Battle Circuit

Battle Circuit (1997) is Capcom's last side-scrolling Beat'Em Up for the arcades, the last one in a line of great titles such as Final Fight, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Captain Commando and the Alien vs. Predator spin-off. Sadly, it's pretty much unknown to the public because it saw a very limited release (and it was never released in the US), in a period when the arcade phenomenon was already waning.

Set in the year of 20XX, it features a motley crew of Bounty Hunters as main characters, and it is a return to the '50s Sci Fi-inspired settings of Captain Commando, with alien worlds, mad scientists, robots and fantastically weird character designs. Up to 4 players can join the fight, making it a very colorful, confusing and fun experience.

Another interesting feature of the game is the capability of upgrading the characters by buying new attacks, life and resistance enhancements, etc. Since the characters are bounty hunters, it makes sense that the most common bonuses are coins and stacks of cash, that can be used at the end of every level to buy said upgrades.

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Tropes used in Battle Circuit include:

• Acrofatic: Pluto, the boss of the Delete gang. If he uses a speed power up, he's more agile than ever.
• Alliterative Name: Brian Bruno, Cyber Blue's real name.
• Amazonian Beauty: Yellow Iris/Beast. This depends on the artist as her in game sprite depicts a slim build, along with some of the other official artwork.
• An Ice Person: Captain Silver has some ice-based attacks.
• Bald of Evil: Dr. Saturn.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: More like Bare Fisted Cyborg, Catgirl, Rubber Man, Bare Tentacled Plant Alien and Bare Footed Ostrich.
• Bowdlerise: Yellow Iris was named Yellow Beast in the original Japanese version.
• Catgirl: Yellow Iris.
• The Chew Toy: Dr. Saturn throughout the whole game.
• Code Name: Your bounty hunters are addressed by these. Their real names are mentioned in attract mode.
• Color-Coded Multiplayer:
  • Cyber Blue: The Hero and Jack of All Stats.
  • Yellow Iris/Beast: The Heart and Fragile Speedster.
  • Alien Green: The Big Guy and Mighty Glacier.
  • Pink Ostrich: Smart Lightning Bruiser.
  • Captain Silver: The Lancer and Stone Wall.
• Combination Attack: Two players can combine their desperation attack into a full-screen move.
• Cool Car: Dr. Saturn's car, the Black Elephant.
• Cyclops: Despite being a plant, Alien Green has one giant eye.
• Degraded Boss: Barbara turns into a normal enemy later in the game, along with Palette Swapped versions of her.
• Does Not Like Shoes: Yellow Iris.
• Dual Boss: Dr. Saturn and Mark Octopus in your final encounter with them.
• Elevator Action Sequence: On giant plate platforms.
• Elvis Impersonator: Jonny, the second boss, is one of these.
• Expy: Arguably, Cyber Blue is an expy of Captain Commando, and Yellow Iris is arguably an expy of Felicia.
• Extremity Extremist: Pink Ostrich uses mostly her legs and beak. It makes sense because she is a bird after all and mainly uses her wings for flying. The only time she uses her wings for attacking are for her upper cut and desperation attacks.
• Eyepatch of Power: Pink Ostrich sports one, because she is a real Badass.
• Femme Fatalons: Yelllow Iris is a heroic version.
• For Massive Damage: Pink Ostrich's power-up gives the ability for critical hits.
• Girly Run: Yellow Iris.
• Helpful Mook: The blob thing on the gold saucer drops food when attacked. If you attack it more, it'll drop bags of money. It appears every 250,000 points.
• Kick Chick: Yellow Iris.
• Killer Space Monkey: The "Doc & Jennifer" boss. Jennifer is some kind of Giant Space Baboon!
• MacGuffin: The Shiva System disk, capable of controlling all of the computers in the universe, and the thing everybody is looking for.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Saturn. Since he's a parody of this trope, he also indulges a lot in Evil Laughs and Mustache Twirling.
• Mecha-Mooks: Half of the enemies.
• Mega Manning: Pluto has the ability to use the same powerup abilites as your playable characters.
• Mook Promotion: Betsy, Cathy and Chris are the mid-boss version of the regular biker girls.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Some mooks are huge, muscular aliens with four arms.
• Multiple Endings: One where you recover the disk, and another where you face the True Final Boss.
• My Brain Is Big: Dr. Saturn. He even has a metal ring around his huge head, making him look like his namesake!
• Natural Weapon: The PC's all have their own weapons and there are no weapons to pick up in the game. Ever. This is justified considering out of the group there is a Cyborg, Catgirl, Plant Alien, a Superhero of sorts and a little girl riding an ostrich. They do pack a bunch of moves, making weapons kind of redundant.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Yellow Beast/Iris.
• Plant Aliens: Alien Green.
• Prehensile Tail: Yellow Iris's pet Fin can pick enemies off the ground with her tail and throw them.
• Rapunzel Hair: Yellow Iris.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Or better, Real Ostriches Are Pink. Pinky is an intelligent pink ostrich with an eyepatch who can apparently fly. And she's badass.
• Recurring Boss: Dr. Saturn, whom you face a total of three times.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent
• The Reptilians: The Reptails, Dr. Saturn's henchmen.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Dr. Saturn's little blob sidekick, Yellow Iris' pet fox-squirrel critter and Zipang's tiny followers.
• Shape Shifter: Captain Silver.
• Shock and Awe: Cyber Blue.
• Shoryuken: Cyber Blue has a corkscrew version called Hyper Tornado, and Yellow Iris has a clawed version called Ariel Dance.
• Shout-Out: There are some:
  • Some mooks are half-naked biker chicks who ride futuristic bikes inspired by Akira and/or Tron.
  • The girl riding Pink Ostrich is named Pola Abdul.
    • The designers must have been fans of her music, as the game came out five years before American Idol.
  • There is a secret hidden boss named Master Program. Additionally, it may not be the case, but some enemy robot are called R.O.B. and Gunbuster...
  • Yellow Iris' pet is clearly modeled after the fox-squirrels that appear in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Laputa: Castle in the Sky.
• Stripperiffic: The biker girls are wearing what looks like thigh-high boots, thongs and open jacket... no shirt.
• Theme Naming: The main characters are code-named after colors: Cyber Blue (Brian Bruno), Yellow Iris (Diana Martines), Captain Silver (Andrey Mishucin), Pink Ostrich (Pinky, which is an ostrich) and Alien Green (real name unknown, since it's an alien one-eyed carnivorous flytrap-like bounty hunter). Two enemies are also named Dr. Saturn and Pluto.
• Toilet Humour: Sort of: on Dr. Saturn's spaceship, all the seats look like toilet seats...
• Too Many Belts: Adverted with Yellow Iris. She actually wears a belt around her waist to support her one piece corset.
• Toothy Bird: Pinky.
• True Final Boss: The Master Program. You need 3,200,000 points and either 1000 coins or almost all of the upgrades to face him.
• Warmup Boss: Your first encounter with Dr. Saturn.
• Whip It Good: Yellow Iris has a rapid whip attack.
• Wings Do Nothing: Adverted with Pink Ostrich, as she can fly for a few seconds.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Alien Green specializes in grapples and wrestling moves.