Mach Breakers - Numan Athletics 2

31 Years old Arcade Video game NAMCO, Ltd. [Japan]

Mach Breakers - Numan Athletics 2 screenshot

Mach Breakers - Numan Athletics 2 © 1995 Namco.

Futuristic Competitions sports game with seven selectable characters and fun challenge.

TECHNICAL

Namco System NB-2 hardware
Game ID: MB

Main CPU: Motorola 68EC020 (@ 24.192 Mhz), M37702 (@ 16.128 Mhz)
Sound Chips: C352 (@ 16.128 Mhz)

Players: Up to 2.
Buttons: 3 per player.

TRIVIA

Even if the title screen says 1994, Mach Breakers was released in January 1995 in Japan.

In Tekken 3, also by Namco, the character Bryan Fury has a special move called a 'Mach Breaker'.

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FROM NAMCO:
We looked at the previous game, Numan Athletics, and thought to ourselves "we could probably make something with an even greater number of characters, with more personality, and even more fun and unusual events".

We wanted something that captured the concept of "those who go beyond" from the previous game, so we gave it the name "Mach Breakers", meaning "those who can break even the sound barrier".

First we'd start by writing an overview of the character, and then presenting a more concrete proposal. Then for the rough designs, we would submit requests to the designer specifying general character, body type, hairstyle, and any particular features.

Events ended up being like a potluck of both proposals worked on as a collaborative efforts, and those people had submitted by themselves. We made our decision for which of those proposals to go with while considering the overall balance of the game.

In total, 43 musics were composed. Out of all the games NAMCO has developed, this one has the all-time highest number of music tracks and sound effects. Though because we have so many events, and each of them only lasts a short amount of time, making songs for them was a bit tricky. By the way, our resident maestros MEGATEN and AYA both have one song each as guest composers.

For the character select music, we were just in this mood where we decided... let's have the voice actors, as well as the production staff, all sing for it. Other than that I'd say the general theme was "near future", and we requested songs that were very melody-forward and memorable.

Hyper Glider event: Right where you fall, there's the stubborn old man Man-san and his ramen cart Achouken... The trinity of visual artists, programmers, and sound staff poured way more effort then we had originally specified into this part, and so you can see 8 different scenes with every character there.
And there's something unexpected in the background of Deep Diver...
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SERIES
STAFF
👥
Planning: Yotory

Programming (Systems and graphics data management): M.F.
Programming (Balance adjustment + rank judgment system): H.H.
Programming (help): Tsuka

Lead Visuals (Backgrounds): H.K.
Lead Visuals (Characters): Y.K.

Character Designer: Enoken

Sound Effects + 3 BGM tracks: Sano Denji
Most BGM: Saman
SOURCES
🔗
ROM dump (MAME).
Game's screenshots.