Blood Warrior

Introduction
Blood Warrior, known in Japan as Ooedo Fight (大江戸ファイト), is a 1993 Atop arcade fighting game and is considered the successor to Shogun Warriors. Like Shogun Warriors, the game is based on popular Japanese mythological tropes; such as samurai, ninja, kabuki and yōkai. Taking heavy inspiration from Midway's Mortal Kombat, it uses digitized images for its fighters and has an emphasis on comedic amounts of blood and gore. However, its gameplay is closer to Street Fighter II than anything else.

It's a very unbalanced, mediocre game that mostly holds novelty in its wacky design choices. Each character has a lot of command normals so there is a large emphasis on just footsies and pokes, but the game also has comboability despite their being no combo counter thanks to large hitstun values. There is (or was,) surprisingly, a very small scene in Japan centered around the game, so competitive match footage does exist.

Gameplay
Blood Warrior is a 4-button 2D fighting game. Notation is as follows:

A - Light Punch

B - Heavy Punch

C - Light Kick

D - Heavy Kick

Each character has a number of special moves performed with directional inputs followed by a button. In Blood Warrior, many characters have a large amount of command normals- these command normals can be performed based on either the direction you are holding, or your position relative to your opponent, when pressing an attack button.

Spirit Meter
Blood Warrior's main gimmick (outside "fatality"-style finisher animations) is the Spirit Meter. Located underneath the lifebar, the gauge increases each time you are successfully hit by an attack, even if it is blocked. The full meter is divided into quarters, each of a different color. They are purple, blue, green and yellow in ascending order. Depending on which color you have reached, the properties of your move will change. Damage and knockback can increase, and some moves can also knock down or gain other special attributes. There are noticeable visual changes on some moves as well. The spirit move will drain itself passively. It also decreases if you hit an opponent with a normal (blocked or not.) It will decrease greatly upon use of a special attack, whether or not the attacks hits. The way it affects your moves is largely random. However, its is a definite gamechanger in actual matches and when used strategically can result in easy wins.

One perhaps unintentional effect of the Spirit Meter is that it discourages the use of projectile special moves, as using them will deplete your gauge regardless of their effectiveness. As such, the game actively punishes zoning playstyles.

System Mechanics
Blocking is performed by holding back while being attacked. You can also block while crouching. Overheads exist in this game, so you can be hit high while crouch blocking, and vice versa.

Throws
Throws are performed in different ways, the motion and properties depending on your character. They are all performed by being close to your opponent, and then pressing either a neutral button or some combination of holding back or foward + A/B/C/D.

Stuns/Dizzies
You can be stunned/dizzied in this game by taking too many hits. Your character will start spewing blood everywhere and be unable to move or attack. You can try to reduce the stun and get out of dizzy state by rapidly mashing punch and kick after being dizzied.

Multiple Air Normals
This game allows you to do multiple air normals during a single jump. If the animation finishes while you are still in the air, you may press another button to perform another air normal. There doesn't appear to be air combos, though.

Finishers
These are basically just a Japanese take on Mortal Kombat's finishers. After winning the round, you will be prompted to do the finisher and you just press a button to watch your character make the other person explode into a bunch of blood and guts. It appears to be totally random what finisher you get, but you cannot mess them up.

Playable Characters

 * Arashi
 * Ikkyu
 * Kasumi
 * Kinshiro
 * Sanpei
 * Syugethu
 * Shishimaru
 * Benkei
 * Goemon

Tier List

 * Coming soon

Videos



 * A video by Desk showcasing some of the combo potential of the game. Desk described the game as "[sitting] somewhere between Mortal Kombat and SF2:WW."


 * Japanese tournament footage of Blood Warrior from 2015. According to a commenter, the first 10 minutes is a demonstration of Kasumi's frame traps.


 * Around 2 hours of Japanese competitive Blood Warrior from 2015.


 * Footage of all finishers.

Useful Links
Old GameFAQs movelist by Goh-Billy and Giygas from which most of the gameplay information comes from.