''U.S. Championship V'Ball'', also known simply as ''V'Ball'', is a

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

sports game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport ( ...

released for the arcades by Technōs Japan Corporation. The arcade version was distributed in North America by

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...

. A Nintendo Entertainment System version was published by Nintendo, in North America and the

PAL region The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Europe and Africa, alongside parts of Asia, South America and Oceania. It is named PAL because of the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) television standard traditionally used i ...

, under the title of ''Super Spike V'Ball''.

Arcade version

The player takes control of a pair of self-described beach bums named George and Michael who make their living playing beach volleyball against locals. One day, they find a flyer for a nationwide beach volleyball tournament offering the winning team a $2,500,000 cash prize. In single-player mode, one person controls both characters on a team. In two-player mode, the players either cooperate by playing on the same team or compete against each other by controlling opposing teams. The American version allows the game to be played by up to four players (if the cabinet allows it). The single-player mode consists of two cycles with four stages: the Minor Circuit and the Major Circuit. The stages in the game are Daytona Beach, New York,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. After completing the Major Circuit, the player faces against the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

team, set in a naval base. The controls consist of an eight-directional joystick and two buttons for jumping and receiving. The characters perform several moves including power spiking, back spiking, jump-serving, blocking and diving. There are a few minor differences between the Japanese and American releases. The Japanese release (''U.S. Championship Beach Volley: V'Ball'') features an opening cut-scene explaining the plot. Between matches, intermission sequences depict the main characters visiting a car dealership to purchase a vehicle. As the player progresses, the cars increase in quality, shifting from used cars to new cars during the Major Circuit. The American release (''U.S. Championship V'Ball'') removes these cut-scenes but extends the multiplayer support to up to four players with multiple game modes (1 or 2 players against the computer, 1-on-1, 2-on-1, or 2-on-2). A conversion of the arcade game, developed by SPS, was released for the

X68000 The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan. The initial model has a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and lacks a hard drive. The final model was released in 1993 wi ...

computer in Japan.

NES version

The NES version features several key differences from the arcade game. In the NES version the player can now select their teams. The available pairs in the single player mode are: George and Murphy, the default well-balanced team; Al and John, powerful, but slow players with poor defensive skills; Billy and Jimmy (the heroes of the ''

Double Dragon is a beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technōs Japan and released as an arcade game in 1987. The series features twin martial artists, Billy and Jimmy Lee, as they fight against various adversaries and rivals. The origina ...

'' series), defensive players with poor spiking power; and Ed and Michael, fast players with average hitting power. The NES game features a tournament mode against the CPU that can be played alone or with another player, and a competitive mode that allows up to four players. There are several differences between the Japanese Famicom version (''U.S. Championship V'Ball'') and the western NES version (''Super Spike V'Ball''). The Famicom version features a single tournament mode which consists of five American Circuit matches ( Daytona Beach,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and

) three World Cup matches in

(of random nationalities) and two additional matches against the

and a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n team in that order. The player can adjust the difficulty setting in the option menu in the Famicom version. Additionally, the characters of George and Ed had their partners switched in the Famicom version, with George being partnered with Michael as in the arcade version, while Ed is partnered with Murphy. In the NES version, there are three different tournament modes: Exercise, the American Circuit and the World Cup. The Exercise Mode is just a match against the first team in a crowd-less court set to an easy difficulty. The American Circuit simply consists of the first five teams featured in the Famicom version's tournament mode set to an average difficulty. The World Cup mode consists of seven teams in the following order: Japan,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, Australia,

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, the Navy and

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, all set to a hard difficulty. The background for the Russian stage was also redrawn to make it look less hostile with the omission of the tanks in the Famicom version. There is no difficulty setting in the option menu since the three different tournament modes serve as difficulty settings themselves.

Female teams

Four additional female teams are present in the game but are inaccessible to the player under normal playing conditions. Using a cheating device the teams become selectable. Even though they are fully playable in-game the images representing the female teams in the team selection screen are missing resulting in garbled graphics being displayed instead.

Soundtrack

An arranged soundtrack was released in Japan by

Meldac is a Japanese music and video game company. They also had a subsidiary in America called Meldac of America before it became defunct in the 1990s. Meldac has produced albums for Jennifer Love Hewitt (''Love Songs''), Christopher Sluka, and J- ...

based on the Famicom version of the game. The soundtrack was composed by Takashi Furukawa, Yoshimitsu Hamano and Funky Yasuda. It was released on March 10, 1990, with the catalog number MECG-28002. # V'Ball (Title Back) 4:01 # First Wave (Daytona Theme) 4:21 # Twilight Game (New York Theme) 3:37 # Sea Breeze Hero (Chicago Theme)–Female Vocal Version 4:07 # $1,000,000 Night (Las Vegas Theme) 4:20 # SeaSide Walker (L.A. Theme) 4:12 # Beyond the Sky (Hawaii World Cup Theme) 6:05 # Iron Wing (Aircraft Carrier Theme) 4:11 # Big Red Attack (U.S.S.R. Match Theme) 3:45 # Winner's Theme (Championship Scene) 4:44

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''U.S. Championship V'Ball'' on their September 15, 1988 issue as being the sixth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.

References

External links

The game's entry on the Coin-Op Video Game List''Super Spike V'Ball'' instruction manual
* {{Double Dragon series 1988 video games Arcade video games Beach volleyball video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo games Sharp X68000 games Sports video games set in the United States Technōs Japan games Video games developed in Japan Video games set in Florida Video games set in Hawaii Video games set in New York City Video games set in Los Angeles Video games set in the Soviet Union