Battle Circuit

Battle Circuit's arcade cabinet provided support for up to four simultaneous players who can each assume the role of five possible characters. Players must progress through a number of levels made up of horizontally scrolling screens filled with enemy characters that must be defeated using a combination of attacks and movement abilities each character utilizes. Every character is given a selection of these abilities that can be expanded as gameplay progress by purchasing special "upgrade discs" after the completion of each level using coins obtained by defeating enemies. These techniques are often a combination of either of the two action buttons and the joystick, and can add additional varieties to a given character's arsenal.

A player must attack enemies until their health (indicated by a bar under the player's when the enemy is attacked) is reduced to zero and they are thus knocked out. If a player's health bar is depleted, they will also become knocked out and must use up one life to continue. If all of a player's lives are depleted in this fashion, the game will end unless more credits are purchased.

Taking place in the future year 20XX, Battle Circuit follows the exploits of a group of super-powered bounty hunters as they apprehend wanted criminals (identified by special serial numbers) in the city of Neo Koba. The game begins with the player attempting to apprehend criminal 9696X, a scientist named Doctor Saturn and his blob-like sidekick aboard his spacecraft orbiting Earth. After the battle, the character selected by the player returns to his employer, Harry, and is promptly given another assignment to capture a member of the "Delete Gang", Johnny, who holds a valuable floppy disk in his possession. The bounty hunter then confronts Johnny at his disco hideout and learns that the disc contains a malicious computer program known as the "Shiva (Tentei) System", which is capable of controlling all computerized systems in the world. After selecting one of the available characters, players must travel through various levels- fighting through a variety of enemies from the Delete Gang- to obtain the disc and claim their bounty.

Battle Circuit was initially developed as a racing game for up to 8 players, with artwork by Haruki Suetsugu. Despite being completed, this version of the game was never released.

In 1997, work began on a new version of Battle Circuit. This version was developed by producers Noritaka Funamizu and Yoshiki Okamoto of Capcom's arcade production team. While structurally very similar to the company's early scrolling action games like Final Fight and Alien vs. Predator, Battle Circuit is set apart stylistically by employing a manga-style science fiction approach to story and character artwork. Ikeno Metaka, overseen by Ohnishi Hiroki and Yamamoto Kouji, created an assortment of characters with features reminiscent of older Capcom characters and superfluous comic book elements.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Battle Circuit on their June 1, 1997 issue as being the eighth most-successful arcade game of the month, outperforming titles such as Street Fighter EX Plus and Magical Drop III.