M.U.S.C.L.E.

""Go! Go! Muscle!""

M.U.S.C.L.E refers not to any of the number of contractile organs within your body, but to a toy line that emerged in the mid-80s. They may have been tiny, 2-inch plastic figurines, but that didn't mean they weren't the galaxy's ultimate warriors. Kids would pit them against each other mano-a-mano in their wrestling ring playsets, or perhaps battle it out with the "M.U.S.C.L.E Mega-Match" board game. It's kind of making me nostalgic just thinking about it. Now, whilst the U.S toy line was only in production by mega-giant toy company Bandai for about two years, they did prove to be somewhat popular amongst some of the more die hard of collectors, but regular guys like you and me could still get into it pretty easily thanks to the variety of cool characters. Wait wait wait...I'm getting ahead of myself. I've talked about them, but you probably still have no clue what M.U.S.C.L.E stands for. Brace yourselves. Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere. Cool name, huh? Bandai didn't exactly hold true to the title, making only 256 characters rather than a few million. ...Wait, what am I talking about? Only 256? You should see these little critters! If you lay a collection out in front of you, I guarantee you'll skim your eyes across them and immediately fall in love with one. Each one has a different look, and just by how a 2 inch piece of PVC plastic is molded, you've got a tonne of kickass characters.

With every toy line, there's got to be a cartoon to follow, right? Well, it worked backwards. So backwards in fact that the West never saw it. Yes, you've guessed it. M.U.S.C.L.E is based off an immensely popular manga and subsequent anime series from Japan. It involved Kinnikuman, the universe's ultimate, yet clumsy, superhero. Frequently called upon to save the universe and battle monsters, Kinnikuman and his band of heroes known as the 'The Thug Busters' did their duty to defeat the looming threat. However, where there's an Optimus Prime, there's a Megatron. Where there's a Splinter, there's a Shredder. Here, Kinnikuman's nemesis was the nefarious 'Cosmic Crunchers', led by the sinister Buffaloman (or, as he is known in the West...Terri-Bull). As I said, the show never aired outside Japan, but that didn't stop M.U.S.C.L.E as we shall see...

The circle is complete. We've got a cartoon, a toy line, and waiting in the wings, we've got the games. As you'd expect, most of them were only released in their native country of Japan, but one slipped its way to us in the form of this: "M.U.S.C.L.E" for the NES. Bit of trivia for you: when it was released in Japan, the game was known as "Kinnikuman Muscle Tag Match". Just in case it comes up as a question on Final Jeopardy or something.

Anyway, the game's concept is rather simple. You team up with another character from the series and begin to pummel the crap out of the opposing tag team. Only problem is, it's too simple, in every possible way; sounds, graphics, controls. It may be an early NES game, but this is practically Atari in those regards. Let me break it down for you...

Popping in the cart and hitting start, you're greeted with the character select screen. From here, you get to choose 2 of the 8 characters available for you tag team, and then, select 2 for your opposing team. This was the first problem I had. The screen is nothing more than a single blue background with only the heads of the 8 fighters. None of them have names identifying them, and the poorly drawn faces coloured solely in gray means you'll have to take a wild guess at who you're picking. I was also drawn back by the lack of characters, since there's only Kinnikuman, Terryman, Ramenman, Robin Mask, Buffaloman, Warsman, Ashuraman and Geronimo available. I know they were picked due to their standing in the show, but they were excluding a lot of loved characters from the toy line up, and I'm sure it wouldn't have taken that much memory or effort to include them in the game. Oh, and further trivia for you; the character Geronimo is only available in the US version of the game, as the original fighter, Brocken Jr was deemed too offensive, what with him being a Nazi and all, and thus removed.

However, it doesn't matter much which character you pick, since they're pretty much equal in terms of strength and moves. Any other characters would have been simply eye-candy. In this game's case, stale candy, since graphically, the game is pretty atrocious. The character sprites are giant, undetailed blobs of colour. Ramenman's mustache looks more like a stream of tears than anything else, and Kinnikuman's arms the same colour as the ring's floor, making it's tricky to tell just whether you're punching or not. The only fighter I liked the look of what Robin Mask, since his suit of armor looked pretty good in comparison, but other than that, you'll find yourself fighting the same sprite, except with a black blob for a hat, or perhaps a blue body. The same goes for the arena you fight in. It's a single colour mat, single colour side panels, and an inanimate crowd. It looks unbelievably bland. During the second match, the wrestling ring is coated in ice. How did they do that? Change it to a slab of light blue. Ingenious.

However, what shoddy graphics detract from the game, gameplay certainly makes up for it. Whilst wrestling games for the NES were primitive (just how many moves could you pull off with just an A and a B button, anyway?), I actually found myself getting really gripped by this one. I have no clue why since it's so simple, having only a punch, jump and back body drop at your immediate use. I guess that's the appeal; simplicity. I'm notoriously bad at fighting games, which is why I'm always laughed at when I ask somebody to play "Street Fighter 2" with me, so this is my kind of game. No combos or complicated moves to perform, just simple moves that you can master in a heartbeat. By using the simple controls, you can pull off some decent moves, knocking people into the ropes and slamming them down on their rebound, then when they get up, you give them a nice backdrop before finishing them off with your special move. Oh, yeah. Victory never felt sweeter.

Special moves. These, to put it mildly, are freaking awesome. All the characters can release their ultimate power in the game by simply catching a power ball. Outside the ring at random times, the character Meat from the anime will pop up and throw one of his power balls into the ring for a player to catch, and once he does, the game gets frantic. Your character will flash like mad and is able to perform their special move. This was the fun part of the game, racing to collect the power-up before the other player (be it the computer or a friend) and then unleashing hell. Some of them range from simple, pathetic looking drop moves to super awesome Atomic Drops. They all deal out the same damage as far as I can tell, but it's one hell of a feeling to pull one of these powerful looking moves off. It's awesome.

Another cool feature of the gameplay is the ring-types. Whilst they're the same ring design each time, a new challenge is presented as you progress through the three stages; ice and electricity. The first ring is your standard, run-of-the-mill one, but as you beat the first match, prepare for some fun as you slip and slide all over the place in the ice-ring. It makes fighting much more trickier, but surprisingly entertaining and not frustrating as you would assume. The last ring is the electric death-match, as the ropes have a current running through them, making them both an advantage (slamming your opponents into them) and a deadly disadvantage at the same time. If you're prone to seizures, you might want to skip the last round, since the entire ring flashes continuously without end, but boy is it fun.

This is definitely a game you'll want to play with a friend. The single player mode is fun and all, but there's nothing like watching the face of your opponent shatter when you deliver the final blow. Oh, Nintendo. What a victory-hungry monster you made me...

There's little else to comment on in the game except it's sound quality, or lack thereof. There's no music save for the title screen (which is pretty reasonable rendition of the Kinnikuman theme) and the match summary screen. It's disappointing not to find any catchy battle music or short victory snippets and it certainly works against the game. When I'm playing, I have to have a stereo blaring the rocking Contra soundtrack next to the game just to get my blood pumping. The sounds of the fighting is pretty lame in retrospect, being comprised of nothing but endless bleeps and bloops whenever you jump or land a hit, but they're not distracting or anything, and actually suit the rest of the game's simplicity.

If the game had spent just a bit more time in development, it could have been far, far greater. However, as it stands, it's a fair title. The game probably won't hold a place on your favorite games lists, and nor will you be engrossed in it for hours on end, but if you're ever bored and fancy a quick, fun match, you've got one within seconds of powering up your NES, and in this day and age of flashy intros, theme music and complicated combos, it's something that's sadly missed. If you're interested and fancy buying it, why not have a look for some figurines too? They're pretty cheap, and I guarantee that you'll have a blast just looking at them.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/07

Game Release: M.U.S.C.L.E. (US, October 1986)