TYPHOON GAL
Original Release: Taito, 1985, Arcade
Other Releases: PlayStation 2 (in Taito Memories II Gekan, 2007), Switch/PS4 (2021)
Possibly the first fighting game to have a female protagonist and grapples, Typhoon Gal sends judo girl Yuki into various Games of Death
Typhoon Gal (Arcade, Taito, 1985)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
A weird and forgotten 1985 title from Taito that I guess is technically a fighting game, but is a bit more beat-em-up in its controls and use of a long vertical playfield ... interestingly it pre-dates most of the major developments in those genres except for Yie Ar Kung Fu, but you can quickly see why it gets no mention in the annals of video game history. It's just weird and not fun to play.
We play as some schoolgirl who has a hobby of going to dojos and challenging their evil masters. We soon find out she shouldn't be doing this, as the evil masters all badly overwhelm her in capability. But getting through their handful of mooks is initially a baffling challenge as well. That's due in part to the weird controls, you have a jump button that initially appears kind of useless, and one attack button that just does a taunt. But when you're close enough to the enemy, the attack button converts to an actual attack while also pressing a direction; press left to spin the enemy around you, which I never found to be useful.
But it's also due to the weird style of taking foes off the mat. The initial mooks in white gis don't have a life bar, but it turns out when their face turns purple or red you can grapple them by getting close then press the jump button to do a flying head scissors that sends them scurrying apologetically out of the dojo. The more advanced mooks in black gis have a visible life bar, but it's the same rules, drop them either when they get purple-faced or their health is in the red.
All that is manageable once you suss out the weird rules of Kombat in these dojos, but the trouble starts when the boss steps up to you. The first guy blocks literally everything, all I was able to do was occasionally chip damage him with a throw. But he can easily vacuum you into his highly damaging death roll over and over, I couldn't see a way of beating him.
Despite this being released for Switch and PS4 a few years ago (at the offensive price of $8) it remains a true obscurity, I can't find any online resources that explain how to play it well or even provide like a complete move list and explanation of the gameplay nuances. Not that it's worth the effort, though it does have cute sprite art.
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