Shadow Force

Obscure but pretty fun Beat em Up

This one of the MAME game that i should discussed ages ago but somehow it got delayed over and over again. I played this game when i was a kid and unable to finish it due to the difficulty though at last finished the game this time.

So in this game you got 4 characters to choose from and each of them had different moves. In this game the character doesn't really have any story though apparently i heard that the Japanese version had some more backstory about the characters.

First is Kai who is the most balanced character in the game. He is my main character since he looks the coolest too bad he doesn't really have any cool move.

The second character is Tengu and he is the easiest character to play with. His Spinning Lariat(copy pasta from Zangief's) pretty much kill any enemies easily though he is quite slow.

Third is the Coyote, i don't really use this guy alot since it is quite hard to pull his techniques but he had the longest reaching attack which are basically Blanka's roll.

The last character is Blunet and the only female character in this game. She is the most agile character and the only character that is able to perform Double Jump.

Unlike most Beat em Up games, this game emphasise on one to one duel with the enemies. So you will fight your opponent one by one despite there are many opponents showing up on the screen. Though this doesn't make the game any easier compared to other game since the enemies are harder to kill and some of them hits pretty hard and able to kill you from full health bar.

Another feature that's pretty much exclusive to this game is the ability to control your enemy one at a time and use their moveset. Though i find it quite useless since their moves are not many and quite useless except the boss character which have really strong moveset.

By the end of each stage you will be prompted to duel with other character and other player if there are 2 players to earn extra points. Beware though since your life remained from the duel will not be restored in next stage and one of the player will be dead if 2 players are playing.

This are the bosses that you will have to face in each stage. For the first 3 stages the bosses might be slightly different depending on which stage you took first. Final boss is pretty tough and the only enemy that can't be spammed with Tengu's spinning lariat. Unless you are good at this game you will need to spam the super attack until this guy is dead.

 These are the endings for each character. Pretty much ending are quite generic though Blunet's are quite good fanservice. Anyone interested with beat em up should try this game since it is quite a different experience from other similar games.