One of the last Famicom games before the shift to the Super Famicom, Joy Mech Fight brings the full fighting game experience to the NES with top-notch controls, visuals and audio! Players can enjoy a single player campaign and fight against the computer, or go head-to-head in a two-player versus mode. Although Japan exclusive, the game would eventually come to the west through Nintendo Switch Online in September 2023. The game is referred in the Super Smash Bros. series with the official romanization of "Joy Mech Fight".
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Somewhat esoteric in controls, however each character feels distinct and engaging to learn. The art direction is interesting and endearing. A full feeling game for what it is, I heavily enjoyed.
Cute
Playing this gave me the conviction that it's actually criminal Nintendo will throw up games onto its Switch Online service for western audiences without translating them. I get that it's an extra expense, but hey, I'm paying them for this. It's honestly impressive how much of this you can get, even the little tutorials, without understanding a character of Japanese. But it sure would be nice to enjoy the flavor text, and I fear the lack of translation will turn people off from a solid, cute, very enjoyable little title.
I'm not a fighting game person, but playing through the story mode was really fun, and encouraged me to try out all of the playable roster (8 for story mode) as the various abilities for each might give you an advantage when you find yourself stuck. The last set of fighters in story mode are clones of your own roster, but more powerful, which seems unfair but makes it more satisfying when you beat them.
I love that the mascot is essentially the comedy character, as well. Still, drill guy for life.
I'm not a fighting game person, but playing through the story mode was really fun, and encouraged me to try out all of the playable roster (8 for story mode) as the various abilities for each might give you an advantage when you find yourself stuck. The last set of fighters in story mode are clones of your own roster, but more powerful, which seems unfair but makes it more satisfying when you beat them.
I love that the mascot is essentially the comedy character, as well. Still, drill guy for life.
4/10
Never thought I would get into a NES Japanese-only fighting game this much, but I really did. Game is just really fun, not just good for the time this is straight up a good game.
You wouldn't think the NES would have a fighting game of this calibur, and for what it is, it's fairly impressive: It only has 8 playable characters, sure, but there are 36 characters in the game total (even if I wanna say half of them are powered up versions of previous, which can be funny in its own way after you beat a weak robot only to find a more threatening stronger version of that, with a silly name). Not only that but they all have 4 special moves, setting them further apart from each other, all with unique names. The game even has proper cross-ups which is impressive.
It's not all perfect though, as combos aren't really there besides a minor air juggle or two. Moves have seemingly no endlag, once your hitbox goes away you can start your next move. On top of that, there's no hitstun either, so enemies can and will quickly punish you back if you aren't careful. The AI will love to spam their strong special moves at the end of the game because of this. Grabs are also incredibly powerful and have no counterplay, just don't get grabbed.
There's a fun campaign, but it does drag. 36 fights is a lot to ask of a player, especially with how brutal they can get closer to the end. I would have just cut out one of the sections and rebalanced accordingly, and compensated elsewhere.
The biggest crime of Joy Mech Fight is its copyright getting lost for years until someone found it in a drawer, this could have been a solid Nintendo fighting series, but it just wasn't meant to be. Now that the rights are recovered, I hope something can be done with this, as I'd love to see it return with the polishes of modern fighting games.
It's not all perfect though, as combos aren't really there besides a minor air juggle or two. Moves have seemingly no endlag, once your hitbox goes away you can start your next move. On top of that, there's no hitstun either, so enemies can and will quickly punish you back if you aren't careful. The AI will love to spam their strong special moves at the end of the game because of this. Grabs are also incredibly powerful and have no counterplay, just don't get grabbed.
There's a fun campaign, but it does drag. 36 fights is a lot to ask of a player, especially with how brutal they can get closer to the end. I would have just cut out one of the sections and rebalanced accordingly, and compensated elsewhere.
The biggest crime of Joy Mech Fight is its copyright getting lost for years until someone found it in a drawer, this could have been a solid Nintendo fighting series, but it just wasn't meant to be. Now that the rights are recovered, I hope something can be done with this, as I'd love to see it return with the polishes of modern fighting games.