Super Dodge Ball

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Super Dodge Ball
Developer(s)	Technos
Publisher(s)	Technos (Japan) Sony Imagesoft (North America)
Release date(s)	^JPN July 26, 1988 ^NA June 1989
Genre(s)	Sports game
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Platform(s)	Famicom/NES
Media	2-megabit cartridge
Input	NES controller

Super Dodge Ball (NES). Pictured: Team USA vs. The All-Stars.

Super Dodge Ball, originally released in Japan as Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club (熱血高校ドッジボール部, Nekketsu Kôkô Dojjibôru Bu^?) is a dodgeball-based sports game released for the arcades and the Nintendo Entertainment System developed by Technos. It was originally released in Japan as part of the Kunio-kun series.

[edit] Gameplay

Each team is comprised of six players; three players are constrained to one half of the main dodgeball court, while the other three stand at the sidelines surrounding the opposing team. Before play begins, the player may chose the configuration of the six players on the court.

During play, the player (or players) may pass the dodgeball with A or perform an attacking throw with B. Players can jump by pressing both A and B, move using the directional pad (although sideline players are restricted to the area adjacent to their sideline) and run (in-bounds players only) by tapping left or right continuously. A ball can be caught by pressing B slightly before impact; pressing A without the ball will cause the player to duck. Being struck with an attack causes a player to lose health points; being struck with a pass stuns the player. A team is victorious when all three opposing in-bounds players have lost their health; sideline players are immune to such a loss, but can still be stunned when struck.

In addition, throwing the ball after running for a certain distance will unleash a Power Shot that is significantly more powerful, hard to track, and hard to catch. Due to the lack of mobility of the sideline players, they generally cannot throw these attacks. You can also throw an aerial Power Shot by jumping during a run and throwing the ball at the peak of your jump; however, you do not need to run at any particular distance to throw one.

Three play modes exist in Super Dodge Ball. The first is World Cup Mode, a story mode that pits the default team (Team USA) against a series of teams with various idiosyncrasies:

USA (The All-Stars)
England (team has high throwing technical ability)
India (team has high defense, takes less damage, and is very quick)
Iceland (court is solid ice and very slippery and team has high throwing power)
China (team has high catching technical ability and is quick)
Kenya (court is made of dirt, which slows down players)
Japan (team tends to constantly pass the ball to their captain)
USSR (team has all-around stats)

Although the match against the USSR is the final match of the tournament proper, one more match follows it in Normal and Hard difficulty games: a match against Team Shadow, a copy of the player's team as it was chosen to play against the USSR. Defeating this team finishes the game and shows the credits.

The other two modes of play are Versus Play, where two players can battle each other using any of the World Cup teams apart from the Shadow team, and Bean Ball, where one or two players can practice the game mechanics on a field without boundaries. The players on the field are from Team USA; the mode is over when one player remains standing.

The music of each arena is also singular, with each soundtrack being highly representative of its associated country. For example, the music for England's arena sounds somewhat like Beatles-era britpop, Japan's music is the folk song Sakura and the music for the USSR is a rearrangement of the folk song Katyusha.

The Japanese version of the game, Nekketsu Kôkô Dodgeball-bu, is mostly the same, with the only differences being that Bean Ball supports up to four players, the American Teams are Japanese (Team USA is Nekketsu High School led by Kunio, whereas Pro-Stars is Hanazono High School led by Riki) and vice versa and that the team order in single player mode is slightly different (with the American Team being the final team).

[edit] Other versions

Super Dodge Ball also saw versions for the Game Boy, Super NES, PC Engine, Neo-Geo, and a version for the Game Boy Advance called Super Dodge Ball Advance. Only the Neo-Geo and Game Boy Advance versions appeared outside Japan, and the former featured characters from the original Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun.