This week's Arcade Archives release is... Knuckle Heads (Namco, 1993)
Only the Japanese ROM is included, but what little text the game has (the endings) is already in English with Japanese subtitles, so you're not missing anything. The Preference Settings allow a solo player to play on the second player side but only if the game is set to 2 Players and not 4 Players.
In that sweet prime time slot just after Rock Bottom, it's America's favourite game show, KNUCKLE HEADS! Tonight, six of the world's toughest fighters are here to duke it out for fame, glory and a fabulous cash prize that we're amazed the network let us get away with offering! Robert Vincent from the USA, Takeshi Fujioka from Japan, Blat Vaike from Greece, Christine Myao from China, Gregory Darrell from Norway and Claudia Silva from Brazil are all here and ready to duke it out, supplied with a weapon of their choice- bo staffs, tonfas, giant claws, all are OK in this arena, and up to four of them get to brawl at once until only one is left standing! The contestants are about to enter the spotlight, so what do we say, audience? That's right! WIN OR DIE!
One of the few remaining holdouts from the Wii Virtual Console era of Namco arcade rereleases, Knuckle Heads is finally available in homes across the world and it's a doozy. Released in the early part of the fighting game boom of the early '90s (after Street Fighter II but before Super Turbo), Namco's take on the genre goes a bit wild with a three-button layout using low attacks (although there's no crouch blocking), high attacks (good for anti-airs) and jump (yep, no up to jump here) and support for up to four players at once. That last one's the reason there's no crouch blocking or up to jump- when three or four players are in the arena, you use up and down to move in and out of the screen like a scrolling brawler! Once there's only two players left, the combat shifts back to a single plane (one-on-one fights start this way) but up and down still won't jump or crouch like other fighters, but you can use them to input special moves as you'd expect. The other major mechanic is being able to hold either button down to charge up power which changes your normal attacks both on the ground and in the air. This means negative edge is a big deal here as you'll need it to pull off charged-up special moves which have different properties, but you can also hold one attack button then press the other to let the charge off if you find that easier.
Knuckle Heads is an ambitious, messy, janky, fascinating fighting game. It has a lot of interesting ideas, and a manic four-player fighting game was a real rarity back in 1993, but it feels a little rough. It feels a little slow-paced, it has a very small roster even by the standards of the time and moving in and out of the screen just feels very awkward in a game like this, even if it does help facillitate the four-player action. It almost feels like it's falling apart too, with somewhat stiff animation and abrupt cuts to black between scene transitions (this is incorrectly emulated in MAME but that's how it is on real hardware)... And yet I can't help but be fascinated by it. Namco really wanted to try something different to stand out from the other fighters spawned in the wake of Street Fighter II, and they absolutely did it, once you see Knuckle Heads it's kinda hard to forget it! I kinda wish it had shown up on slightly better hardware though, but it's a bold little game, and if you're interested in weird fighting games from the boom period, it's definitely worth a look. Also, it has a Takayuki Aihara soundtrack that is just wall to wall bangers.
To end on a bit of fun trivia... As mentioned by ohfivepro, it has professional voice actors, a break from the norm for fighting games- Christine Myao is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara (Rei from Evangelion, girl Ranma from Ranma 1/2), Robert Vincent and Gregory Darrell are voiced by Nobuo Tobita (Kamille Bidan from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam) and Claudia Silva is voiced by none other than Kotono Mitsuishi (Usagi Tsukino / Sailor Moon from, uh, Sailor Moon).
Also from ohfivepro, some Gamest coverage of the game, with a rare bit of official Knuckle Heads art. You can read the issue of NG Community Magazine that used the art you see there and above too.