Fighter's History (c) 1993 Data East.
Fighter's History is the first attempt of Data East to enter in competition with Capcom and his onnipresent Street Fighter II. Cause the many similarities shared by the game with the Capcom masterpiece (like the character select screen, the vs and winner/loser screens, the controls and the design and moves of some characters), Fighter's History was at least simply stamped by most of players like another SFII clone, and in this way remained ignored and obscured to the mass audience.
Although time after, the many beat'em up fans learning to appreciate this maybe too understimated fighting game, especially for his combo system quite simply to execute even for those players not so able with timing and button pressing, and for his fast gameplay : at this purpose most of the contribution was maked by his updated version relesed in 1994, Fighter's Hystory Dynamite (know as Karnov's Revenge in USA and Europe) that maked the gameplay more polish. Despite this at least Fighter's History never reaching that greatest success that maybe Data East still tried to chase.
Players choose one of 9 international fighters and battle to be the best in the world. Every character has his ending sequence and his own stage. There are also two not-selectable boss to challenge for reach the end, and the last one of them is real surprising!

>>> TECHNICAL DETAILS
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Game ID : MBF
Main CPU : ARM (@ 7 Mhz), HuC6280 (@ 4.0275 Mhz)
Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 3.58 Mhz), OKI6295 (@ 7.627 Khz), OKI6295 (@ 15.255 Khz)
Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 320 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 2048
Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 6

>>> TRIVIA
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In 1993 Capcom sued Data East for the similarities between Fighter's History & 'Street Fighter II - The World Warrior'. Despite Data East successfully defending itself in the lawsuit, Fighter's History was not rid of its reputation as a 'shameless Street Fighter rip-off' and went ignored by many gamers. Its sequels, which added little to the series, helped cement this reputation.
In a bit of payback, Capcom added most of the moves of Lee into the characters Yang and Yun in Street Fighter 3.
This is one of the rare Japanese-made fighting games where the characters yell out the names of their moves in their native language. Most Japanese-made fighting games, including 'Street Fighter II - The World Warrior', have the Asian characters (usually comprised of East Asians) speak Japanese while all the other characters speak English or Japanese, regardless of their nationality.
Also, every character has several winning quotes displayed in the win/lose screen : these changes depending the defeated opponent.
Another particular feature of the Fighter's History saga is the presence of characters of other Data East games in the cast of the game: in fact, the final boss of Fighter's History and Fighter's History Dynamite is actually Karnov, the hero of the homonimous platform game of Data East released in 1987. While in Fighter's History - Mizoguchi Kiki Ippatsu!! (released only for Super Famicom in Japan) the final boss is even Chelnov, the hero of Chelnov - Atomic Runner (1988) still released by Data East.
About Ryoko : This character seems somehow inspired by Ryoko Tamura, famous female judo champion that start her judo carrier at the age of 16 years old (the same age of Ryoko on the game) on the Barcelona Olympics on 1992, and winner of several medals and prizes in every judo contests all over the world. Other inspiration for Ryoko could be from the heroine of the manga 'Yawara', based about the story of a young female judoka. There is also another curious thing to know about Ryoko: in the same year (1993), ADK release World Heroes 2, sequel of the previous World Heroes released in 1992, and inside his rinnovate character roaster appear a new female fighter named Ryoko, that is very similar to the one of Fighter's Hystory, especially in the physical appearance (the only difference is the colour of they Kimono: white for Ryoko of Fighter's History, light blue for Ryoko of World Heroes 2; also, Ryoko of Fighter's History has a red headband, while Ryoko of World Heroes 2 not), but however the moves of the two characters are totally different, even if the style fighting is the judo for both of them. At least the two 'Ryokos' are admittedly inspired by the real Ryoko Tamura at well.
Both Ryoko and Jean's endings mention the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Differetly from Street Fighter II, some stages of Fighter's History shows location effectly existing in the world :
* The stage of Ray (USA) takes place in front the gates of the White House, that is clearly visible in the middle of the screen.
* The stage of Marstorius (Italy) takes place in front the 'Fontana di Trevi' of Rome, one of the most famous fountains of the world. The fountain is not only celebrated for its excellent water but for the legend that whoever drinks it or throws a coin in the fountain, will assure his return to Rome.
Mizoguchi makes a cameo in Joe e Mac Returns (1994) as enemy character. Also Mizoguchi later appeared as a selectable character in the Sony PlayStation 2 game 'KOF - Maximum Impact Regulation A'.
A version of this game, titled 'The Hystory of Martial Arts' (199?) was maded by an unknow producer.
A Fighter's History unit appears in the 1998 movie 'The Replacement Killers'.

>>> GAME UPDATES
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The US version is slightly different, it has the 'Winners Don't Use Drugs' screen.

>>> TRICKS AND TIPS
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Weak Points : one of the features of the Fighter's History gameplay is the introduction of the weak points for all the characters of the game : these weak points consists basically in a single part of the suit of every character, that begin to flash while taking some strong hits : after the last strong hit making fly away the weak point, the character will get dizzy. In this way every character can get dizzy once time for round, and pop off the weak point of the opponent will become an essential strategy during the fight. In the next round, weak points are restored for both players.
These are the weak points for every character of the game :
Ray : lightning bolt (on the shirt)
Feilin : breastplate
Ryoko : headband
Matlok : headgear
Samchay : armband
Lee : knees (some parts of the pants near the knees)
Mizoguchi : headband
Jean : leg band
Marstorius : leg warmers

>>> GAME SERIES
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1. Fighter's History (1993)
2. Karnov's Revenge (1994)
3. Fighter's History - Mizoguchi Kiki Ippatsu!! (1995, Nintendo Super Famicom)

>>> GAME PORTS TO OTHER SYSTEMS
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* Consoles :
Nintendo Super Famicom (1994)

>>> OTHER GAME RESOURCES
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Game's rom.
Machine's picture.