Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Body Blows (version 1), developed and published by Team 17 in 1993. This is the initial released version. An enhanced version was released a little later labelled as 'Version 2' which included some enhancements and fixes.
Game features: Massive 32 colour graphics throughout, Stunning, hard-hitting fight action. Superb gameplay with different play options. Excellent four channel stereo music, speech and sound effects. Intuitive control system for easy character control. Full Pal Screen scrolling at 50Hz. Arcade, Tournament and Two-Player modes. Written specifically for the Amiga, with emphasis on speed/gameplay. Background animation and many more in-game effects Different skill levels and lots more options. The state of the art in Amiga beat-em-ups!"
It is said that Body Blows came about because of how bad the Street Fighter II conversion turned out to be, no that I thought it was that bad at the time. Was Team17 really the developer to show how a beat em up should be on the Amiga and can it stand up against fighters on other platforms. The graphics and sound are all well done and it's fair to say it has the Amiga look but it's the gameplay that matters most and I'm not sure it quite there. The game moves well enough although can still lag a bit and all the moves are done with a simple fire button plus direction with nothing that can be called a combo. Fighters are well animated and even the background animate but they can not be considered well balanced in any way. The biggest problem I have with the game though is collision detection between the players especially against the cpu that can quickly shred you but you have to put in some work and make sure you hit just the right place to do damage. Special moves in particular can come out of the cpu player in quick succession but you have to charge yours and it can take a few seconds and wont charge at all if the opponent is down making the move useless, not that it deals any significant damage anyway. In fact the fire button is being disabled while the cpu is stunned is game breaking as you cant attack all the while the timer is ticking away.
The longplay takes place though the 1 player mode which allows you to select from four players, fight your way through all challengers to reveal the victory screen. This is where it looks like Team 17 didn't really feel the need to give you the option to play as any character complete with victory ending. Maybe the enthusiasm had gone or simply run out of development time. I play through the game twice showing the characters Junior and Loray as Nik and Dan are shown in the Enhanced edition longplay. I'm not that great at these kind of games so you wont be seeing any spectacular fighting. I intentionally lose the second round in order to show opponent victory speech. The second play as loray goes a bit quicker as I don't lose the second fight. The cheat mode the end screen refers to is for enabling a menu with additional settings by holding player one joystick to the left and player two to the right for five seconds. I show this by playing a round as max.
Unfortunately, this playthrough didn't go my way largely due to game breaking issues which were addressed in version 2 of the game. Maybe the WHDload is at fault (running on an A600 with fast memory) but I don't believe the game is completable as the timer is sped up and not enough time to defeat the T17. The T17 is not that hard to fight against but it is a sponge soaking up all your hit attempts and there just isn't enough time to defeat it. (at least with Junior and Loray) and worse still when the time run out, it refills both players energy and treats it as a perfect draw forcing you to rematch. It does do this earlier in the game where the player with most energy when time runs out wins the round. I was able to defeat it using the play as Max cheat but you don't get an ending.
Another glaring issue is the Main Menu options. Number of rounds and time limit have no effect in single player. If you disable Arcade Skill then the game ends when you reach Mike.
Overall, it is one of the Amiga's fondly remembered games but not because it was necessarily good but It was maybe the second fighting game after Street Fighter II with the aim of besting it. In some ways it did with a smoother more colourful game but the fighting was better in Street Fighter II despite it's short comings and the fact that this by Team17. If you owned this version you got a broken game, I do wonder if it was possible to upgrade to the re-release fixed version for a nominal fee at the time. This playthrough has been recorded on an A600 config that the game was aimed at to better compare with the speed enhancements in version 2. The game runs a bit too fast on a1200 raising the difficulty and looking more chaotic.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:04:55 Menu Music
00:05:50 Playthrough as Junior
00:43:44 Playthrough as Loray
01:13:00 Quick round as Max
Body Blows (version 1), developed and published by Team 17 in 1993. This is the initial released version. An enhanced version was released a little later labelled as 'Version 2' which included some enhancements and fixes.
Game features: Massive 32 colour graphics throughout, Stunning, hard-hitting fight action. Superb gameplay with different play options. Excellent four channel stereo music, speech and sound effects. Intuitive control system for easy character control. Full Pal Screen scrolling at 50Hz. Arcade, Tournament and Two-Player modes. Written specifically for the Amiga, with emphasis on speed/gameplay. Background animation and many more in-game effects Different skill levels and lots more options. The state of the art in Amiga beat-em-ups!"
It is said that Body Blows came about because of how bad the Street Fighter II conversion turned out to be, no that I thought it was that bad at the time. Was Team17 really the developer to show how a beat em up should be on the Amiga and can it stand up against fighters on other platforms. The graphics and sound are all well done and it's fair to say it has the Amiga look but it's the gameplay that matters most and I'm not sure it quite there. The game moves well enough although can still lag a bit and all the moves are done with a simple fire button plus direction with nothing that can be called a combo. Fighters are well animated and even the background animate but they can not be considered well balanced in any way. The biggest problem I have with the game though is collision detection between the players especially against the cpu that can quickly shred you but you have to put in some work and make sure you hit just the right place to do damage. Special moves in particular can come out of the cpu player in quick succession but you have to charge yours and it can take a few seconds and wont charge at all if the opponent is down making the move useless, not that it deals any significant damage anyway. In fact the fire button is being disabled while the cpu is stunned is game breaking as you cant attack all the while the timer is ticking away.
The longplay takes place though the 1 player mode which allows you to select from four players, fight your way through all challengers to reveal the victory screen. This is where it looks like Team 17 didn't really feel the need to give you the option to play as any character complete with victory ending. Maybe the enthusiasm had gone or simply run out of development time. I play through the game twice showing the characters Junior and Loray as Nik and Dan are shown in the Enhanced edition longplay. I'm not that great at these kind of games so you wont be seeing any spectacular fighting. I intentionally lose the second round in order to show opponent victory speech. The second play as loray goes a bit quicker as I don't lose the second fight. The cheat mode the end screen refers to is for enabling a menu with additional settings by holding player one joystick to the left and player two to the right for five seconds. I show this by playing a round as max.
Unfortunately, this playthrough didn't go my way largely due to game breaking issues which were addressed in version 2 of the game. Maybe the WHDload is at fault (running on an A600 with fast memory) but I don't believe the game is completable as the timer is sped up and not enough time to defeat the T17. The T17 is not that hard to fight against but it is a sponge soaking up all your hit attempts and there just isn't enough time to defeat it. (at least with Junior and Loray) and worse still when the time run out, it refills both players energy and treats it as a perfect draw forcing you to rematch. It does do this earlier in the game where the player with most energy when time runs out wins the round. I was able to defeat it using the play as Max cheat but you don't get an ending.
Another glaring issue is the Main Menu options. Number of rounds and time limit have no effect in single player. If you disable Arcade Skill then the game ends when you reach Mike.
Overall, it is one of the Amiga's fondly remembered games but not because it was necessarily good but It was maybe the second fighting game after Street Fighter II with the aim of besting it. In some ways it did with a smoother more colourful game but the fighting was better in Street Fighter II despite it's short comings and the fact that this by Team17. If you owned this version you got a broken game, I do wonder if it was possible to upgrade to the re-release fixed version for a nominal fee at the time. This playthrough has been recorded on an A600 config that the game was aimed at to better compare with the speed enhancements in version 2. The game runs a bit too fast on a1200 raising the difficulty and looking more chaotic.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:04:55 Menu Music
00:05:50 Playthrough as Junior
00:43:44 Playthrough as Loray
01:13:00 Quick round as Max
