Making the Case for Martial Champion

I’m partial to unusual fighting games. I’ll happily sing the praises of the bizarre, the unconventional, and the unknown in this genre. But every now and then one of these games leaves a strong enough impression on me to make me not only feel the love but want to spread it. Konami’s Martial Champion is one of those games.

So what sold me on this game after SuperHC got me to try it? First thing that stood out to me was the presentation. This game is downright gorgeous to look at. The sprites are huge, the character designs are interesting, the stages are beautiful, and everything has this bright, vibrant energy to it.

But a fighting game is only as good as its combat mechanics, right? Martial Champion dropped in 1993, when a lot of fighting game genre conventions were still taking shape. There weren’t firm “rules” about what fighting games were supposed to be, and Martial Champion winds up feeling like a really interesting experiment.

There are three attack buttons corresponding to where the attacks hit: L attacks are lows, M for mids, H for anti-airs. Every character has standing, crouching, and jumping versions of these three, plus a throw on 6M and two special moves each. That sounds really barebones until you get into weapon attacks and how jumping attacks influence your mobility.

Some characters start the match with a weapon. Weapons change the properties of your normals, usually adding range. You can disarm your opponent either by hitting them four times or by throwing them — at which point EITHER player can pick up the weapon by crouching over it. If you already have one and do this, you’ll switch weapons with the discarded one.

This means characters who start the match unarmed can steal their opponent’s weapon. Some characters like Goldor and Avu are extremely strong with their own weapon but are put on the backfoot when their weapon gets stolen or swapped. Characters like Jin and Bobby don’t have their own weapon but can get a huge advantage by stealing their opponent’s.

Side note: throws being able to disarm your opponent is powerful, but throws are on a four second cooldown in Martial Champion. Keeping track of whether your opponent can actually throw you in a given situation can give you an edge!

Air movement and attacks are also handled in a unique way. Every character has a dedicated anti-air button and many air to airs are very dominant (especially if you’re Zen or Goldor). You’d think this would make jumping in weak, right? Not so! Air attacks have a MASSIVE influence on your jump arc and momentum. Knowing when to use which and how long to delay them creates a whole meta game of baiting anti-airs, mixing between hitting air strikes and whiffing them to sneak in throws.

Martial Champion is executionally very easy. Some special inputs are a little picky for the interpreter (especially charge motions), but there are no combos to learn and only two specials per character. Positioning, reading, and conditioning your opponent are the keys to success!

Does this make Martial Champion shallow? Not at all! Characters feel extremely distinct from one another, all with their own strengths and weaknesses and good and bad matchups. Avu has arguably the best grounded normal in the game with his 5L and can play very aggressively with it and his psycho crusher, but his air attacks and anti-airs are very lacking and he struggles badly without his weapon. Zen has some of the best anti-airs in the game and extremely varied jump arcs, but his grounded buttons are slow and his lows are weak. Jin looks like a typical shoto but becomes a powerhouse if he’s able to pick up a weapon.

It all adds up to a game that’s easy to pick up on the whole and easy to learn the basics of any character who looks interesting, but has tons of depth to explore in character tools, matchups, and ways to condition and outplay your opponent. 

Thanks for reading my spiel, and I hope you’ll give Martial Champion a shot!