 harder than the 90s. When fighting games in the 90s, seemingly every developer had to try and put their spin on things outside of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. We had everything from Clay Fighter which featured some prettyastern claymation, although the combat itself wasn't great. We had Killer Instinct, which had state of the art graphics and sound while requiring absolutely precise controls to execute insane combos. We also had Licence Stuff like Justice League Task Force. we hit piles and piles of crap, like Balls 3D, Rise of the Robot, Street Combat, on and on. The Super Famicom also had its share of games that put their own spin on the genre, games that never made it to the US, like this absolutely bizarre Shouniki game, but on the other end of the spectrum is the relatively simple title Taekwondo, made by Human Entertainment. And yeah, that's the same Human Entertainment that made lots of unique games in the 90s, like the Firemen, SOS, and Clock Tower, and sure enough Taekwondo is unique in that it seems to be somewhat true to the Taekwondo fighting style. Gone is all the cartoony stuff from the games that I listed earlier. This game is very bare bones by comparison, although make no mistake, each of the 19 playable characters all feature anime-styled portraits that almost make them look like something out of Breath of Fire. Still, the combat here is different than what you'd be used to, compared to just about any other 16-bit fighting game, and I really dig it. The structure is different, too. There's a point system that will reward you one point for a body hit, two points for a head hit, three points if you land a jump kick, five points for a knockdown, and five points for forcing your opponent off the map. There's a two-minute time limit, and if you end up with more points than your opponent, then a winner is you. You can also beat your opponent by knocking them down five times, or if you just knock them out cold. Now, the combat here does do the typical fighting move stuff. For instance, down to forward and B does a quick head kick, down to forward, then back and B will do a special move, and that depends on the type of fighter you've chosen, and that's where this game stands out. There's six different fighter types. There's the speed type who has weaker attacks, but can evade really well. There's the jump type who relies on jumping to evade, but is otherwise a balanced fighter. There's the defense type who's privy to block attacks rather than evade, and they also absorb less damage. The skill type has a wider variety of different attacks that you can do. The power type is the strongest, but also the most reckless who doesn't evade or block much, and the all-around type is, of course, the most balanced of all the skills. What's really cool here is that there's an edit mode that allows you to create your own fighter and set up your own skills however you want. You have nine points to allocate between attack, defense, speed, stamina, balance, and technique. To elaborate on those last three, stamina is indeed a thing in this game. It's kind of the game's way of preventing you from button mashing. If you go balls to the wall, your guy will eventually get tired and his attacks get much weaker. Balance is also a thing here, and a low balance makes you susceptible for easy knockdowns. Technique is pretty simple, the higher your technique, the better your attack skills. I should also mention that you start out with nine points, but after each tournament you can increase your level and get more points to distribute, so that's cool. Of course, the problem with this mode, and the entire game for that matter, is that it's all either in Japanese or all in Korean, whichever language you pick to start the game. There's no English patch available yet, as far as I know, so there is some trial and error here. But for the game modes, there's a tournament mode, that's the top option, a versus mode, against either a second player or the computer, a three on three battle mode that's kind of structured like what you'd see in King of Fighters, and there's a training mode. The nuanced controls here are what really give this game its appeal. For instance, you can press the R button to change having your left foot or right foot forward, but if you hold the R button down and press up or down you can move up and down the mat fatal fury style, that is really cool. Certain computer opponents exploit this by moving out of the way of a kick, only for you to be vulnerable for a knockdown. As far as attacking goes, there's quite a bit that goes into it, like if you press the Y button, that will activate an attack sequence, which will allow you to do a series of different kicks in a row, but it definitely takes some practice to get the hang of, but once you get a feel for it, it's pretty dang cool. So yeah, Taekwondo is an interesting fighting game that I've really learned to enjoy. There's tons of variety here, considering there's 19 fighters, six styles, and an edit feature to create your own fighter. I do have to point out a couple of other things though. Number one is that there is a fact on Gamefacts.com written all the way back in 1998, and it helps you go into a little more detail about the combat, and I found it to be extremely useful. Number two is that there's no battery save on this game, only a password system, and that's hard to use if you're not a native Japanese or Korean speaker. This game really needs an English patch, because apparently the password system does in fact allow you to keep your own created character, which is really cool. So yeah, if you want a different spin on the usual 16-bit one-on-one fighting games, then check out Taekwondo. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.