Arm Joe: Les Misérables

Arm Joe: Les Misérables

released on Dec 31, 1998
by Takase

Arm Joe: Les Misérables

released on Dec 31, 1998
by Takase

Arm Joe, also known as ArmJoe, is a fighting game based on the novel and musical Les Misérables, made in a fighting game engine maker by ASCII: "Tsukuru" series "Fighter Maker", by Takase, who also made the game Dot Fighters. There are ten characters to choose from, and they fight each other one on one, using the formula Street Fighter and Street Fighter 2 established. Characters are mostly characters from Les Misérables. Each character has special moves inspired by that character's role in the story. There's a special condition where characters are about to die (their health draining away) in which they are much more powerful and have infinite special power: the opponent has to avoid those special attacks until that character dies. This sometimes gives the advantage to players who reach low life first. There is also a practice mode, where the player can learn how to perform the special moves of each character.


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Ludonarrative commentary on the uniquely unstable class structure of French history depicted through how characters are balanced

This is a fighting dōjin made with 2D Fighter Maker 95 by a single mysterious developer, Takase. Its development took no less than five years. The game's title won't mean anything to a westerner, but it's meant to be a pun (the Japanese translation of Les Misérables is あぁ 無情, Aa Mujō): It's a 2D fighting game, modelled on Street Fighter 2; the protagonists of Claude-Michel Schönbergof's musical (which is obviously based on Victor Hugo's novel) are the playable characters.
There's Valjean (and Robo-Valjean) with a devastating grapple, a generic policeman who is also the shotoclone of the game, Éponine with a very cheap slide kick, Cosette with her double attacks (as each time she kicks Valjean jumps in and kicks the opponent too), Marius with the ability to summon an army of zombies of the revolution, Javert with Akuma's moveset. There's also some sort of rabbit called PonPon, that has nothing to do with the novel and comes from some of Takase's youthful scribblings, who has infinite air juggle. Funnily enough, each character reacts differently to the opponent attacks, depending on their relationship in the novel.
Competently animated and with more than good character sprites, the result is very interesting and extraordinarily unbalanced: normal attacks are far too strong compared with special counterparts; when you're on the verge of death you have basically infinite power (exploitable until your life drops to zero); one of the characters in particular (Judgement, who looks like Yujiro Hanma from Baki) is far stronger than the others (in fact, he could win every fight by simply spamming a single attack).

If you want to try out all the characters, you should get the latest version. You can download It for free

Some of the most hilarious and creative super moves I've ever seen in a game

More literary classics need a fighting game with a robot version of the main character as a playable character and a Baki reference as the final boss

deranged game handles terribly barely functional i cant even joke this game is so bad

NEED this guy to make a No Country For Old Men fighting game