Arm Joe - PC, 1998

 

Jason 'Mr Midnyte' Pinon

Hey y'all, welcome back to another Forgotten Fighting Legends!

When you hear the name 'Les Miserables', what do you think of?  The novel by Victor Hugo?  The musical that stars Hugh Jackman but not as Wolverine?  How about a fighting game??

Yeah, that does seem pretty unlikely.  HOWEVER, that's where we are.  If you are unfamiliar with the work (as I was/am) its focused around the character Jean Valjean who was imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread, set across the backdrop of 19th century France.  It is a tale of redemption and hope.  The novel by Hugo (who also wrote the Hunchback of Notre Dame) is considered one of the greatest works of it's time, and inspired the musical that was also a huge hit.  Thus, in the mid 1990's it inspired a Street Fighter- style fighter.  Yep, that all makes sense.

Developed by Takase (mostly by themselves), it was created using the 2D Fighter Maker engine over the course of 5 years.   The game itself has hand crafted sprites of characters in the book/movie.  The gaming system is nothing too complex, with standard direction-based inputs, a super meter, and wall-bouncing.  The characters themselves feature Jean Valjean, Javert, Cosette, Eponine, JUDGEMENT (which appears to be a demonic form of Valjean), PonPon (a stuffed animal), Police (not the band), and my favorite RoboJean, kinda like RoboKy from the GG series.  I would have hope that since it was set during the French Revolution that any robot would have been some kind of steam-punk theme, but no such luck.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this game.  It's an interesting addition to the world of Fighting Games. The sprites definitely deserve a shout-out. The game itself looks janky as shit, but solely on the unique theme, this may be worth a look.  It's still available for free (for PC I think) and even usable within the realms of MUGEN.

https://youtu.be/LF5a1xJtPIo

The above link is a combo demonstration video so you can get a slight feel for what is going on.

Thanks everyone, and HAPPY FIGHTING!