Demolish Fist is a 2003 3D-Beat 'em Up arcade action game developed by Dimps and Sammy Corporation (before it's merging with Sega).
In 2015 (12 years after the game's release), a powerful organization called the Methuselah Corp is running ilicit activities involving creating genetically-enhanced bio-weapons, including artificial humans and giant monsters. An elite four-man squad of mercenaries called "The Missionaries" are sent to investigate.
Players can assume control of the four Missionaries:
- Leoneed Burns a.k.a Mighty Dude, an ex-New York firefighter and the closest the game has to The Hero;
- Enzo Vecchio a.k.a Tough Guy, leader of the Missionaries and The Big Guy of the game, also a Mighty Glacier-type character;
- Vanessa May a.k.a Speed Queen, an FBI undercover agent and sole female playable character;
- Undead a.k.a Trick Star, a guy with a Mysterious Past but now working as a master assassin and killing machine, and also the only one of the four which starts off armed (in this case, with Wolverine Claws).
See also Mutation Nation, another earlier mutant-themed arcade video game with a similar premise and backstory.
Demolish Fist contain examples of:
- Batter Up!: Aluminum bats are one of the available weapons you can collect to smash heads and break skulls.
- Barbell Beating: In a few areas, you can pick up barbells and use it to pummel mooks, or throw them at faces from a distance.
- The Baroness: Reiko Kannou, the second-in-command of Kain and the boss confronted before the Central Needle Headquarters. She is dressed in a slick blue business suit and high heels during the entirety of her boss fight, but that doesn't stop her from being one of the hardest bosses in the game besides Eight and Kain.
- Belly Flop Crushing: Two of the oversized, pot-bellied variety of mooks, the babylike "Mango" and the overweight "Butcher", will occasionally jump above the players and attempt crushing them with their bellies. These attacks are significantly harder to avoid and cost more life damage than fists or kicks.
- Body of Bodies: Alkenide, a Body Horror fusion of limbs, legs, organs and with half a doctor's body grafted to its front, is the boss of the first area in the Methuselah Corp entrance after you're done dealing with the lesser mutants. It is Multi-Armed and Dangerous and has the ability to Wall Crawl so it may attack you while clinging on the side of the boss area.
- Chainsaw Good: Some mooks carries chainsaws, and you can collect a few of these from crates or defeated enemies to grind away chunks of health.
- Cliffhanger: After defeating Kain Murasame and taking down Methuselah Corp, the four heroes await extraction from their superiors via helicopter on the penthouse. As the camera pans through the heroes, ending with Undead, it's suddenly revealed that Undead had stolen a capsule from the Methuselah Corp's lab. What he intends to do with it is never revealed, the credits just roll away after that.
- Cool Shades: Enzo, the mentor of the heroes, always have his shades on, even if he's defeated and respawning. For the villains, the African-American assassin, Spike, whose shades always stays on even after getting beaten to a pulp.
- Corrupt Politician: The Big Bad and Final Boss of the game, Senator Kain Murasame, runs an underground genetics research corporation developing bio-weapons, intending to sell his creations and use them to change the world as he sees himself as "the true saviour of the human race".
- Deadly Doctor: The Methuselah Corp have plenty of mooks wearing medical scrubs, including surgeon's masks and caps, who will attack you with scalpels and electric knives.
- Die, Chair, Die!: While pretty much all action games (including this one) allows you to destroy multiple objects, either by punching or kicking or by flinging them into mooks (including wooden crates, steel drums and assorted objects) Demolish Fist take things up a notch by allowing you to flip over cars, trucks and automobiles after pounding them into shred with your fists.
- Dominatrix: Vanity, the third boss, who comes at you clad in a red leather one-piece, knee-high boots, and armed with and electric-powered metal whip to rough you up.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Senator Kain have plenty of evil researchers under his employment for creating mutated abominations in his laboratories, and will not hesitate to release them to deal with you.
- Flechette Storm: Spike, one of the bosses, attacks primarily by leaping into the air and raining dozens of knives into the area. It can hurt both your character and any unfortunate mooks in the way.
- Forklift Fu: At the end of the warehouse stage, you will be assaulted by eight unmanned, remote-controlled forklifts who surrounds and repeatedly tries ramming you over, which you defeat by smashing them to scrap one at a time.
- Gas Mask Mooks: The Striker-class mooks of the Methuselah Corp are always clad in gasmasks. It makes them ambiguous, whether they are human mooks or mutants (since you first encounter them in Luna Park, a level that have plenty of mutated mooks as well).
- Giant Mook: The overweight "Butcher" enemies, artificially created obese naked humanoids a few feet taller than the players and other low-level mooks. Their oversized guts are loaded with Kevlard that allows them to absorb far more punishment than smaller enemies before going down.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: When you confront Senator Kain Murasame and he reveals his true, mutant nature to you. Via glowing red eyes.
- Infernal Retaliation: One of the power-ups coat your fists or weapons on fire, allowing you to deliver supercharged punches with every strike. Naturally every hit will leave a burning impression on enemies.
- Mutant: Many enemies in the game are mutant abominations created by the Methuselah Corporation, and the final stages are infested with various genetically-modified human-mutant mooks.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: It doesn't get better than Kain's lead enforcer, a burly African-American thug who reveals himself to be the result of a powerful genetic modification project called APOSTLE OF THE DOOMED: EIGHT.
- One-Winged Angel:
- When confronting Eight for the first time, he initially appears as a normal-looking human, before triggering a transformation which morphs him into his powerful cyborg form.
- Senator Kain, upon his defeat, will ingest one of the mutation capsules developed by the Methuselah Corp into his own body, turning into a gigantic cyborg monster to provide a suitably intense Final Boss fight.
- Pedestrian Crushes Car: The Hulk A-6 boss battle. If you win, you have defeated an armored vehicle trying to ram you with your fists. There are also areas which allows you to lift parked cars over your heads and fling them into enemies.
- Power Fist: Stellark, the first boss, has a steam-powered mechanical gauntlet attached to his left hand which allows him to deliver supercharged punches.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Each and every playable character can release rapid strikes and hits by combining kick and punch attack buttons. And taken to the extreme in Vertigo Mode – the players are granted momentary Time Stands Still as they simply spam as many hits they can possibly dish out by repeatedly hitting the punch button, destroying one mook after another onscreen until the limit is over. When bosses are around it is possible to release up to 50 consecutive punches without stopping.
- Scary Black Man: Two of the bosses – Spike, the knife-spamming assassin, and Kain's right-hand-man and lead enforcer, a minion simply codenamed Eight.
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Spiritual Successor: To Mutation Nation, both of them being mutant-themed arcade brawlers set in the then-future, where the players investigates a powerful figure of authority who's running a MegaCorp that specializes in illicit, illegal operations. - Teleport Spam: Eight, as well as Senator Kain in his final One-Winged Angel form. They repeatedly port all over the damn arena, making them difficult to hit, but landing consecutive punches on them before they can start porting is a good strategy.
- Token Evil Teammate: Implied with Undead, the only member of the playable characters with his Mysterious Past, and being the most bloodthirsty, violent, borderline sadistic character of the game who gleefully claws up mooks (while the other players are government agents doing their jobs). He seems to be after a mysterious MacGuffin developed by the Methuselah Corp as well, and is joining the other characters so he may retrieve the item (rather than assisting the heroes for good) if the ending cutscene is any indication.
- Tyke Bomb: The "Mango" enemies who looks and sounds like gigantic, human-sized babies. There are no indications if they are "actual" babies artificially created by the Methuselah Corp as part of their experiments, or human thugs injected with DNA, but these babies are hostile and attacks you (with a poisoned burp) on sight.
- Vehicular Assault: Every now and then, enemies will try to run you down with motorcycles or vehicles. One of the bosses is notably an armoured truck called a Hulk A-6 which has razor blades on its front, mooks armed with machine-guns shooting from the sides, and will repeatedly try running you over until you punch it into scrap.
- Wolverine Claws: Undead sports clawed, metal gauntlets on his fists, and he is the only playable character who starts off with weapons. There are also the Guinea-type mooks, mutants created by the Methuselah, but their claws are organically-grafted.
