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endings
10-29-14 11:49 PM
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10-29-14 11:49 PM
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Come for the hilariously bad video actors, stay for Vermillion

 
Game's Ratings
Overall
Graphics
Sound
Addictiveness
Depth
Story
Difficulty
Average User Score
7.4
7
7
6
5
4
6
endings's Score
6.2
7
7
6
5
4
6

10-29-14 11:49 PM
endings is Offline
| ID: 1098690 | 1456 Words

endings
Level: 58


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When PS1 launched, they had a 3-d fighting game (ala Virtua Fighter) called Battle Arena Toshinden. This game was a a big reason I bought a PS1. It was a fun game, if not terribly deep. It is a fighter that features ring outs, so you have to watch being knocked out, or doing something stupid and removing yourself from the competition.  When this sequel emerged, flush from their success, I bought it. While not as influential as the first, it does have some interesting characters, but fails to capture all the magic of the original, and ends up a little substandard.


Graphics: 7
The edges are rounded a bit, and character models are pretty good (This was the same year Resident Evil 1 came out, for comparison). The light effects were nicely done, such as Fo's energy ball attack, but some graphics just didn't look right. For one, the animators included breathing animations when the characters are standing in place, but its super jerky, the big offender is watching the victor of a roudn do their pose, then heave their body up, down, up, down. Its far too pronounced, and they might as well be doing aerobics. But no discussion of the graphics would be complete without, one of the two big crimes done in this game.

Exhibit #1
I think the first misstep in this game is right in the opening trailer. It tells you the breif narrated story, then immediate begins to show you live actors dressed as a few of the characters - then cuts to their jagged, polygonal versions to compare. Its jarring how far they still have to go for lifelike graphics. Seeing Sophia's naturally pretty looking actress carry a real whip, then see her horribly sharply-busted game counterpart, her linked whip that looks like a jump-rope. its just off-putting.

There's more characters added, although they come from anime rejects costume pile. We have a french lady who dresses like shes an angel knight? A fighting cop lady with blue hair, tomb raider short-shorts a GIANT badge? Chaos, the insane hari-chrisna monk that won a worst character design poll? Our only savior from the ho-hum looks is a raggedy hobo in all black, who actually turns out to be one of the most gratifying characters in the game to play - though he does not look it.

The backgrounds are large but distant, as you fight on raised platforms and the details are distant to you. Each fighter has their own stage, and many of them look pretty good and lend a different ambiance. Eiji fights among a mountainous cave area with lingering mist, Rungo fights near a sunlit woodland area with trees and a river and a distant gorge. Some are done badly, Duke's castle stage is cavernous and empty, just full of red carpet and little else - but seeing the stage open up with those giant curtains is very cool.

Sound: 7
There is a lot of rock to this soundtrack to get you in the mood to crack skulls. Kayin's is by far my favorite, having a sweet guitar solo thats close to Guilty Gear/Blazblue levels. Duke's music is grand and epic, and then you have Ellis, the music matches her light step rush gameplay.  Its not all blistering guitars and fast chords. There are a few Japanese folk music inspired tunes, such as Gaia's and Mondo's. One of the bonus characters does not even have a song, its just swamp sounds like frogs and owls. Some of it all feels a bit generic, and I cannot say all the tracks are memorable (I personally hate Elli's happy little dainty music) but what is here is above acceptable. And music is subjective, so your mileage may vary - just expect to rock. A lot.


Addictiveness: 6
You have to fight your way through a large host of foes, before reaching a mini-boss and the final boss. Once you beat the game, you can actually play as the two bosses and they have endings. But wait, there's more. If you beat it a second time (it doesn't matter if its with the bosses or not) you will get to play as the two bonus characters. One is pretty much a slighter better Eiji, and the other.. the other is just ... wonderful. After slogging through the game twice in a row, you get the chance to play as a character named Vermillion, who has guns as his normal attack. I cannot explain how fun it is to be him. Ever heard  the phrase 'never bring a knife to a gun fight?', yeah, well you're the one with all the range and special move cancelling regular shots. He has special moves but he doesn't need them. He doesn't even need to move most of the time!  He's super cheap, but dang it, you just beat the whole game twice to play as him. Its a lot of fun because he's a proper villian this game needed. And bad guys have more fun, right?

Exhibit #2
Sadly the game does not save the unlocked characters. You'd need a code or to manually play through it each time to unlock them again. The bonus characters are visible in the regular game, if you beat the game perfectly without a loss, you will fight one of them (randomly chosen) at the end. There is no special ending though for beating them.


Story: 4
There honestly isn't too much. Fighting games get away with this, right? Yeah, a little. A shadowy organization, called, the ... Secret Society (nice! no one will ever suspect us!), has lost its agent in the first game, Gaia has now defected. Now the fighters all gather again, to do more battle. Each character has completely identical endings, save for a changing wall of text for you to read. I think it might have been better to just leave it with a graphic, as most of this scrawl is pointless nonsense.  But theres no sense of success in seeing the any ending, and they are all boring. That makes me bring it down from a typical 5.

Another issue I had is the game features not one, but at least 4 members of the Secret Society. And you never learn what they want to do to dominate the world. Just have fighting tournaments? What is this accomplishing? One member is even insane, and you don't get any kind of feedback as to what happened to him to make him that way, its all pretty underwhelming. Oh well, you are here for the punching. But I can't fall in love with characters with no motivation as most of these, unless that character's motivation is NO motivation, that would be pretty meta, wouldn't it?


Depth: 5
I've definitely played more immersing fighters. The jump is much like Tekken 2 - that is, you get serious air. There are desperation attacks and specials moves, but nothing more than any other game in this genre. The main feature this game had was its 360 dodge, while crudely used in the first game, is weakened a bit here (it used to block all sorts of stuff) but still very useful.  Pretty much every big name fighter has an edge over Toshinden, which isn't to say its a button masher, its just many of their characters don't feel that separate from each other.

Just in the basic starter characters you have:
Eiji and Kayin, the Ryu and Ken of the series
Elli and Tracy, the two dual weapon, sliding attackers
Gaia, Rungo and Duke, the big Nightmare-type heavy hitters
Fo and Chaos, who use unusual attacks to gain the upper hand
Sofia and Mondo - ranged attacks

Sometimes I just pick Chaos just for the snort and giggle he does when being selected.


Difficulty: 6
Variable, but the AI is fairly dumb at times. You can usually wear it down with missile attacks. On the harder difficulties its known to use rush moves like Rungo's skyrocking headbutt to give themselves a ring out as they go sailing out of bounds. I found that kind of cheap to win with fireballs and used Fo the old fighter as my default, and I got really good at controlling the battlefield. As there are optional bosses to fight if you can win perfectly, there is some extra challenge here, but not much.


Overall: 6.2
The Toshinden games had their time, and this was probably their best, but overall, the series graphics got worse and watered down the fighters even more until it faded into the past. I only play this game for Vermillion, because just once, isn't it fun to bring a gun to a knife fight?

When PS1 launched, they had a 3-d fighting game (ala Virtua Fighter) called Battle Arena Toshinden. This game was a a big reason I bought a PS1. It was a fun game, if not terribly deep. It is a fighter that features ring outs, so you have to watch being knocked out, or doing something stupid and removing yourself from the competition.  When this sequel emerged, flush from their success, I bought it. While not as influential as the first, it does have some interesting characters, but fails to capture all the magic of the original, and ends up a little substandard.


Graphics: 7
The edges are rounded a bit, and character models are pretty good (This was the same year Resident Evil 1 came out, for comparison). The light effects were nicely done, such as Fo's energy ball attack, but some graphics just didn't look right. For one, the animators included breathing animations when the characters are standing in place, but its super jerky, the big offender is watching the victor of a roudn do their pose, then heave their body up, down, up, down. Its far too pronounced, and they might as well be doing aerobics. But no discussion of the graphics would be complete without, one of the two big crimes done in this game.

Exhibit #1
I think the first misstep in this game is right in the opening trailer. It tells you the breif narrated story, then immediate begins to show you live actors dressed as a few of the characters - then cuts to their jagged, polygonal versions to compare. Its jarring how far they still have to go for lifelike graphics. Seeing Sophia's naturally pretty looking actress carry a real whip, then see her horribly sharply-busted game counterpart, her linked whip that looks like a jump-rope. its just off-putting.

There's more characters added, although they come from anime rejects costume pile. We have a french lady who dresses like shes an angel knight? A fighting cop lady with blue hair, tomb raider short-shorts a GIANT badge? Chaos, the insane hari-chrisna monk that won a worst character design poll? Our only savior from the ho-hum looks is a raggedy hobo in all black, who actually turns out to be one of the most gratifying characters in the game to play - though he does not look it.

The backgrounds are large but distant, as you fight on raised platforms and the details are distant to you. Each fighter has their own stage, and many of them look pretty good and lend a different ambiance. Eiji fights among a mountainous cave area with lingering mist, Rungo fights near a sunlit woodland area with trees and a river and a distant gorge. Some are done badly, Duke's castle stage is cavernous and empty, just full of red carpet and little else - but seeing the stage open up with those giant curtains is very cool.

Sound: 7
There is a lot of rock to this soundtrack to get you in the mood to crack skulls. Kayin's is by far my favorite, having a sweet guitar solo thats close to Guilty Gear/Blazblue levels. Duke's music is grand and epic, and then you have Ellis, the music matches her light step rush gameplay.  Its not all blistering guitars and fast chords. There are a few Japanese folk music inspired tunes, such as Gaia's and Mondo's. One of the bonus characters does not even have a song, its just swamp sounds like frogs and owls. Some of it all feels a bit generic, and I cannot say all the tracks are memorable (I personally hate Elli's happy little dainty music) but what is here is above acceptable. And music is subjective, so your mileage may vary - just expect to rock. A lot.


Addictiveness: 6
You have to fight your way through a large host of foes, before reaching a mini-boss and the final boss. Once you beat the game, you can actually play as the two bosses and they have endings. But wait, there's more. If you beat it a second time (it doesn't matter if its with the bosses or not) you will get to play as the two bonus characters. One is pretty much a slighter better Eiji, and the other.. the other is just ... wonderful. After slogging through the game twice in a row, you get the chance to play as a character named Vermillion, who has guns as his normal attack. I cannot explain how fun it is to be him. Ever heard  the phrase 'never bring a knife to a gun fight?', yeah, well you're the one with all the range and special move cancelling regular shots. He has special moves but he doesn't need them. He doesn't even need to move most of the time!  He's super cheap, but dang it, you just beat the whole game twice to play as him. Its a lot of fun because he's a proper villian this game needed. And bad guys have more fun, right?

Exhibit #2
Sadly the game does not save the unlocked characters. You'd need a code or to manually play through it each time to unlock them again. The bonus characters are visible in the regular game, if you beat the game perfectly without a loss, you will fight one of them (randomly chosen) at the end. There is no special ending though for beating them.


Story: 4
There honestly isn't too much. Fighting games get away with this, right? Yeah, a little. A shadowy organization, called, the ... Secret Society (nice! no one will ever suspect us!), has lost its agent in the first game, Gaia has now defected. Now the fighters all gather again, to do more battle. Each character has completely identical endings, save for a changing wall of text for you to read. I think it might have been better to just leave it with a graphic, as most of this scrawl is pointless nonsense.  But theres no sense of success in seeing the any ending, and they are all boring. That makes me bring it down from a typical 5.

Another issue I had is the game features not one, but at least 4 members of the Secret Society. And you never learn what they want to do to dominate the world. Just have fighting tournaments? What is this accomplishing? One member is even insane, and you don't get any kind of feedback as to what happened to him to make him that way, its all pretty underwhelming. Oh well, you are here for the punching. But I can't fall in love with characters with no motivation as most of these, unless that character's motivation is NO motivation, that would be pretty meta, wouldn't it?


Depth: 5
I've definitely played more immersing fighters. The jump is much like Tekken 2 - that is, you get serious air. There are desperation attacks and specials moves, but nothing more than any other game in this genre. The main feature this game had was its 360 dodge, while crudely used in the first game, is weakened a bit here (it used to block all sorts of stuff) but still very useful.  Pretty much every big name fighter has an edge over Toshinden, which isn't to say its a button masher, its just many of their characters don't feel that separate from each other.

Just in the basic starter characters you have:
Eiji and Kayin, the Ryu and Ken of the series
Elli and Tracy, the two dual weapon, sliding attackers
Gaia, Rungo and Duke, the big Nightmare-type heavy hitters
Fo and Chaos, who use unusual attacks to gain the upper hand
Sofia and Mondo - ranged attacks

Sometimes I just pick Chaos just for the snort and giggle he does when being selected.


Difficulty: 6
Variable, but the AI is fairly dumb at times. You can usually wear it down with missile attacks. On the harder difficulties its known to use rush moves like Rungo's skyrocking headbutt to give themselves a ring out as they go sailing out of bounds. I found that kind of cheap to win with fireballs and used Fo the old fighter as my default, and I got really good at controlling the battlefield. As there are optional bosses to fight if you can win perfectly, there is some extra challenge here, but not much.


Overall: 6.2
The Toshinden games had their time, and this was probably their best, but overall, the series graphics got worse and watered down the fighters even more until it faded into the past. I only play this game for Vermillion, because just once, isn't it fun to bring a gun to a knife fight?
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