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Introduction

Welcome to another of my recent NES FAQs. This one will cover Exploding Fist. Exploding Fist is not a particularly well-known game, although you could probably guess outright that it's a fighting game. It's mostly not well-known because it was never officially released, and finding a copy of it - in any form - has been a pain. >_> In any case, it's actually not that bad of a game, just the main problem being that it tends to hang for completely arbitrary reasons.

It's been almost twenty-five years since this game's intended launch in 1990 by Beam Software. And since then, not a single FAQ has been written for it. Well, there's always a first time for everything, no? Ever since the start of the NES FAQ Completion Project on GameFAQs several years ago - a project designed to get a guide out for every single NES game out there - many people have now been helped because older, rarer, less popular games have gotten guides. So many games, in fact, that all of the North American games have been covered, as have the European games, leaving only those that are homebrews and mostly those released in Japan and the Koreas.

And so, that is how I came upon this game. Thanks for listening to my ramblin'; hope you enjoy!

Basics of the Game

Move/Action List

Below are the list of actions you can take. By pressing a number of buttons, you will perform these actions; however, take note that the game is a bit finicky about these (probably as a result of its prototypic nature), so they may not all work the first time.

"+" indicates that the buttons need to be pressed simultaneously or nearly so. "->" indicates that the buttons need to be pushed sequentially. Directions will refer to the buttons on the D-Pad.

• Mobility & Movement:
  • Left: Move left.
  • Right: Move right.
  • Up + A: Flip in the direction of your facing. It makes you hard to hit.
  • Down + A: Flip in the direction opposite your facing (you're facing left, you go right).
  • A (when on the ground): Get up.

• Attacking Moves: (Hitting people with these nets you points!)
  • Up (400 points): Jump-kick in the direction of your facing. This will also knock down those who get hit. By far the most useful move.
  • Down (100 points): A leg-sweep against the opponent. If it hits, it will knock them down.
  • Down + B (400 points): You duck down and punch the opponent in the gut, dazing them. You are almost impossible to hit at this time, surprisingly.
  • Right + A (300 points): Punch to the right. Changes your facing to the right, but it's slow to work, leaving you open.
  • Left + A (300 points): Same as the above, but going left, not right.
  • Left/Right -> B (100 points): Kick in the direction of your facing (Right or Left). Will daze the opponent, leaving them open.
  • Unknown Combo: Spinning kick. I've seen the AI do it, but can't figure it out myself.

• Blocking Moves:
  • Left/Right (your opposite facing): This will block all attacks by raising your arm. You have to do it just before the attack hits, though.

Gameplay

Firstly, do not come into this game with the expectation that it will not hang! For the most part - as it is an unreleased prototype - it will hang, and it will have glitches, since it clearly never went through the debugging process. It could hang for any reason at all, and glitches are common. The first few times I tried playing this in the attempt to write this FAQ, my opponent would literally just disappear several seconds into the fight before the game hung. It actually took luck to get it to work right. If it screws up, all I can say is to reset and try again as I did.

When you start up the game, there will be three options at the title screen, which will allow you to play a one-, two-, or three-player game. Each player will end up requiring one controller (since the game is actively operated by all players at once). Additionally, if you want a three-player game, you must use a four-score to allow up to four controllers to be used simultaneously (as the normal limit on the NES is two). You will not be able to use four players, however, for whatever reason. Additionally, three-player games will not be against the AI, although one- and two-player games will. Presumably, it's because the game will only have enough room in the HUD for three players. =/

The game plays rather simply. If you look at the top, you will see several things. For each player, there will be a colored egg-like icon, which will match the color of their character's clothing: white for player one, brown for player two, and purple for player three. Attached to each will be that player's data: the six circular marks denote the character's current number of hits dealt to the other players, and the number below that is the character's score so far, increased by dealing out hits and finishing matches faster than normal. Usually in the whereabouts of the middle, you'll see the current time and level number. Time will always count down from 30 seconds.

The main goal of the match is simple: have more hits against the opponent than they do you. Hits can be dealt in pretty much any way via an attacking move. Once they are hit, that is a point in your favor. (You'll also get 100~400 points, depending on the move.) If you deal out six hits before the time of 30 seconds runs out, you will win the match by default; in that case, you will also earn 100 points per second remaining. Otherwise, when all thirty seconds have run out, whoever has the highest score is dubbed the winner; if there's a tie, the game considers those tying to be the winners. (If it's the AI in a tie with a human player, the game seems to rule in the human's favor.)

Matches play like this in the style of a best of 3 - whoever can get 2 wins in the space of three matches is declared the winner of the entire bout. All other players will be ejected from the game, and that lone player will continue on to the next level. Should there be an equal number of wins after three matches - which will result from ties - then the bout is replayed with a blank slate in terms of wins on everyone.

General Strategy

To be honest, there is not a lot of strategy one needs to deal with in this game - the jump-kick move (Up on the D-Pad) is exceptionally easy to abuse. Of all of the moves, it is the only one that you can hit someone with, have them get up without you moving, and then you can hit them again by simply pressing Up! It doesn't help any, though, that many fighters will rely heavily on this. I will analyze their own strategies later in next section.

First, though, the general strategy. This is quite simple, though it will take some practice to execute with perfection due to the fact that your opponent can move. Walk right to them and, when within range, press Up to jump-kick them. This will net you a point right then and knock them down. When they get back up, quickly press the Up Button again to kick 'em down again - don't even move until they do. That's essentially it: keep 'em down and you'll quickly earn six points.

Should they manage to get in a hit on you, there are several things you can do. Mostly, due to the AI's nature of trying to abuse this same strategy, you can be relatively sure they'll stay close to you as you get up from the hit. That means, when you press A and get up, quickly mash Up on the D-Pad to hit them in retaliation. You can also play an evasive game whenever you end up with more points than the opponent - since you only need to have more points than they to win the match, being evasive will be useful since it prevents you from losing your lead, and 30 seconds isn't really long enough to bring someone down from a two- or three-point lead, really.

Enemy Fighter Analyses

Now, some analyses on the fighters - they don't all abuse the previously-named strategies heavily, although it's pretty clear that they try to.

In any case, I'm unsure as to whether there exists more than 17 levels. In Levels 16 and 17, one of the fighters has no name, a glitchy name, or one derived from your own character's name, and the game glitches up heavily (as in, a staticky screen with no response from the controllers being registered) before the name of the opponent in Level 18 can be displayed. To me, this seems like this is as far as Beam Software got in the programming code, so I'll be forced to leave it simply at this for now: 17 level strategies.

• Level 1 - Matuisaito: I didn't see anything other than jump-kicks, except when you're trapped on the side of the field. In those instances, he'll favor the standing kick. You can simply get out of this situation with a jump-kick, though. Also be sure to look out as he gets up from hits: he's deceptively fast at being able to use a punch or kick quickly, so be sure to jump-kick faster than he.

• Level 2 - Kanega: Kanega prefers to get close then use a leg-sweeping attack. Jump-kicking is the way to avoid this, but Kanega will be harder to hit with that general strategy as you can't be jump-kicked when being so low. Even so, it's not hard to get him whilst standing.

• Level 3 - Mitsuimano: He prefers to use a variety of moves when close up: when you get in close quarters with him, he'll vary his use of high-kicks, low-kicks, and punches pretty well, though I didn't see much of any jump-kicks. He'll also tend to block your attacks a bit. For the most part, it's best to get hit once, then jump-kick him on the recovery, then keep kicking him just as he gets up.

• Level 4 - Atocho & Ryu: In this level, you'll be fighting off two people at one time. In its own way, that makes things a bit easier: the score is not based on how many hits you take, but how many you deal - the main consequence in going against multiple foes is that you'll be knocked down more. Still, the AI has the tendency to stay close enough so that you can recover from being down, then immediately get a jump-kick in. Then you'll be knocked down by the other guy, then hit him on the recovery. Worst-case situation: you get 6 points and they get 3 each. (Winners are based on individual player's scores, too.)

• Level 5 - Atocho -or- Ryu: This level is only one match after Level 4's, actually - whoever, among the AI, had the lower score in that round will be eliminated, meaning you'll only fight Atocho or Ryu in this fight, which makes things harder. Even so, they both tend to rely on jump-kicks for their strategy, so you just have to counter that with your own. Recovery-then-attack abuse works pretty well.

• Level 6 - Noriyuki: This guy is ironically the essence of recovery-abuse, essentially using our own strategy against us: he will mostly kick you, then kick or punch you on the recovery before you get a hit in. For the most part, this round is a bit of luck in being able to get the first strike or hitting Noriyuki on the recovery before you yourself get hit.

• Level 7 - Hikiji: After Noriyuki, this guy is a breeze with the recovery-abuse strategy. For the most part, he'll try to block your jump-kick, then try to sweep your legs when you land. So long as you hold the Up Button, you won't be hit and he'll try to flip back; if he succeeds, continue holding Up for one more jump and you'll usually hit him. =P

• Level 8 - Tatsutaro & Katsuichi: It's like Level 4 again: it essentially is a certain win with the recovery abuse strategy for the reasons previously named.

• Level 9 - Tatsutaro -or- Katsuichi: Again, like Level 5: after one single match, the higher-scoring AI will be your opponent for the next bout. These guys, either way, tend to be quite similar in their strategy: mostly block your attacks, then strike back before you can launch another.

• Level 10 - Ubagami: This guy likes to block a lot of your initial attacks, too, before retaliating, but there's a slight flaw with him. Against him, you can attack and force his block. Then you can flip and turn around behind him quickly (if you're lucky) and smack him before he turns back around himself.

• Level 11 - Miyamato: This guy likes to evade and to block; landing a hit on him will be very tough. However, he's pretty easy to hit when you're recovering, and he's not too good on his own recoveries. In this case, I recommend baiting him into attacking you, then hitting on the recovery, then on his own recovery, and then playing it safe for the remainder of the battle.

• Level 12 - Shinobi & Manzo: Again, like the other versus-two fights, it's easy enough given how it works out.

• Level 13 - Shinobi -or- Manzo: To be honest, these guys are pretty hard to hit with recovery abuse. In this case, I'd just recommend going for the tie - they're still pretty easy to hit on your own recoveries, even though they block a lot. Basically get the tying point on your recovery and flip around like a maniac.

• Level 14 - Hebi: This guy will mostly attempt to hit you on your recovery, and block you until you can be hit. For the most part, I'd again recommend sticking for the tie.

• Level 15 - Mamuaoki: This guy seems to wait for you to attack, then will attempt to block said attack and counter with a spinning kick. For the most part, simply holding Up for the jump-kick through the block will suffice in bashing him.

• Level 16 - Gombei & ???: Again, like the double-enemy levels, it's very easy.

• Level 17 - Gombei -or- ???: These guys are very difficult to hit individually, loving to flip around behind you to smack you. It would be best to try to flip around alongside them and wait for them to stop, then hit them with a jumping kick. You could also bait them and then hit them on the recovery, hoping for the tie.

• Level 18 - ???: The game will hang before the opponent's name can be displayed, suggesting that this is the end of the programming code. (Keep in mind that this game was a prototype and never finished in full.) So, I guess ... congrats on beating Exploding Fist? If anything, you could always interpret it as a kill screen.

Credits

In no particular order...

• GameFAQs, Neoseeker, and Supercheats:
  • For being the most amazing FAQ-hosting sites I know.

• CJayC, SBAllen, and Devin Morgan:
  • General sucking up to the GameFAQs admins. =P

• Cah4e3:
  • For graciously supplying me with the game.

• Me (KeyBlade999):
  • For making this FAQ. =P

• You, the reader:
  • For hopefully enjoying this FAQ.

Version History

• Final:
  • First and probably only version.
  • Time: 2:56 AM 6/23/2014

Legalities

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ｩ 2014 Daniel Chaviers (a.k.a. KeyBlade999).

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