Dual Heroes (Nintendo 64, 1998)

Dual Heroes pits eight futuristic fighters against each other in an all-out battle for supremacy. Unlike most games in the genre, these warriors are covered from head to toe in special suits of armor. There's the space pilot Gai, military soldier Gun, botanist Hana, millionaire Hoe, bionic beast Juie, cyborg assassin Retsu, dancer Kumo and commander Zen. All characters offer different fighting styles and can perform what is referred to as Lethal Changes, allowing them to unleash special attacks on an opponent.

There are a total of five modes of play, ranging from a Story Mode that involves fighting each opponent until you emerge victorious to a Robot Mode that has you training a computer-controlled character to fight against another player's trained robot. Other modes include a Practice Mode, where you can learn your character's moves without the fear of losing; a VR Mode that has your fighter competing against a new roster of seven virtual characters; and a Versus Mode that allows you to square off against a friend or the computer for either bragging rights or one of the medals earned from completing the Story Mode.

If two players decide to bet their medals on a fight, the outcome will depend on the overall ranking of the medal. If the person with the higher ranked medal wins the match, the loser must forfeit his or her medal. If the person with the lower ranked medal wins the fight, his or her medal will increase in ranking by one, while the loser's medal decreases in ranking by one. Fights based on medals that are equal in ranking will have the winner receiving the loser's medal as well as being rewarded with an increase in ranking by one.

Options include adjusting the number of rounds comprising the fight (the default is three), choosing one of three levels of difficulty and changing the amount of time you have to complete a round. Completing the Story Mode as quickly as possible on a higher difficulty level will help influence the medal's ranking you'll receive at the end of the game! A Controller Pak with at least 20 free pages is necessary in order to save accumulated medals, robots and other data. A total of 30 medals can be saved before one has to be deleted from memory.