Urban Champion - Reception

Reception

Most reviews gave it mixed to negative ratings. On the negative side, author Andy Slaven commented that Urban Champion showed that the NES could not do a proper one-on-one fighting game, calling it "amusing at times" but criticizing its lack of precision in its controls. Writer Levi Buchanan noted it as one of the weakest NES games for the Virtual Console. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann called it tedious when it was originally released, and now it's "about as boring as it can possibly be." GamePro described it as a second tier Virtual Console game. 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish commented that he would rather have nothing at all on the Virtual Console in its debut week than Urban Champion. He also cited it as an example of a poor game that gamers would still buy for the e-Reader. He listed it as one of the worst Virtual Console games. 1UP.com's Patrick Klepek criticized Nintendo for releasing only this and Baseball in one week, calling both poor games. Writer Ben Mackey called it questionable, calling it the "Bad Street Brawler of its day". It appeared as a skin in Tetris DS. GameSpy's Phil Theobald called it awful, criticizing its cameo in Tetris DS. IGN's Lucas M. Thomas called it too shallow for an NES game, adding that there was no reason to purchase it. He also commented that it didn't deserve the distinction of being Nintendo's first head-to-head fighting game. IGN AU's Cam Shea called it "god awful", and "worse than actually falling down a manhole." Screw Attack advised that Wii owners not waste their money on it, calling it simple and slow.

On the positive side, video game developer Ron Alpert, however, found it to be an acceptable game, calling it one of the simplest of its day, but also an easy game to pick-up-and-play. Since its release, most consumers gave five stars to the 3D Classics version of Urban Champion for the Nintendo 3DS.