[Playing…] Battle Tycoon: Flash Hiders SFX

When you explore the catalog of a console that has many games you always end up finding some little gem that you didn't know about. That has been the case of the game that I will comment on today: Battle Tycoon: Flash Hiders SFX, a fighting game developed by Right Stuff in 1995 for the Super Nintendo, which also happens to be the sequel to Flash Hiders from TurboGrafx-CD released in 1993.

Unfortunately this game never left Japan, although many of the texts corresponding to the menus and options are in English, so it is quite accessible for Western players who want to play a few games.

The game consists of 9 characters (and a final boss that we can control by doing a trick), all of them with a very elaborate anime aesthetic and funny animations. When it comes to fighting, each character has their own speed, defense and attack values, but they all share the possibility of making quick movements to the left or right (using the L and R buttons) and making a defensive counterattack (by pressing forward-back-forward and the punch button) that will be activated only in case the rival hits us after executing it. The number of special attacks per character is about 5 (above the average in games of the time) and also each character can hperform a super special attack If you hit your opponent, your life will be reduced considerably, making it ideal for finishing off your opponent or turning the fight around.

Next to the life of our character We will see 3 small bars that represent the strength (A), defense (G) and speed (S) of our fighter. As we defend, attack and receive damage, these bars will become empty or full. If a bar is close to being completely empty, it will flash to warn us that we are at risk (for example, if the defense bar is empty, our character will be stunned), on the other hand, that signal will also tell us that we can do super special attacks. If we want to raise the speed or attack bar quickly we will have to press one of the attack buttons so that our character makes fun of the rival.

One of the things that makes this game special is that Before fighting we can modify the values ​​of our character to adapt them to the type of rival we have. For example, if we control a very fast character but not too strong and we are going to fight against a slow character with a lot of defense, we can take off some speed and increase the attack to do more damage and continue being faster than him.

The idea of ​​modifying our character's values ​​before a fight against the console or a friend is a great idea, but in reality it is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can see in the main game mode, known as Advance.

In Advance mode our character will gain experience and money After each fight, the higher our score in the fights, the faster we will improve and the more money we will earn. Once we win the first fights we will have enough money to buy items that improve our fighter (and sell the old ones). Victory will also make us increase our character's level (with a corresponding increase in strength, speed and other values).

Between combats we can visit the store or a betting area where we can bet money on battles with CPU characters. We can also go to two combat zones, in one we find a predetermined rival and in the other we can choose who to fight against. In any case we will have to be attentive to the level of our rivals and the gold we will obtain if we beat them (the more risk, the more benefit). At a given moment the final boss will appear as a rival, if we defeat him we will see the end of the game.

This mode is quite entertaining and Although the game is in Japanese, it is quite easy to navigate through it because we can only access 6 places from the map. The two combat zones, the store, the options, the betting shop and the place where we can get our character's password.

This password is used to we can use our custom fighter on any other console (for example, in the event that a friend has the game and we want to face our characters) it may sound a little strange, but keep in mind that at that time there was no other way to take our game to a friend's game as there were no memory cards or anything similar. In case we want to use our personalized fighter in versus mode, but on our own console, just access it through the character selection screen and load the game we want from Advance mode (since we can save several).

In general, Battle Tycoon Flash Hiders SFX It is a fast, visually pleasing game, with flashy special attacks, unique gameplay elements, and a roster with characters that are different from each other. It's a shame that this game didn't have a greater impact because it would have been great if other games took note or directly copied some elements of this game.