Editors Note: This is a sneak preview of an article you can find in Scrubhaus The Zine! #1, coming soon!
Nintendo fans are a strange breed for a number of reasons. We all love the same company from deep in our hearts but, depending on your age, the Nintendo you fell in love with can be a completely different entity than what enchanted the other Nintendo fans. But regardless of what era you grew up in: be it NES, N64, Wii or what-have-you, one thing all Nintendo fans universally revile regardless of age or era:
URBAN CHAMPION SUCKS!!!!
That sentiment is almost universal among Nintendo fans, but Nintendo themselves don’t seem to feel that way. At least part of the reason for this timeless hate is the fact that Urban Champion has been omnipresent and nearly inescapable in-some form on almost every Nintendo console to date.
The first Urban Champion re-release came on the eReader in 2002. The eReader set came in the form of 5 cards that had to be scanned a total of 9 times. Some of the cards had multiple lines of code and needed to be scanned again while others didn’t. If that sounds unnecessarily confusing or obtuse, it’s because it is. The eReader version is the same as NES Urban Champion but with no multiplayer and no ability to save hi-scores.
The next two releases came on Wii Virtual Console in 2006 and the Wii-U Virtual Console in 2013. These versions function more or less identically to the NES version with local multiplayer and the ability to save hi-scores. So overall, both were a big upgrade from the original release.
Now, I lumped those two releases together for a few reasons. One being their similarity, and the other is because I wanted to talk about 2011’s Nintendo 3DS Classics version of Urban Champion all on its own. This version takes full advantage of the 3DS stereoscope to really make the backgrounds pop. Literally. This version is actually a really cool thing to exist and is probably my favorite way to play the game. That said, it does make you wonder why they deemed Urban Champion worthy of a 3DS Classics Remake over Mario, Zelda, or even Donkey Kong. But, more on that later…
After 2013, the next release of the NES Urban Champion wouldn’t actually be until July 4th, 2024 in the NES section of Nintendo Switch Online. There’s an American joke in there somewhere, I know it. This version functions the same as the NES game. But now you and a buddy can slug it out in Urban Champion online! Just like you always dreamed of. Oh boy!
Interestingly, the Arcade version of Urban Champion would be released on the Switch eShop in 2018 as part of Hamster’s Arcade Archives series. This version comes with the upgrades that most Arcade Classics do including a Hi-Score Mode and a Caravan Mode. In addition to that, the arcade version also features a significant upgrade to both sound and visuals over the NES game. Overall this is actually the most feature rich version of Urban Champion available but, I still think it’s not nearly as novel as the 3DS classic. That’s a matter of preference as being the best Urban Champion game isn’t exactly the most prestigious title.
You may be wondering why I went on such a long tangent, but for anyone not counting, Nintendo has released Urban Champion has been released 8 different times now. And yes that includes both the arcade and NES game together. It’s something of a running joke in the Nintendo fandom that Urban Champion, a game no one seems to like, will always get re-released and remade over your favorite game. This bad game will seemingly outlive us all!
But does Urban Champion really deserve it’s reputation as a kusoge (クソゲ) or “shit game”? Well the answer is yes, but also kind of no…? It’s complicated, well actually, it’s not complicated. But that’s actually what makes it complicated, I’ll explain. NES, Arcade, and 3DS Urban Champion all have two modes: A single player mode, Game A. And a multiplayer mode, Game B. The Arcade Archives version features an additional mode, Caravan, which is a score attack mode with a hard 5 minute time limit.
All of these modes play identically. You are one of two very angry 8-bit men having a brawl on an 8-bit city street. The goal is to knock your opponent off screen and occasionally into an open manhole. You can light punch with the A button and heavy punch with B button. Light punch comes out faster and costs less stamina but knocks back far less than Heavy Punch which costs more stamina.
The cops will roll up on you at complete random. This forces both fighters to “act normal” by drawing all the way back and resetting the fight. Occasionally a resident may drop a flower pot on you for unknown reasons. This dazes you if it lands on you opening you up for a big…. press of the B button? Yeah, that’s really all there is to Urban Champion’s game play. There’s only ever one opponent and 3 incredibly similar backgrounds. If you’ve played Urban Champion for longer than five minutes you’ve likely seen the entire game. And that’s really what it is; the reason for the revulsion for this game. There’s really just nothing to it. It’s impossible to keep your attention, because you just see it all right away. Except for the manhole, that part takes time to grind.
When this game came out on the NES in August 1986, it already felt dated. Beat ‘em up legend, Renegade was a month away from coming out and was all over magazines at the time. Early beat ‘em ups like Kung-Fu Master and My Hero had already hit arcades. Games like Street Fighter 1 and Double Dragon were less than a year away. This game was a fossil at launch! Or was it?
You see, August 1986 was just when Urban Champion was released on Famicom. In Japan, the game was released in Nov 1984 for the Famicom and December 1984 for arcades. At the time, the game’s biggest competition in the world of fighting games and beat ‘em ups were Yie Ar Kung-Fu and Karate Champ. At the time, the bar for fighting games was kind of just to work and beat ‘em ups didn’t quite exist yet in the way we think of them now. It’s why I’ve always felt that a lot of the criticism towards this game was unwarranted. The game was ambitious for it’s time and is an icon of early black box NES games. It’s a shame this game didn’t come out sooner, it might be better remembered if it did.
But with all that said, the game is absolutely nothing. Most Game & Watch titles had more enriching gameplay. Every complaint about it is both justified, but also kind of not. Like I said, this game’s extreme lack of complexity makes talking about it objectively extremely complicated. So while it might be a kusoge, Urban Champion’s status as a pioneer in multiple genres of video game is undeniable.
