dimensional line. Though one level took place on a skyscraper where your fighters were confined to a single line of action, but this also made Violence Fight much less forgiving (and consequently less fun).

The attacks themselves are fairly slow to come out, though decently satisfying when you land a hit. Jump attacks are possible to execute but almost impossible to land, depending on the character. If you manage to hit an opponent repeatedly, they will fall to the ground and a huge comic-book style onomatopoeia will come crashing across the screen, which is a nice visual touch that gives Violence Fight some punch, though the gameplay is just too slow and the attack variety is not there. There is a bonus stage where you have to fight a tiger, but the tiger is so short I could barely land a hit on it.

2/5, a slow, dumpy looking early fighting game