Now I can’t say I ever played the first Rival Schools game very much … I owned it (briefly) but it was the Japanese Playstation version; possibly the most impenetrable import fighter I’ve ever seen. I accept that impr0t games will have Japanese text, that’s fair enough — but when the combo meter is incomprehensible — along with all the menus, in-game text, and story — it was just too hard for me to get into, and consequently I only played it for a short while before losing interest.

So I’m not really the world’s greatest authority on the RS games, and it’s worth noting before we get intimate, that the sequel is almost as bad in terms of amounts of unreadable text.

Which is a shame, as huge amounts of efforts have been put into the story side of this … more than any other Capcom, or indeed SNK game I’ve ever seen. And the presentation … oh my god. Every menu screen, every title, or selection screen is just a masterwork of beautiful, high resolution artwork. It just overflows with Japanese pop art style like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And although the actual fight engine is 3D, the game is just full of absolutely gorgeous hand-drawn artwork. Before and after every fight there will be some sort of discussion, or sequence where something happens — often completely bewildering to the non-Japanese reader, but drawn exquisitely. And although there’s no animation in these scenes, the style of drawing is so stylish, dramatic and intense that they’re still action-packed even though nothing actually moves. The music is awesome too … atmospheric techno, roaring rock and dangerous low-key mood music. The soundtrack sounds like a KOF one — which is pretty much the highest praise I can give it.

One thing I particularly liked were the “events” that occur between fights and sequences. You’ll be preparing for the next match, and a character might leave your team for some reason, or your team might have an argument and the next fight becomes between same-team members and there’s even a point for one team where you have to lose the fight in order to progress the story, much like that stock RPG plot. And it’s just oh-so cool when a couple of characters who aren’t accessible yet join your team for a couple of fights (though this only applies before all of the characters are unlocked.)
Again it’s a real shame I can’t read the text, as some of the developments are sort of strange…. why exactly does Shoma leave his team for a Tennis-playing 10 year old girl? Do I actually want an answer to that?

When playing “Arcade” mode (there is also a SSF2-style tournament mode, an “edit character” mode, a bizarre board game for arming your edit character and a training mode) – you have the choice of either “Story” or “Free” — ‘Free’ lets you pick any three characters as a team (it’s possible to create a team consisting of Natsu, Batsu and Vatsu … but sadly the computer doesn’t award you a “moron bonus” for thinking of this) and ‘Story’ means you have to pick from pre-determined teams (much like the KOF teams) and there is an actual plot between every battle, and you get a non-generic ending.

I don’t really remember the RS1 character roster that well, so I have no idea how characters have changed and who has disappeared from the list. However I do know that Roy looks and plays more like Terry Bogard than ever before. Sadly, there are several characters whom I would rate as ‘poor’ – and while recent Capcom games like 3rd Strike have had exceptional rosters full of good characters, BJA returns to the older traditions of having several lame characters. Characters with only two moves (Ran!), characters that are only good “in the right hands” … characters who just look or act stupid, and give me no desire at all to select them, when instead I could be picking the jailbait Athena look-alike or the bad-ass guy with the sword.

The new (or new from RS Evolution 2) characters are … um … interesting. Ran rocks, despite being critically underpowered. As far as I can tell she’s a reporter, and her moves involve taking lethal (?) photographs and throwing magazines about. One of her supers has her whipping out a microphone and interviewing the other character at faster and faster speeds until they collapse. Uh … yeah.

That’s just one of the great things about this game — its totally off the wall sense of humour. It’s not weird in the same way Darkstalkers and Jojo’s Venture are, but it is excessively wacky and way OTT. Nagare, the fruity swimmer (who I believe was also in the RS1 add-on disc) walks about in Speedos and flippers, and fights by diving and swimming through the air. God – his move where he attempts mouth-to-mouth still gives me nightmares. :/

Some of the new characters just don’t hit the mark …. Zaki the masked weirdo from the Girl’s school is just both too bizarre (spiky hair, rubber mask, fights with a electrified chain) and at the same time uninteresting (she never really says or does anything), Yurika (doh) the long-skirted girl who fights with a violin is just …. fucking stupid. And then there’s Momo. Oh, how I hate Momo. For a start this super-cheap, annoying Tennis girl looks exactly like she should be a character in PowerStone 2 .. seriously, the way she’s presented, the style of artwork used to render her, she looks just like a PS2 character would and she actually looks a bit out of place here. And then there’s the way all her moves have incredible priority and hit hundreds of times for massive damage. Of all the opponents in the game, I fear her the most. Yes, I am more scared of a 10 year old girl with a tennis racket than a huge twin-sworded demon warrior. Go figure.

There are around eight characters missing from the roster at the start of the game — these are unlocked by finishing the story mode with each school team.

As advertised, Burning Justice Academy runs on the Naomi board … and it seems a couple of sound effects from PowerStone2 have somehow made their way over to BJA .. they’re among the hit impact noises, and you’ll recognise them when you hear them. Also, some of the energy-based attacks (fireballs etc.) look very similar to the same sort of attacks in PS2. I don’t know why I picked up on this, but I did, so you have to suffer for it.

In general, the actual game visuals are of a fairly high standard; and then there are times where something looks particularly bad and then times when something else looks excellent, so it all works out fairly well.

The polygon count is nothing spectacular, nowhere near Dead or Alive 2 or TTT — but the models are solid and detailed. They look more cartoony than Namco and Tecmo’s efforts — though I don’t know if this is intentional. The lighting effects are nice, though sometimes a bit blinding. The games’ most impressive visual feature (apart from the shockingly good 2D art) is the backgrounds. One or two of them are a little bland, but in general they are extremely solid and detailed constructs. The theme park is impressive, especially when a high jump reveals just how much of it has been rendered.

However … the BGs are also a little … weird. They have that infinite-scrolling thing like the Tekken games – but several stages try to present the illusion of having edges, and it just ends up being … freaky. When you do a special or super on the rooftop stage and the camera shows an alternate angle, it looks like the falling character is right next to the roof edge. However, when the camera shifts back, you’re nowhere near the edge, and no matter how far you walk, you never get any closer. It’s just … sort of … eh.

The engine is solid, if a little simple. Two punches, two kicks, which three or four of which can be chained together. Launchers, air combos, juggles, the usual specials and supers. You now pick three characters to play as, but there’s no tag team fighting. Much like the first game, you pick a “primary” character and after the first round you are offered the chance to select a different character. Sometimes you’ll have more that 3 characters on your team, and in those cases you pick a primary and two assists.

The assists also function like RS1. Providing you have one level of meter (which goes up to five), you can call in either your A or B assist, and they will do something to help you. It’s not like MvC2 assists … calling the character is like a move — it has a start-up pause and can be blocked or countered. The assists help in various amusing ways… from acrobatic two-person attack sequences, to life-restoring massages … some of them are just bizarre. Iincyo wheels in a blackboard with a stick-figure on it and proceeds to point out various areas, which somehow revives you slightly. Calling Momo will cause you to grab hold of the other character, while she comes out and does a volley with a tennis ball on their face.

Much fun can be gained by making Tiffany do her “kiss on the lips” life-up assist on another female for some grrrl-on-grrrl hot lesbian action. Well … sort of.

They just add to the wacky humour … and provide an interesting attack alternative. Fortunately they can’t be combo’d into – that would just be stupid. Kudos to Project Justice for realising that.

New to BJA is a three-person tag attack. This costs all five levels of meter and involves something incredibly freaky, like all three characters forming a human wheel and mowing the enemy down. A sense of humour is vital when playing this, make no mistake.

I like the “lego” style combo system. You do an attack, and then add another onto it, and then you wonder if something else would tag on, and you just build up from there. I’ve spent ages just stringing longer and longer combos together and enjoying doing it very much.

However this sort of system does have it’s downside. There aren’t that many variations on the sort of combos that can be done. And once you’ve done “Jump in FP, WP, WP, FP, DF+FP, jump, WP, FP, Super” for everyone … that’s pretty much it. Well, I’m exaggerating, there’s also “Jump in FP, WP, FP, Super” and “Jump in FP, WP, FP, DF+FP, Special” and that really is it. I find myself just repeating the same combos over and over, especially when playing as a character with few attack options…

I also find the physics to be a bit … off. A towards jump doesn’t really advance the player as much as it should: it’s a very narrow arc, and it takes a while to get used to. And jumps don’t feel properly weighted, and it’s sometimes hard to judge distances and I’ll often end up landing on a projectile or missing my jump in completely. Again, it can be got used to, but it feels wrong.

When it comes down to it … there’s little real innovation here – no gigantic changes from the first game, just a few additions to the engine and characters … cosmetically it’s been redone from the ground up, but in terms of play, it could easily be a “champion edition” sort of thing. I guess if you liked the first one, you’ll like this.

And although I praised the artwork and look of BJA, there are times when it gets a bit cluttered — the on-screen display is hardly the most restrained, and when everyone is on screen doing a triple super — it’s easy to lose yourself.

And of course there’s the incomprehension factor … which only makes me want to buy the US version…

But I don’t think these things are enough to take away what BJA has to offer in terms of lusciousness, and sheer fast-paced gratuitous pleasure. If you have the patience, I actually recommend waiting for the domestic version … but if you’re impatient like me, you’ll just have to make do with creating your own story … so … Batsu is engaged to be married to Iincyo, but is really in love with Roy, and Hideo was arrested for possessing animal pr0n, which he blamed on Hyo and Natsu is having an affair with Nagare etc. etc. etc.

*”Sunset Beach” credits roll….*

• Score: 85%
• Publisher/Developer: Capcom