Ultimate Body Blows

Ultimate Body Blows is a fighting game that boldly enters a genre dominated by arcade giants and says, “We can do this on a PC keyboard.” Inspired heavily by Street Fighter II, it delivers a roster of colorful combatants, special moves, and a soundtrack that tries very hard to get your blood pumping. The animations are surprisingly fluid for the platform, though the controls can feel a bit stiff until muscle memory kicks in. There’s a scrappy energy to the whole package, as if the developers were daring the PC to prove it belonged in the fighting-game arena. While it doesn’t quite match its arcade inspirations, Ultimate Body Blows earns respect for its ambition and execution. It’s loud, fast, and occasionally unbalanced—exactly what many players wanted in the mid-90s.