Though Namco had been a notable pillar of the arcades back in the seventies and eighties, but in the early 1990s a then less than decade old competitor known as Capcom came out with a game that was about street fighting or something that was stealing the thunder of the House of Pac-Man. Thus, Namco accepted it would have to try its hand at the genre of Fighting Games in order to avoid being left out of the spotlight. Thus Namco's Knuckle Heads was born in 1992.
Though Knuckle Heads is a 2D fighting Arcade Game, however it has some distinguishing features to differentiate itself from Street Fighter II: All fighters have a weapon at their disposal, whereas in Capcom's most characters have strictly open fist fighting styles and, more notably, Knuckle Heads also has a tag-team fighting option. Not just only can two players go up against a set of CPU opponents, two different set of players can also simultaneously fight it out in Two players vs two players matches.
Thus, Knuckle Heads would go to become... obscure in later years as can be indicated by the lack of sequels and/or updates of sequels. However, Namco's first endeavor in fighting games wouldn't be a complete failure as the company would two years later come up with a more successful game, Tekken, that would utilize a 3D fighting layout. In addition, Namco would also revisit the concept of weapon-based fighting with 1995's Soul Edge. Also, for what it's worth, Knuckle Heads would see a re-release on the Wii via the Virtual Console (but only in Japan).
Unrelated to the similarly named Canadian animated series Knuckleheads.
This game provides examples of:
- Anime Chinese Girl: Christine Myao, who is a martial artist and an aspiring actress.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: While most characters' names are passable, but in the case of two of the fighters the names would not be credible. It is unlikely any real-life Norwegian would have the surname "Darrell" (of which is of French origin) and then more blatantly unrealistic is the case of Blat Vaike of Greece who has a name that is not only not Greek in origin, but also composed of names from another part of Europe a long distance away from Greece, that being the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and Russia.
- The Atoner: Gregory Darrell's rationale for taking part in the tourney. His frequent sailing put a strain on his family to the point that his wife divorced him. He thus seeks to win the prize money from the competition in an effort to make up for his past failing. In his ending, he gives them the whole ten-billion-dollar prize and walks away. Upon seeing this act of selflessness, Ms. Darrell tells him "Wait! Darling!! Let's start over again!"
- Depraved Dwarf: Downplayed in regards to Blat. He is not that short, standing at five feet, two inches, but he tends to walk in a hunchbacked manner, which makes him appear shorter than he is, combined with his constant hyena-esque laughter as well as his hedonistic habits, he is a generally non-malicious example.
- Dual Wielding: Half of the fighters on the roster use a set of two weapons. Rob Vincent uses a pair of tonfas, Darrell uses two axes, and Claudia Silva wears a pair of clawed gauntlets.
- Eagleland: Rob is a benign ("America the Beautiful") variant generally. Though he is a bit of a boisterous braggart, such as proclaiming "I Am Number One!" in his victory animation, however he also does have a genuinely altruistic reason for taking part in this competition. His father owned a company that went bankrupt and with the prize money that Rob wins in his ending, he gives it all to him in order to get him back on his feet.
- Excuse Plot: A television network is putting on a televised tournament of fighters who are duking it out for a prize of ten billion dollars. However, Takeshi Fujioka's ending does reveal that the outfit that is hosting the tourney has been engaging in criminal activity, specifically drug dealing.
- Fiery Redhead: Claudia is a feisty Spicy Latina with an awesome red mane.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: What happens to Blat in his ending. He spends his ten billion dollars winning on every day of indulgences... within three years.
- Horny Vikings: The Norwegian-hailing warrior Darrell definitely dresses the part.
- Latino Is Brown: Averted in regard to Claudia. She is Brazilian, but she is of mostly Portuguese and/or other European descent based on her fair complexion and red hair. On her stage's background, the spectators are portrayed as running the gamut of Brazil's real-world ethnic diversity.
- Manly Facial Hair: Darrell is one of the most built characters in the game and also has a beard that compliments his rugged physique.
- Ms. Fanservice: Claudia checks off quite a few Fanservice tropes. She has a Stripperiffic outfit which shows off her luscious legs, toned midriff, and ample bosom and cleavage, of which the last displays a bounce in her victory animation. Also amusing to note that she uses a rather sultry voice during said victory animation, at the least invokes a bit of Femme Fatale persona. When also considering that the creators are Japanese, this Brazilian lady would also likely fall under Gorgeous Gaijin as well. The name for her theme (Link here
for those curious) is even titled as "Latin Aphrodite". - Nature Hero: Claudia is a somewhat mundane example. Her ending has her using the prize money to buy the entire Amazon rain forest in order to protect it from further deforestation. The last lines also cryptically mention "She disappeared into the Amazon and was never seen again. Maybe she was just the spirit of [the] great Amazon itself?"
- Ninja: Fujioka has been trained in the way of ninjitsu. Though interestingly his ending also reveals that he is a police officer working for Interpol. More specifically, he went undercover in order to bust the organizers of the tournament who have also been running a drug cartel.
- SNK Boss: Averted as this game doesn't have boss characters of any kind. Instead, the last opponent that players will confront is a golden Palette Swap of whatever character the player is playing as, who aside from having a higher AI difficulty than prior opponents has no advantages over the player's chosen character.
- Shoto Clone: The American Karateka Rob has a Hadoken-style projectile (called "Blast Wave") and an attack that operates similarly to the Shoryuken ("Spiral Cutter"). His Hurricane Kick equivalent involves him performing spinning-kneeling lariat type of attack.
- Vanity Project: In-universe example. After winning the tournament in her ending, Christine uses the prize money to make an action movie with herself as the main character.
- Weapon Specialization: The characters and which weapons they wield includes as follows:
- Rob Vincent: Tonfas
- Takeshi Fujioka: A kusarigama (with sickles at both ends of the chain)
- Blat Vaike: A warhammer
- Christine Myao: A Martial Arts Staff
- Gregory Darrell: Dual axes
- Claudia Silva: Steel claws
