Developer : Victor Musical Industries Genre : Boxing Remake of 4D Sports Boxing (1991 Amiga)
not completed.
Image source: segasaturnshiro.com
Facts
From the manual:
The Three Damage Meters
D (Damage) This meter shows how much damage your fighter has taken. When it reaches 0, your fighter will be knocked down. Always keep an eye on this meter, and stay back to recover your health.
P (Power) This meter shows how strong your fighter can punch. When it gets low, your fighters punches will not be as effective. Retreat to recover your power.
O (Overall) This shows your fighters overall condition. This meter will shorten whenever you have to recover your DAMAGE or POWER meters. The speed and amount of recovery depends on this meter.When this meter is near 0, your fighter may be knocked out so be careful.
Analysis
I'm now convinced that this is a remake of 4D Sports Boxing. The look of the game, the character creation and leveling up through training, and even the D,P,O meters are the same.
The credits have an interesting hint to how this could have happened:
Original Game Design Electronic Arts
The DOS release of '4D Sports Boxing' was published by Electronic Arts, and the FM Towns and PC-98 releases of 4D Sports Boxing were published by 'Electronic Arts Victor', a 1992-1997 joint venture between 'Electronic Arts' and 'Victor Musical Industries' formed to localize and publish Electronic Arts titles to the Japanese market.
An early mention of this game is in Sega Saturn Magazine (1994-01-12) on page 85. A box shows a PC-98 port of '4D Boxing' and mentions a 1995 release for Saturn. Here's a machine translation from the magazine:
The basic systems, such as boxer creation and switching viewpoints, follow the PC version, but visually it seems to be a completely different game. The closest comparison is said to be “Virtua Fighter.”
Looking at 4D Sports Boxing again, I think the animation has a bit more weight and flow to it than this.