Battle K-Road (Arcade) - All Throws & Grab Moves

Fighting styles:

Karate (Anthony & Masamichi) - 0:00
Boxing (Rick & Jeff) - 0:12
Muay Thai (Shinsaku & John) - 0:24
Combat Sambo (Wolf & Dan) - 0:35
Shootfighting (Cyborg D-9F & Cyborg T-8P) - 0:55
Sumo Wrestling (Mitsuji & Harimaoh) - 1:09
Jiu-Jitsu (Tyssa & Yuki) - 1:20
Teddy Bear (Kumachan & Kumasama)* - 1:36

*The final boss was selected by using MAME cheats

Battle K-Road is Psikyo's first 2D fighting game, which they released to arcades in 1994. The game is based on a "Multi Style Fighting Tournament", making it an early example of a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) video game.

The game has 7 different fighting styles to choose from, plus the style of the unplayable final boss. There are two representatives of each fighting style with identical movesets, rather than allowing mirror matches. In single player mode, the selected character must defeat their associate or rival to secure their place in the tournament.

Many of the characters are based on real life martial artists, including the boxer George Foreman, and the karateka Andy Hug. However, the game also has unrealistic fictional characters, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator (under the name Cyborg T-8P, instead of T-800) and the final boss Mr. Bear. While Wolf is based on a real-life Sambo fighter called Volk Han, to me he resembles Sylvester Stallone. Psikyo might as well have included Rocky Balboa or Rambo in the game, if The Terminator is there.

Some characters in Battle K-Road are suspiciously similar to ones in other fighting games from the same era. Artwork of Tyssa bears a strong resemblance to the character portrait of Sarah Bryant from Virtua Fighter 1. Cyborg D-9F looks like Jack from Tekken, although he is based on the MMA fighter Dick Vrij. Mr. Bear is a similar concept to Kuma from Tekken. It's possible that Battle K-Road inspired Tekken, as it was released earlier in the same year.

The gameplay is somewhat grounded in realism. When a fighter is knocked down or thrown, the bout is stopped and the competitors are reset. The action mostly takes place in realistic settings such as sports arenas and boxing rings.

Psikyo attempted to accurately portray real world martial arts moves, but took some liberties. I particularly like the authentic depiction of karate punches and kicks in the game. There are no "Hadouken" fireballs or other power-based special attacks, but Mr. Bear does have moves resembling Ryu's "Shoryuken" and "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku" from Street Fighter. Stronger moves can be performed by holding and releasing an attack button, in combination with a direction.

The player must grapple their opponent to perform a grab or throw move. There is a chance for their opponent to pull out of the grapple and evade the move. More powerful grab moves are performed by holding and releasing an attack button whilst grappling the opponent.

The grappling moves in Battle K-Road are generally entertaining to pull off, and include some impressive combo animations (particularly the Muay Thai style). I don't like the single strike move which each character can perform whilst grappling, as it is ineffective, and leaves the player vulnerable to attacks afterwards. Each character except the boxers and bears have a basic throw which flips the opponent. This is animated differently for each fighting style, but I would have preferred a greater variety.

I feel there is some conceptual overlap between the Combat Sambo style and the shootfighting style. Both have aspects of professional wrestling, such as a piledriver and a front suplex. I was surprised that the shootfighting style does not have additional dashing grab moves like the Combat Sambo style has. I was also disappointed by the Jiu-Jitsu moveset. It has weird moves like a pressure point strike. I was hoping for more Judo style throws such as a Tomoe Nage.

Special moves are essential to win Battle K-Road. The standard strikes are too weak and have a low chance of knocking the opponent down. The cheap AI blocks almost every move, meaning any strike you can land needs to be worthwhile. To make matters worse, your character will freeze in place when failing to land a strike, making you susceptible to attacks unless you can jump away. The best strategy is to block and use special moves as counter attacks.

The style of the game is in between the cartoonish look of Street Fighter, and the gritty look of digitised sprites in Mortal Kombat. Evidently Psikyo couldn't decide on what art direction they wanted. Anthony and Wolf have darkened, vacant eyes, whereas Tyssa and Yuki are more cartoon-like. The variation in art style becomes very apparent during the ending sequences which range from babyish chibi-style drawings to more realistic digitised sprites.

Overall Battle K-Road is an interesting concept, but could have been improved by more realism, conceptual consistency and variety in fighting styles.

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