Hamster Corporation is releasing Taito’s 1989 pre-Street Fighter II fighting game Violence Fight on the Nintendo eshop and PSN marketplaces this week . Now infamous for the insane amount of “Engrish” text throughout the game thanks to a certain YouTube celebrity who drinks Rolling Rock beer and has nightmares over LJN games.
If you had never seen or played Violence Fight before picture an earlier version of Atari’s Pit-Fighter with 60’s Batman text each time you do a critical blow. Check the screenshots below and see for yourself. It is a barrel of laughs!
The game itself is fairly basic. You choose from 4 different “quarrelers” (as the game’s intro refers the fighters as). You have 3 action buttons (punch, jump, kick) and you perform strong attacks by pressing punch+jump or kick+jump. Like in Pit-Fighter you button mash to oblivion to win. Most of the stages are closed in arenas you can walk in 8 directions except for that roof top level where you can only move left and right. After a couple of fights you go against a tiger to raise your character’s attributes much like SNK’s Art of Fighting later on.
If you love your cheesy 80s beat em up games then Violence Fight is definitely for you. It should be on the Nintendo eshop and PSN for $7.99. Boot this piece of gaming history up, have a drink with a friend, and you’ll have a blast or shall I say BOGOON!
David Medina is a hardcore gamer and Japanese import collector owning dozens of systems and games from Famicom to Nintendo Switch. He has an active YouTube channel called "The Karnov Jr Show" and posts retro gaming content there weekly showing off collections, random store tours, and gameplay clips.