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Review: Last Bronx [PC] |
If my memory serves me correctly, I first played Last Bronx in late 1997 at my local arcade (a dingy Dream Machine franchise with about two dozen cabinets, perpetually in various states of disrepair). I remember reading somewhere that the game got a somewhat limited release in US arcades, and although I don’t understand why–if this was true–my arcade, of all places, had it, I can understand why Sega would have made that move. Last Bronx, not to put too fine a point on it, is a pretty mediocre offering.
Despite its mediocrity, I remember kind of enjoying Last Bronx all those years ago. I played it now and then for several weeks, mostly alone, but sometimes there would be other people at the machine. Then the arcade got a Tekken 3 machine, and needless to say, I cast Last Bronx by the wayside in favor of this new game that was to be the first to really turn me on to 3D fighters in a big way. Not long after that, the Last Bronx machine disappeared from the arcade and it quickly faded from my consciousness.
Fast forward to about two months ago. I found the PC version of Last Bronx–one that I never knew existed until then–at my classic warez hookup one day (a top-secret source asking to be identified only as teNFE@zerawdlo#), and decided to download it for the sake of some minor nostalgia.
And it was a good move; in terms of minor nostalgia, it delivered in spades. After that, I remembered why I played it only occasionally. Before sending it to the big harddrive in the sky, though, I decided to give it a quick review for HerV, since there was a very brief review of the Saturn version, but not the PC version. Also, given that the review of the Saturn version isn’t too extensive, I’ll review the game itself as well as the translation.
Probably the best way to describe Last Bronx is through this simple formula: take Virtua Fighter 2, lower the overall quality, make the graphics a bit blockier, and add weapons. Viola.
There are a total of eight characters to choose from, and although none of them are particularly stupid or lame, none of them are all that interesting or original either. In fact, most of them fit fighting game stereotypes pretty readily: we have Kurosawa, the Pimp (pimpin’ purple suit and all); Tommy, the Brash Teenager; Nagi, the Man-Hating Femme Fatale (which seems to be the video game industry’s idea of a feminist, but I digress); Zaimoku, the Big Guy (he’s slow and has a hammer); Lisa, the Sexy Girly Girl; and Yoko, the Tough But Hot Girl (in army fatigues–what a shocker). Yusaku and Joe, two pretty nondescript guys in their early- to mid-20s round out the cast. Yawn. Still, that’s not entirely a bad thing, as the stereotypes are executed pretty well. Lisa is indeed quite sexy, for one, and Zaimoku just exudes raw power: he’s got a bunch of cool tattoos and swings his hammer like he damn well means it. Overall, the characters could’ve been a lot worse, but there’s plenty of room for more original touches as well.
The gameplay is typical for a 3D fighter of the era. There are three buttons, Guard, Punch (i.e., weapon attack; I have no idea why it’s called “punch,” since all the characters have weapons), and Kick. It’s basically a 2D game in a 3D environment, as there is little chance, aside from rolling left or right while getting up, to move outside the plane the two opposing fighters face each other on. Stages are giant squares with fencing you can crash into. Things can get interesting when you have your opponent up against the fence, and it’s arguably better than the endless stages of Tekken or Rival Schools, but it doesn’t make for much variety. Strings mostly come in the basic VF variety (PPP, PPPK, PKK, KK, etc., ad nauseum), as do juggles. There are pounces, standard means of rising from the ground, and a universal crouch dash sort of thing. Aside from the weapons, what sets Last Bronx apart in terms of gameplay is the G-Cancel, which isn’t necessarily a good thing (more on this in just a moment).
As for the weapons, they’re actually implemented fairly well. Hit detection seems to be just fine, and the physics, though somewhat simple, are still consistent and don’t really feel wrong per se. However, with the exception of Zaimoku’s hammer, which naturally has longer start-up and recovery times, all the weapons feel almost exactly the same. It may look like you have a bokken, or tonfa, or escrima sticks, or nunchaku, or whatever, but with all of them it just feels like you’re whacking your opponent with some random blunt instrument.
The AI is okay. At the highest levels of difficulty, however, computer-controlled opponents just block everything you throw at them, and won’t attack until you’re in your recovery frames from attacking them and being blocked. Rargh. But a mid-level difficulty, the computer often actually fights with a bit of variety, which is nice.
The G-Canceling I mentioned earlier is the real Achilles heel of this game though. During any attack frame, if you press the guard button you’ll quickly revert to your standing animation. What this means is that pretty much any attack thrown is non-committal, and with a little practice you can consistently G-Cancel out of your recovery frames. Not only that but juggles can get insanely long: with constant G-Canceling, you can tack on sometimes three or four separate strings with a high enough juggle. I mean, just think: juggle, G-Cancel the juggle move, quickly do a string, G-Cancel it midway through, do the same string again, G-Cancel it again… you get the idea. A match between two human players can quickly degenerate into endless rapid-fire fake-outs until one person slips up and gets juggled for upwards of 50% damage. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Which brings me to the lifebars: they’re too short. 50%+ juggles are easy. Zaimoku, with one 3-hit ground combo (PPP no less) does about 45% damage. It’s not a huge setback, but it’s still an annoyance.
Graphically, the PC version isn’t quite comparable to the arcade version, but it comes close (I’m going by memory here unfortunately). The major hit the PC version takes is in animation frames. While blocky, the arcade version had nice, smooth animation, almost as good as Virtua Fighter 2. The PC version is… less so. The polygon count may be a bit lower too, but that could be the lower resolution, or just me not remembering the arcade version correctly, so I can’t say for sure. In terms of a visual aesthetic, Last Bronx situates its fighters in an exclusively urban setting. Like the characters, it’s stereotypical, but still pretty good. Notable backgrounds include a city skyline at night and a twilight view of a bridge that looks suspiciously like the Bronx Bridge (imagine that…). There are other, less stellar ones like a subway tunnel (one of the blandest interior locations I’ve ever seen) and a construction site that looks like every single other construction site stage in the history of fighting games. In the end, there’s a pretty good balance of interior, exterior night, and exterior day backgrounds, and they feel congruent enough that a definite location for all the action is apparent. It all takes place in one city, and you get a decent feel for the character of the city. I think that’s good, and it’s something you don’t get in a lot of fighting games (Fatal Fury excepted–ah, Southtown).
The modes of play available here are mostly what you’d expect from a home translation. One-player modes include Arcade, Survival, Team Battle (5-character only), PC Mode (which seems to be the same as Arcade), and Training. Two players have the option of Versus or Team Battle.
My main gripe is that the Training mode doesn’t allow free training. That is, you pick a combo/juggle, you’re shown how the combo/juggle should be done, and then you practice the juggle. If you don’t do it right, the game stops and says “FAILURE” and you start again. If you get it right, it’ll automatically move on to the next combo (to top it all off, sometimes you can fuck up the end of a juggle and the game will still proceed to the next combo, even though you want to try it again). There’s no other way to do it, and it’s really frustrating. To try out moves or whatever, you have to do it the old-school way, in Versus mode. Ugh.
There’s of course an option mode available, and it’s just fine generally. The button reconfiguration menu is poorly designed, but everything else is passable.
Possibly the most interesting mode available is Network Mode. Two-Player Versus is available via TCP/IP, IPX, serial, and modem connections, and Team Battle is available only through IPX (to allow more than two players, I assume). My roommate and I couldn’t get this working at all, but if you can, it’d probably be the best part of the game.
Last, but not least, the PC version does add one thing that the arcade version didn’t have: the ability to play as the boss, Redeye (you have to beat the game in PC Mode with the hardest difficulty setting, something I didn’t have the skill or the patience to do). The one secret from the arcade is still present too, but it’s of minimal significance: push start 13 times on the character select screen, then pick you character, and they’ll have their weapon(s) replaced with something comical. Zaimoku swaps his sword for a huge fish; Yoko gets umbrellas instead of tonfa; Tommy’s bo becomes a long janitor’s broom. You get the idea. Funny, but that’s about it.
In the end, Last Bronx isn’t a bad game, but it really can’t be called good either. Even when it was released there were far superior games available, Virtua Fighter 2, its closest relative, being the best example. The PC version, though it’s a pretty solid translation of the arcade game, adds almost nothing really notable in the process (save Network Mode and a playable Redeye), and it doesn’t help that it was released in 1998, fully two years after Last Bronx debuted in the arcade and a year after the Saturn version hit store shelves in Japan.
All that said, it is probably one of the better fighters available for PC. But, then again, that’s not saying much.
