Retro Arcade: World Heroes

World Heroes title Screen


Before Mortal Kombat made its controversial debut in October of 1992, there was another game that offered a deadly death match of death with death traps in deadly stages. Stages with flaming walls, land mines, electrified rings etc...

With the popularity of Street Fighter II, many game developers wanted to get into the fighting game craze. One such developer was ADK. You may know them from such arcade hits as Exciting Soccer, Bull Fighter, The High School Baseball, Sky Adventure.... No? ... still not ringing a bell?

O.k, o.k so they weren't really that famous, but the games above are actually real, you can look them up.

Anyway ADK is probably best known in Japan, however a few of their arcade games did make it over to the Western world. One such game was World Heroes.

ADK in conjunction with the now quite famous SNK released this game for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system. The game was a humble fighter with only 8 playable characters.


World,Heroes,arcade,game,mode,select,screenThe game featured 2 modes, the regular or “Normal” mode and a “Death Match” mode. The only real difference was the fact the stages you fought on in death match had deadly hazards.

It was an interesting feature in the fighting world in which up to that point the stages were basically static, there was no interaction. Mortal Kombat hadn't been released and even then the Pit was the only real stage interaction in that game at the end of a match, not during.

World Heroes,Tutorial,screen,fuma,hanzoThe mechanics are very much SNK mechanics, the game even features the popular Button tutorial at the beginning like many of SNK's future releases in the King of Fighters series. You have 3 main buttons. Punch, Kick and Throw.

World,Heroes,intro,fighting,arcadeThe story is quite limited indeed, once you press the start button after inserting a coin you are greeted by a creepy looking man who just says and I quote: "You came at a good time... Use the time machine and go all over the world to where the strong people are, I pray for a healthy battle". I'm not kidding, that's all it says, after that you can choose your fighter and begin. I think its one of the most nonsensical fighting game introductory stories ever. Basically just go find people so you can can kick their butts.

Anyway, the roster is pretty interesting as its quite diverse and cooky.

You have the two token cloned warriors like in many other games. SFII had Ryu and Ken, MK had Scorpion and Sub -Zero, World Heroes has Fuma and Hanzo, a pair of Ninjas. They have throwing stars and knives as weapons. Though they can't actually throw the knives they use them in their version of the whirlwind kick, where they extend all limbs in a cross in mid air and spin around with the knives in their hands. They also have the Dragon punch equivalent, though theirs is a flashy one where they are covered with a spiraling energy field so to speak.

Then we have the per-requisite Bruce Lee look alike. It seems every fighting game needed to have one, heck even Street Fighter II had to incorporate one in the form of Fei Long for their New Warriors iteration of the game. Kim Dragon. is basically Bruce Lee. Though in some locales he is described as being Korean, he is most decidedly a Bruce Lee look alike. He has the tell tale scream, and some of the moves are patterned after Bruce.

Next we have Jeanne who is basically patterned after Joan of Arc. In future sequels her name is given as Jan d'Arc even. She uses her sword for attacks and can throw some flaming bird-like projectile.

We follow then with Julius Carn, a Mongolian warrior, background for him states he is Genghis Khan's right hand man. He is short and fat, uses physical attacks.

The final 3 are the most interesting.

We have Rasputin a Russian sorcerer. Yes, yes, he's Rasputing just like the evil Magician to the Russian tzars. Anyway, he attacks you with his robe as he spins around. I think he;s the only fighting game character to use his clothes as a weapon .He can also use his powers to enlarge his feet and hands for certain attacks, and shoots fireballs from his hands. When blocking he creates a translucent rectangular shield in front of him..

Next we have an American wrestler by the name of Muscle Power. He is in reality Hulk Hogan!!!. Yes the handle bar mustache, the blond flowing hair with receding hair line, and he even rips his shirt before a match, Its Hulk Hogan in a red, white and blue wrestling outfit rather than his traditional yellow. He works like Zangief from Street Fighter for the most part..

World,Heroes,Brocken,Rasputin,terminatorFinally we come to the coolest character ever. He is Brocken, a cybernetic Nazi Officer. He's like a Nazi Terminator.. His hands and legs can extend, he can fire rockets from his open wrists. he has a energy field that fires diagonally up, and can produce an electrical field straight forward to electrocute opponents. He also has Raiden's superman move where he can fly forward at the opponent.

At this point the game could very well be and interesting fighting game, but the incorporation of hazards in Deathmatch mode makes this game that much more fun.

World,Heroes,Hanzo,Carn,terminatorHazards such as flame walls around the ring, electric barriers, spiked walls, even land mines, and slippery oil slicks that would slide you to the hazards were present in the Death Match stages. It made for a much more strategic fight, as you had to be careful while attacking that you would become impaled or incinerated by the hazards.

World,Heroes,Brocken,Rasputin,terminator,Bruce,LeeWorld,Heroes,Brocken,Rasputin,electric,ring




The game mechanics aren't ground breaking, it isn't even as fluid as Street Fighter was, but its a fun game all in all. ADK went on to produce 3 sequels. World Heroes 2, World Heroes 2 Jet, and World Heroes Perfect. Sadly the fun factor of the Death Match mode did not get transferred to the sequels, and Perfect did away with the mode all together.

The games were ported to several home consoles, including the SNES, obviously Neo Geo, and even the Playstation 2. If you can find the games, preferably the first one in any format they are fun little gems to play around for a while. Though the SNES port of the original World Heroes wasn't as good as the arcade version, it and World Heroes Perfect are available for the Virtual Console on the Nintendo Wii.

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