Battle Flip Shot (Arcade)

So Windjammers 2 demo is out and the full version will come out sometime in this year or so i heard. I tried play first Windjammers and i got beaten up very badly on first match against CPU! I know that i need more time to learn the game. Somehow the gameplay reminds me of Visco's Battle Flip Shot (1998). 

Pretty fancy title there. that explosion effect really ramps up the impact of the title screen. The common ground between this game and Windjammers is both game are about 1-on-1 sport that pass projectiles on each other field. Let's meet up with the athletes, shall we?    

The Japanese slot has been taken by Chinta Nemoto who's apparently a NEET or to be more soft jobless. I think that's not entirely true as he's the athlete of Battle Flip Shot sport. At least he doesn't anything work to do than the sport. His special is Quick Shot which turns the ball into skull that flies fast! 

 

On Spain nationality, we have Siren. Due to her name, i assume she's student of singing university or maybe she's part of choir on local church. Her special is Rising Shot that makes the ball turns sharply after flies within some range.

 

Mr. Justice fits the role of American even though his costume resembles Captain Britain. His similarity to superhero and (presumably) his love for justice, makes him a fine policeman. Battle Flip Shooting is just his weekend hobby. His special is Hard Shot that knocks enemy away. I like that aggressive special so he's my main.

 

Bloody Wolf is Mexican. I have no idea why she names herself that while she's computer programmer. Plus her power makes ball into throwing axe. Maybe she has stressful job and she has to unleash her frustration into violence sport such as Battle Flip Shot. Her special is Tornado Shot that makes the ball into axe that flies in curve.

 

Lastly, Brazil slot is occupied by Saimon who was knocked back by Mr. Justice. No, i have no idea what's his strange slime friend is. It reminds me of Dr. Saturn's pet friend from Capcom's Battle Circuit. His job is debt collector yet he has cheerful hobby of maracas music, apparently. His special is Trick Shot which changes the ball into his slime friend that will shrinks into micro size in mid flight. Most likely, it's only useful against human opponent.   

Yeah sure, i must be Flip because i play Battle Flip Shot right now! The instruction is in still image slide instead of full motion demonstration but it gets the job done. Your goal is to destroy icons on enemy's end corner by using the ball. Also defends your icons from incoming ball with your shield. There's 3 buttons: first for special shot, second for sliding if combined with direction from joystick, third button for taunt which serves no other purpose other than for measly score bonus after successful taunt.    

As i said before, i play as the rugged middle-age man Mr. Justice. He sacrifices his service stars to participate in Battle Flip Shot. Meanwhile, Siren use poker chips as her goal which is not really related to University Student.

 

It seems i'm doing pretty well so far. Naturally, the ball bounces on everything. Don't let it approaches your back of the head because you will be stumbled a bit if that happens. You don't want the ball hit your head after destroying your goal icon like what happens to her here, right? That will be very embarrassing.

Even while being knocked away, she looks graceful. God bless her.

 

Of course, there's quote from the winner after the match. It seems Mr. Justice arrests Siren because she looks like some wanted criminal or something. After defeated, then she got arrested for crime she didn't commit. Sucks to be her. On the other hand, Mr. Justice looks quite bad there. Banana peel flies near him while he carrying bottle of milk. His right feet lifts in wrong way. Plus he still has running nose. Mr. Justice is busy man with lots of problem.

 

Next opponent is Saimon and he uses his spare pets as goal icons. That's some serious animal cruelty right there.

 

But the most revolting of him is the way he taunts. His trouser suddenly drop and he stand still naked for some serious split-seconds! Look out for the Morning Star that i delivers, you naked moron!   

 

The exhibitionism act leaves Mr. Justice with serious scar on his mind that he suffers minor amnesia. But he still has courage to arrest the flasher. Engineer_goodjob02.wav      

 

Next opponent is Mr. Justice Clone. The chief of graphic design decides that Mr. Justice's stage takes place in "Football" field because playing Battle Flip Shot near police office will breaks too many windows and car's alarms. But the staffs can't decide which "Football" is supposed to be based on. Later they agree to put 5-yard ruler lines on soccer field and call it a day. Despite the strangeness, i must say that this field is pretty well designed.

 

It goes without saying that, my opponent can executes hard shot like i do so i can get knocked away by his special and then he just yawn. The smug jerk. Knocking away your enemy with your shot sounds very useful but after further observation, it isn't that good. Yes, you can knock out your opponents but the ball also deflected by them and flies to your field most of the time. If it goes through their field and eventually hit their goal icon, the hard shot will be very useful or even overpowered. But on practice, that doesn't happen. Maybe it requires player's advanced skill to utilize the hard shot to destroy their goal more easily. But for all i know, it's only worthy to knocked my enemy away which is amusing to see. It's also potentially a good way to annoy your human opponent.       

 

Next opponent is Bloody Wolf and she booked parking lot's entrance of her office building just for the sport. She must be big influence on her office because of that. For some reason her goal icons are gem? Or maybe they're crystallized motherboard.

Next opponent is Chinta the unemployed punk. Isn't this place more related to Bloody Wolf's job than that parking lot's entrance? Maybe Chinta's get the job as her assistant or something like that. You probably notice that i don't talk much about the gameplay because there's not much to it. Here's the example of my playthrough in motion. Sometime the ball bounces to goal icon and sometimes not. I'm not sure how the bounce work and if i can utilize it to my benefit. There's deflection sensitivity a kin to Breakout or DX Ball so i can alter my aim to my will. But i can't alter the flight of Hard Shot which is shame because it's bit faster than standard deflection.

 

I think he more resembles street punk, Mr. Justice. But carry on! What's marshal arts, anyway?

 

The final opponent is blonde Grim Reaper. They don't have much gimmick as final boss besides using special move from other character randomly.

 

What? Don't look at me like that! I'm just telling the reader the truth. Fine! Fine! Maybe you're not so memorable as final boss but at least you don't resort to hard garbage nonsense like many SNK fighting game's final boss. You're also the most dexterous among my opponents. Satisfy? 

 

By defeating the final boss, i get another close up of Mr. Justice along with congratulatory message! I don't know whether that white fluid near his face is spilled milk or snot. He has big problem of good image, for sure.  

 

Then you get image of character reunion. The grim reaper also here and Mr. Justice isn't happy with them. Such wonderful spirit of sportsmanship! I think you get this bonus image if you don't use continue. Did i use savestate? Well, i don't think i have to dignify that with an answer, right?

 

You know that feeling when playing Breakout-clone and you have to aim the ball to some specific blocks? Imagine that but with addition of enemy paddle that blocks your ball from remaining blocks! Plus you play on either side screen instead of bottom screen. That's the feeling that i get by playing Visco's Battle Flip Shot (1998). There's timer on each round. But it ticks too slow. By the time it reaches zero, you already finish 1-2 matches of Windjammers! It's kind of unusual for the arcade game to have slow pace like this game. The game's pace tend to halt in later part of the round when there's few goal icons. The character's special shoot can only do so much about it. Thankfully, the A.I isn't fully focused to deflect the ball. They're quite often too slow to react to the ball or spacing out for awhile. Besides the slow timer, another factor that makes the game feel slow is there's not much variety on the goal. In Windjammers, you can throw the Frisbee/disc at enemy's goal or lob it to their field to score. Meanhwhile in this game, you don't get score by simply shooting the ball passes the enemy's goal line. No. The ball must hit their goal icons otherwise it will bounce back to you. On really rare occasion, it will bounces to remaining goal icon. So the match against computer can feel tolerable. Mr. Justice's Hard Shot will probably yields better result if i close in to opponents. It only knocks them away if The Morning Star hits other side than their center-front. As i said before, Saimon's Trick Shot only works best against human opponent. Chinta, Siren, and Bloody Wolf have easy-to-use yet good special shot. The characters move at the same speed so there's no difference between them besides their special shot. The music is light and cheerful. The sound effect is okay. The graphic is pretty good.

To put it simple, Battle Flip Shot (1998) is hybrid between Pong and Arkanoid/Breakout with bit of fighting game's elements. A match of this game feels sluggish especially if you compare it with Windjammers. I might sounds bit crazy or stupid here. I can recommend you to play this game while waiting for full-version of Windjammers 2 besides playing the first game, over and over again. You can also play this game for the sake of curiosity. It's not bad. It's just slow and it's still fun game nonetheless. At least, it's much easy to learn this game than Windjammers where i can only win one round in that game so far. But don't get me wrong! Windjammers is interesting. I only need time to learn about it. Very very long time.