Body Blows
was released in 1993 for Commodore's Amiga and CDTV. It allowed players to choose one of four character in the one player mode (while two player mode allowed all ten character available) fight against six other CPU controlled opponents (similar to the first Fatal Fury game) all the way to the boss characters Max and, its true form, T-17. The sequel released later in that same year, Body Blows Galactic took the competition literally out of this world. Two the previous game's protagonists, Junior and Danny, fought against warriors from alien worlds in an effort to win against each other and the extraterrestrial challengers in order to proclaim to be the greatest fighter in the universe. The last game, Ultimate Body Blows, released for the Amiga CD32 in 1994 combined the casts of the both prior installments and had most of their stages. It had no story line of any sort.
This series is now quite obscure, though it does retain a cult following with some Amiga owners. A review of the series can be seen here for additional details for those interested.
This Series provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Maria was introduced in the first and Azona and Kai-Ti came in Galactic.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: To Capcom's Street Fighter series following the unsuccessful port of that game onto the Amiga. This series can be considered to a lesser extent ACEs to Mortal Kombat and SNK's Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series.
- Author Avatar: Danny and Junior, in a sense. They are named after Team 17's game designer Daniel "Danny" J. Burke and programmer Junior McMillian respectively.
- Dream Match Game: Ultimate Body Blows which came out in 1994. Interestingly it predates Mortal Kombat Trilogy (released in 1996) and The King of Fighters '98
- Eagleland: The American characters in this game lean toward the Beautiful variant of this trope but have some traits of the mixed variety. The brothers Danny and Nik are leaders of rival gangs hailing from Boston note , Dug is a wrestler based in Las Vegas note , and Mike is an executive on Wall Street.
- Energy Beings: Puppet and Phantom, gaseous-like creatures that are among the only survivors of a meteor collision that destroyed all other life on their planet, inhabit a suit of armor and a cloak respectively in order to take part in fighting.
- Excuse Plot: In the first game: some characters are fighting each other in a tournament hosted by a guy named Max (who is revealed to be a robot). In Galactic: Two of those fighters challenge a bunch of aliens to prove who is the strongest in the universe. Averted in the case of Ultimate as that one lack any sort of plot.
- Expy
- The Brothers Danny and Nik, while having moves similar to those of Ryu and Ken, but background wise are more like the Bogard brothers from Fatal Fury and Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia from Art of Fighting.
- Junior has a background similar to that of Balrog. However Junior differs from the Street Fighter character in that after he got banned from boxing after a controversial incident he didn't turn to criminal activity as Balrog did by joining Shadaloo.
- The Russian kickboxer Kossak is a rather obvious alternate company equivalent of Street Fighter's Zangief.
- Inferno and King Warra, fire and ice wielding characters respectively, introduced in Galactic are rather obviously based on Mortal Kombat's Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
- The T-17 is so not a Terminator.
- Fighting Clown: Mike, in contrast to all the street brawlers, martial artists, robots, and aliens that make up the rosters of the games, is an unassuming business executive who can fight on equal footing all while giving out snarky quips during battle and even has a move involving him spinning around like Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil.
- Final Boss: T-17 in the first and Ultimate. Averted in Galactic as it didn't have any sort of boss character.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Ninja given that stealth is not a prerequisite in a fighting game. However, he does have a move that allows him to turn invisible for a time.
- Human Aliens/Humanoid Aliens: Of the extraterrestrial characters introduced in Galactic, Azona, Kai-Ti, and Lazer have Human-like appearances. Some of the other newcomers can be classified as Humanoid shaped beings, those being Inferno, Dragon, and Tekno. Ambiguous in the case of Warra due to him never being shown out of his ice armor, though the part covering his ears show them as being unhumanly long and pointed thus leaning towards a downplayed form of the latter. Averted all together by Puppet and Phantom (noted as energy beings under that point above) and Dino.
- Lady Land: Azona and Kai-Ti's homeworld, Feminon, is this as an entire planet.
- Mighty Glacier: Kossak and Dug from the first game and Dragon and Tekno introduced in Galactic.
- Ninja: Ninja (Yes, that is his name) who was in the first and last games. As if you need to be reminded, he also constantly shouts "Ninja" after every special attack and/or combo.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons in this universe are extraterrestrial beings which are only slightly larger than an average human being.
- Robotic Reveal: Upon defeating Max in round one he is revealed to actually be a robot.
- Shout-Out:
- Kai-Ti has an appearance that is very similar to that of the X-Men character Psylocke and can even wield energy to boot, though only as projectiles rather than being able to forge psychic constructs.
- Dino and his accompanying rider have a dynamic similar to that of Master Blaster from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
- Single-Biome Planet: Zig-Zagged. While some planets introduced in Galactic play this straight (Miasma and Gellorn-5, with the former having an in-story explanation being the result of moon sized asteroid destroying almost all life on that planet.) and a third Planet, called Eclipse, is a Tidally Locked Planet, Feminon and Titanica avert this by having diverse biomes like Earth's.
- SNK Boss: While Max isn't any more challenging than any of the other fighters, but his true form, T-17, that is revealed after defeating him in the first round has some advantages that other characters don't have.
- Tidally Locked Planet: The aforementioned Eclipse does not rotate on its axis and leaves the side facing its sun continually hot and the side facing away in an unceasing tundra.
- Token Minority: Junior is the only black guy among the human characters. Though Junior does make up for this somewhat as being a prominent character in that he, along with Danny, are the only characters to be in all of the games of the series. Subverted in Maria's case as the sequel introduced two other female fighters as Affirmative Action Girls.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Danny's brother spells his nickname as "Nik" (no pun intended), Kossak is a play on "Cossack", and then there are Lazer and Tekno. Debatable as to whether Dug's name is an accidental misspelling of "Doug" or some play on him having the ability to use his weight to cause small scale earthquakes.
