A hugely endearing jank-fest from the days when the biggest companies in the business could afford to put major weight behind strange, experimental curios. An awful factory level at the mid-point drags it down, but otherwise, this is a riot. At just two or three hours long, there's no reason not to just sit down and give this thing a go.

I genuinely think a sequel would be an incredible time if they worked around some of the more awkward bits of design here. Unfortunately, the absurd cost of AAA development means that throwing the equivalent weight behind a sequel is a practical impossibility, which is just yet more reason to dismantle the entire games industry and start over from scratch.

It's also one of the most aesthetically pleasing games ever made and I'm not even remotely kidding. Possibly my favourite menus...ever????

Games don't have to be good to be great.

This game is absolutely hilarious.

Whenever I think of ragdoll physics The Bouncer is always the first game that comes to my mind, because god is it stupid in this game. Bodies fly everwhere and constantly interrupt action elsewhere along with potentially colliding with other ragdolling hitboxes resulting in extended combos and massive damage. Then you got the dumb story mode with voice actors chewing the scenary constantly with Mugetsu and Dauragon taking the cake.

The Multiplayer is the high point though, along with the three player characters you normally take through the story mode you also get access to playing as the boss characters. That's right baby, FOUR DAURAGONS. And all of them are busted as shit with none of their moves nerfed from when the CPU used them. MP was always fun until everyone figured out how stupid the two coat Dauragons' backflip attack was and just spammed it in neutral, then the game was over.

The pressure-sensitive buttons used to do different attacks takes a lot of getting used to, it's not great and I hope your PS2 controller is in decent condition when playing this game.

This game's worst components are probably the scaling on the enemies/bosses for story mode. If you attempt to spread out your usage of the three main characters you'll quickly find the boss characters spiraling out of control with their stat gains without any of your characters being able to compete. It's an absolute must to just stick with one character through a playthrough(or not spend XP at all on moves/stats, but that's lame) to save yourself a massive headache later when you try to fight the three phase Dauragon that begins appearing at the third playthrough. I found that out the hard way.

The other bad one at least during a fresh playthrough is the escort mission where you need to lead your girl buddy to the end without her getting double axe handle smashed by a robot.

This game ain't amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of entertaining me the player it does a good job.

THE BOUNCER

so like the gameplay is probably a 5 or 6/10 but the style and presentation have this immaculate amount of charm and style that outclasses even other squaresoft games at the time (minus racing lagoon). i love the over-the-top action and the goddamn loading screens with their gradients and insane lore dumps viewable in at most 10 seconds. there’s a lot more depth here as shown by the fuckin entire ass art and lore book they made for the game. still waiting for that to get translated. even then this stuff isn’t what carries the whole game for me, the gameplay is pretty solid. yeah it’s bs when your teammate steals you kill and shit but i just have a good time with its ragdoll-juggling pressure-sensitive-button-pressing action. this is like THE squaresoft game for me with how it conveys its ideas through its artstyle, 2000s nomura ass characters, and bangin eguchi tunes. this is a squaresoft game to the end.

This game is the closest thing to The Room I've encountered in game form. That is to say, it is terrible, but engaging, and so incredibly dumb that I was constantly laughing at it. If it was any longer than the 90 minutes it took me to finish, I would have lost my mind. In this game's favor: no collectibles, skippable cutscenes.

This is Stun Lock - The Game. Every attack knocks you or enemies down, so a well timed button press can juggle even bosses to their doom easily. Or the same can happen to you.

This game is the blueprint to every writing problem you will ever encounter in Kingdom Hearts. It even stars prototype Sora, with an even worse outfit! Nothing gets explained before you're confused, and then its time for a flashback exposition dump for characters you've just met. (Make no mistake, if this story was told properly, it would still be failing grade anime trash.)

The fact this is an official Square release and not some repurposed fan project made by two people and released in beta on Steam floors and delights me. I have never encountered such confidently incorrect hubris in a game, rolling so deep in cliches that they are somehow able to take us from a bar to a satellite in two hours. None of it works and the character designs are just horrendous. Just one train wreck of a look to another until the final moments. (The final boss wears overalls with no shirt??? No one is wearing a shirt! Not a single named character has a shirt in this whole game!)

In my rating system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game. This comfortably gets a D rank, 1 star rating. It only staved off an F rating by ending as soon as it did. A "How Did This Get Made" documentary for this game would be FASCINATING.

Eu não vou fazer rodeios. The Bouncer é muito, muito ruim.

Tão ruim que dá a volta...pra algumas pessoas. Pra mim foi uma experiência deplorável em matéria de gameplay, inconsistente por conta do sistema de colisão, mecânica de progressão e roteiro do jogo.

Um dos piores beat'em'ups que já joguei.

T H E B O U N C E R
The game isn't amazing by any stretch, but gotdamn the designs are so good, and the game is full of charm. All the dumb quirks like the wonky voice acting and jank ragdolls, combined with a playtime of only ~2 hours make this a fun game to go back to, especially since once you beat the game you unlock the ability to play as all of the different side characters.
If you're a fan of this game like me, do yourself a favor and look up some of the concept art, Normura's work here is incredible, and the amount of detail that went into this game is super cool.