Hippodrome (Arcade Review)Hippodrome follows the tale of a generic barbarian dude fighting in a world tournament to prove that he is the strongest; his dreams are very quickly crushed, though.
The game is essentially a very simple fighting game. Each match is your character versus one (or two, in one case) creature or character from popular mythology. Your abilities are limited to a floaty jump, a standing block, and swinging your weapon in one of several different ways. Blocking and attacking are done with the same button, while jumping is done with its own button. After each match, you are awarded both points and prize money. Money is used to purchase three alternate weapons, a health buff, or a power buff. The purchased weapons persist through lives and continues; the two buffs seem to randomly stay, vanish, or return after each continue.
The music and sounds are immediately forgettable. The music is bland and not easily heard over the din of battle. Character noises consist of generic masculine grunts and war cries. Enemy noises consist of the same if humanoid, or serpentine hisses if monstrous. You will not be missing out on anything if you mute the game so that you can listen to your own playlist.
For its time, it looks just fine. There are not many frames of animation on the player character, but they get the job done for your limited moveset. The more complicated hybrid mythical creatures seem to have received most of the artist's and animator's love; each beast has multiple moving parts and segments to keep an eye on while you learn their patterns, tells, and (often overpowered) special abilities. Human opponents tend to lack much animation, and this actually makes them more difficult due to a lack of tells on their upcoming attacks.
If this was a true arcade playthrough, then you would likely spend several quarters learning an enemy's warning signs on each attack before you can beat them. Most attacks have a very brief wind-up that is unique to that attack. However, the more humanoid opponents tend to have few warning animations, so you may attempt to block an expected swing only for them to use an unblockable grab or projectile. Many of the later opponents in particular have no tells, and simply perform their attacks or have all of their attacks tied to one tell.
Forced difficulty is abundant, as is expected of an arcade game. Enemy hits often drain several of your health pips, while your default, unupgraded weapon deals one per connected swing; better weapons can deal more damage, but they often have less reach and slower speed. These are fatal traits against most of the foes you will face. It is easiest to just save for the long-reaching halberd so that you can punish foes from afar. Enemies also possess many unblockable grabs that have unclear hitboxes. Coincidentally, unblockable attacks deal the most damage. Lastly, you do not get invincibility frames, and are free to be juggled infinitely.
This game tried to be a tactical fighter, but it failed by giving so many advantages to the enemies and by cheaping out on the warning animations. Do not play this if you like fair fights that reward good timing and speedy reflexes. If you do not mind the later enemies spamming unblockable projectiles and rushing in for fatal grabs that bring you to 2HP, then see if you are a hard enough warrior to conquer the Hippodrome.
Graphics
8 Sound
4 Addictive
4 Depth
7 Story
3 Difficulty
10
User Notice 
-1.png "Hippodrome (US) Title Screen")
-2.png "Hippodrome (US) Screenshot 1")
-3.png "Hippodrome (US) Screenthot 2")
