Biggie and Smallie didn't hold back. When they met on the brawl in the middle of the arena, it wasn't a dance — it was meat on meat, no funny business. Body Blows is an early-90s take on street fighting, where two characters rush at each other like at a marketplace and grab each other by the throat.

It's simple: pick one of a few characters — each with their own temperament and style — and swing at your opponent. No complex combos, no flashy specials. Just hard hits, blocking, and alternating health bars on the screen. The game runs in real-time, the arena is normally sized, characters move with a certain weight. Controls are simple — a few buttons for strikes, block, movement. Playing feels more about rushing than technique.

What you play feels like an attempt to copy Street Fighter, but without the precision and without giving you a sense of control. Attacks sometimes land where you don't expect them, blocking works more by accident. Your opponent usually drives you into the corner and batters you there, while you're lucky if you block something. It's not frustrating like a truly bad game — it's more tedious. Individual rounds drag on.

Body Blows looks today like an artifact from a time when people believed it was enough to put two people in an arena and let them fight. No color in the UI, no great animation, no energy in what you see. The graphics are functional, nothing more. Sound alerts you when a hit lands, but it's not worth mentioning. The game was supposed to be Street Fighter's competitor, but it lacked everything that makes that game fun — a sense of impact, dynamics, character personality.

Who should play it today? A collector of early PC gaming curiosities who wants to know what was played twenty years ago while waiting for Real Fighter. It runs fine in a browser, but after five minutes you have a serious reason to turn it off. It's not so bad that it's fun to read about. It's just nothing. If you want a classic, grab Street Fighter II on an emulator — you can feel those twenty years of difference there.