I want to play the beach volleyball games want to get to know the characters beforehand, but unfortunately there's not story to be found here. Based on what I heard, I was expecting an adequate to good fighting game with a layer of sexploitation. But lo and behold, this game is actually mostly just cartoonish sexploitation, there’s not really much else here. I had heard the word “Jiggle Physics” before, but now I understand it. It looks physically uncomfortable to see the y-axis that Kasumi and Lei Fang’s breasts travel after every hit. But that’s nothing compared to the visceral sound effects in this game that feel truly uncomfortable. The combination of animation and sound effect of Jann Lee smacking Kasumi feels way too domestic-violencey for a video game and makes me sick to my stomach. I think the foley artist did smack someone’s cheeks to record the audio, and it’s just sleazy feeling.

After going into the options menu and turning “Bouncing Breast” to “off” and turning off the audio (the soundtrack is also bad tbh), I had a lot more fun with the game. However, 30 second rounds and certain characters killing you in 2-hits feels like it’s not really meant to be played seriously. It’s definitely not as polished as its contemporary Virtua Fighter or Tekken games. I like the idea of what it’s trying to do with its hold and counter system, but It’s a little bit loose, they didn’t quite nail it and sometimes it feels like it randomly works or doesn’t work.

The best part of the game are definitely the costumes and the environments. I hope other games in the series lets you turn off the breast options (especially the volleyball games) because the presentation fits a cool vibe otherwise.

I'm actually perplexed at how competent the gameplay is here. seeing how excessive the jiggle physics made me audibly laugh my first match in because I didn't think they were gonna be overdone like that from the get go. I got to give them credit for making the characters feel weighted and the animations feel fluid when the gameplay isn't exaggerated with boobs bouncing, people flying when uppercutted, or explosions (that I honestly have no clue how I was summoning). the only complaint I have is that the CPU is definitely cheating but that's a given with these older fighters so I imagine this is at least a fun experience to have when playing with others casually. I wonder how many games off I am before they started introducing gambling as a spin off series