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Review: Rival Schools: United by Fate |
Rival Schools : United By Fate is a 3D fighting game made by Capcom which pits several schools and teachers against each other in a XSF/Tekken type arena. What!??! You didn’t know it was made by Capcom? I’m not that surprised; it arrived on the scene with little hurrah from Capcom. But as I’ve found out, it’s a great little game in it’s own right.
The story is quite an original one. Unlike other “Big evil person holds tournament to see who is the best” like so many other games we know, it involves 5 schools set in modern day Japan. Justice High is an elite school accepting only the top academic or fighting students (no idea why). There have been a spate of attacks on the other high schools, all of which have been linked to Justice High. So 3 members from each school have come together to investigate.
As I mentioned earlier, the game takes the best bits from other fighting games and smooches them all together. The sidesteps, throws, reverse throws are obviously inspired by Tekken. While the tag team play, wacky supers, Air Combos 30ft. off the ground, wacky characters, and combos have been drawn from Capcom’s past work with the .vs series.
One thing that is different is the how the tag team play is done. In XSF and other .vs related games you could switch on the fly. Whereas in RS, you switch after every round, win or lose. Now this does have it’s advantages, letting you switch your weak players (getting beat up by the mammoth Gan?? Switch in Hinata for some faster action) for a stronger one.
Now speaking of characters, these guys are an original bunch that do tend to reflect their schools of origin. Oh yeah and most of them don’t suffer much from the ‘Shotokan Clone Syndrome’ that other Capcom games tend to bring. The only Shoto-clone I know of, is Hideo, the teacher from Justice High. Other than that, the rest are quite original. From the high-pitched Hinata, to the Maniacal Raizo and even Syoma the Baseball dude and Natsu the Volleyball gal from the sports high school. One thing that bothers me is Hyo. Excuse me. Sephiroth anyone?
The graphics are great. The backgrounds are rotatable and are not just 2D backgrounds. Unfortunately they are not animated, providing no life outside of the action. The characters themselves are quite smooth, though they do tend to get disjointed a bit.
Gameplay is fast and flowing, much like the .vs series, with massive combos being through which way and that. One part of the team work aspect I love and must mention are the Team Up Supers. Unlinke in XSF where a team super involved the characters performing recycled supers, in RS it is completely original. The supers vary, depending on character to character with most female characters giving you some sort of health or power-up bonus (as they should) while the males pop out to do some serious damage.
One thing I do have a quibble on is the damage factor. Some moves, such as reverse throws do insane damage while some supers, like Edge’s Team Up don’t do all the much damage.
While I’m on quibbles, Tardy Counters is one thing that really pisses me off. RS’ counter system is very different to that of other game. Basically you can counter with any other move in the game with the exception of TUA’s. The command? Do whatever move you want while blocking. Cheesy no?
All in all it’s a fun game that is not as deep as SFA2/3 but still provides the orgasmic fun of the .vs series.
Now, if I could only do that to my real teachers…
