Really good sequel mechanically and visually.

Fighting is a lot snappier and character movesets are further fleshed out.

One thing about the combat I don't like is how obtuse some inputs for throws are (which is true for VF1 as well) especially when throws are pretty important tools. Some of those good throws can immobilize the opponent to be capitalized on. Thankfully the series moving forward would relegate all throws as P+G which is a lot simpler to wrap around.

BIGGEST issue is how unforgiving the AI is. Like Mortal Kombat 2 and Art of Fighting 2, the AI reads your inputs pretty early on and it gets worse going up (though, MK2 does it at the first fight so it's the undisputed king of cheap.)

And sadly, no home versions of the game (even the PSN/XBLA versions) have a training mode of any kind to actually learn the game properly.

To me, playing VF2 with friends and playing VF2 alone are vastly different experiences and even quality as weird as that might sound. By itself, I believe VF2 is a very good game (mainly for its time.)

Funny thing about the old PC version is that the AI in that game is the complete opposite. Probably wanted the difficulty to come from the Expert Mode which captures your play data over time which is cool.

I like this game.

Now for the my more complex thoughts.
Its a cool little platformer/ beat em up indie that fills the checkboxes for an insanely violent piece of machismo. It also fills a small niche of actual martial arts (like being able to do katas and such.) Not to say the game is realistic by any means but martial arts otaku will be able to appreciate the touches.

It has small rpg elements where you do training and buy items to increase your attributes. Most games that include these elements also have extra skills to unlock but this game pretty much has them all from the get-go which I appreciate for a game of this nature and length. This is the kind of game where the tutorials don't teach you everything, but you'll absorb all a lot of the small aspects of the gameplay in very little time. Especially if you're the experimental type.
I also like how they don't hide their appreciation for fighting games and FGC lingo. There are quite a lot of useful moves to choose from, even the meter-less ones.
This game is pretty short but has a lot of things to go back to making the initial price worth it.

For cons, it can get a little unstable. No crashes or anything, thankfully, but I've encountered plenty gameplay oddities.
Something about the how the game feels, like jumping/juggling, seems a bit too unwieldy.
Many times I get punished for mashing during crowds but a lot of the time I get by just fine by mashing.

So yeah. This is a pretty nice game if you want a crazy fast brawler with plenty of post-game content. I really do feel Sokaikan can do a lot better for a sequel or something similar in the future being their first game and all. I'll definitely be making some revisits for this one until that arrives.

Maybe I should have started with The Dark Project...

In my journey of going through the stealth titans that isn't MGS or Tenchu, this felt more like a stealth sim out of the genre in 1998.

The way levels are laid out remind me a lot of Tenchu as in: go where ever when ever you can if you know the levels enough. I'd say Thief is even more open ended compare to Tenchu 1. You can lose yourself pretty easily for most levels. Can I just say, more stealth games need pickpocketing?

Of course, there's some pretty crappy levels, some added by Gold. Seriously, you just got done with a good couple of come & go missions then BOOM you get shit like Down In The Bonehoard and Thieves' Guild. But the good outweigh the bad easily. Though, the game didn't really need more levels added with Gold.

Other criticisms parallel my Tenchu 1 ones which is basically: "stealth good, combat bad" which isn't as bad in Thief 1 cuz there aren't bosses to force the bad combat down your throat every level.

Pretty good! Just needs more thieving in my Thief.

Kino has evolved.

Gameplay has improved and introduces two new characters, Brad and Goh who feel outright unfinished in terms of moveset. Especially Goh. But still, they're welcome newcomers. Character moveset changes, more moves added, animations redone and touched up.

Overall the presentation wants to go for a slightly more edgy route. Stages are slightly different. I'll just straight up say most of the changed music is traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash. It bloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooows cock.

Graphically, it's slightly improved. Better anti-aliasing. So that's nice. The added weather effects for some are pretty nice.
There's no A.I. training so that's sad for me especially.

There's the new Quest Mode which personally isn't for me with how much of a grind it can be. But it's cool nonetheless with more items to unlock than vanilla 4. A.Is are copied from tournament players. Sega did this and it is very cool. First of its kind as well which inspired Namco to do something similar for Tekken 5, another fighting game that's fucking awesome.

There are extra modes of battle you can turn on in the options and they're nice and diverse for VS mode.

Replay feature is probably the coolest it has been. You can pause, frame advance, turn on visible inputs to see what each player is doing. There's also the replays that are built into the disc with nearly 4 hours worth of matches from pro players in the arcade scene.

Now that we're here, I can now say it contains the greatest and in-depth tutorial in any fighting game to this day. Albeit with some boring presentation.

So yeah. A cool game made ever cooler.

I came in blind,
but WOW!

This is a masterpiece unparalleled by anything else in industry.

This really Wonderworld reminds me of second best gameof all time, Shadow the Hedgehog.

I feel like speedy little rodent in the field while playing, pouncing upon all dancer who may dare intrude on my style!

Gameplay is Mario Odyssey but much more impressive than anything that baka Miyamoto could ever create.

Story impresses with deep seated meaning. It's like Hideo Kojima but with a Hat God Many peoples are blinded by hate and greed but don't realize love overcomes all.

Balan has been affected by such a tragic fate. Do not listen to those that are not sound of mind.

Try this game and become abundant in FUN!

Combat is pretty cool with its focus being purely hand to hand. People may find it more "limiting" than normal yakuza gameplay but I think the game's way of trying to be challenging is to have the exact same skills as the enemy. I think it's pretty cool since the combat is more akin to those Wrestling/UFC fighting games. Fighting styles are pretty cool. A lot of them really feel different from each other despite sharing a few animations. Bosses are probably the best part of the game to me. For the type of combat this is, I feel the challenge is pretty fair for most of them and bosses probably felt the most imposing out all of the series from a gameplay standpoint.

This is probably just a "me" thing but the art style of the game is also my favorite of the franchise. I like the cutscene art a lot. Feels what Yakuza's 1 & 2 might look like in 2d form with its gritty look and all. Its probably what stood out to me the most and in a way why I wanted to keep playing the game without knowing a lick of japanese when I was "checking it out." So at first, it was just me wanting to look a bunch of pretty pictures. Animation is pretty much flash animation but it's stylized up the ass to really make me care.

The game overall looks pretty nice for a PSP title. I also like how diverse enemy designs look. Some of look straight out of a delinquent manga.

Story (from what little translations I managed to scrounge up) is pretty good. I imagine if you like stories like Judge Eyes/Judgement, you'll appreciate its tone and how it differs a lot from main series Yakuza despite taking place in the same city. In this era of the series, its one of the more grounded stories in my opinion. Erm... At least after a certain part of chapter 1/before/after confronting the final boss.

For cons:

Navigation can be a pain in the ass (though it's not because of controls). There's no taxis. And the cops can make getting to places kind of annoying if you end up a lot farther away from your intended location.

Enemy health can get pretty beefy especially on harder modes unless you upgrade stats. Leveling up stats is pretty weird since it's completely different from leveling up normally (experience points, etc.) Money is pretty god damn scarce.

The combat is CLEARLY not designed for multiple enemies. There's no real crowd control options in combat or at least ones that feel natural.

This is probably what can turn off fans from checking these games out, the camera is too close in combat and shakes too much whenever clean hits are made. It kind of makes the game worse than it actually is. Its not like zooming out the camera is a bad idea. Not like obstacles can obstruct the gameplay in the first place.

Side content other than substories is pretty limited. This has more to do with it being on a PSP so they probably had to make due with a smaller space than usual.

This probably depends on who you are but having the options of making cutscenes skippable AFTER beating the game is pretty pinheaded. It made redoing some sections to give the best gameplay performance I could a REAL pain in the ass.

So yeah. Interesting spin-off for the series

Its a fast pace, less tourney focused VF. Basically, if you know VF's basics, you'll translate fine here for the most part.

One revolutionary thing this game introduced.... WALLS! Cages! Shit that most 3d fighters use from here on. And they are pretty broken for some characters.
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXgVbqsHS4

You got strings, moves that blow the opponent away and moves that specifically break armor (which no in-game movelist on any official release specifies.)
Throwing inputs are also simple (THANK GOD) compared to VF2. Just combine Punch and Guard. But for no reason, the throwing animation can hit from the farthest reach.

Game has armor. You can damage top armor and the bottom half. Have all armor broken (which there's a special input to do that) and you're a little faster, do a bit more damage.

Arcade a.i. is cheap as hell but that's par for the course with 90s arcade fighters. And it really gets cheap at the last 3 fights so you just gotta know more about the game( that means know the easiest exploit.)
Still no Mortal Kombat 2 or Art of Fighting 2 or even VF2 in terms of A.I. cheapness.

Ripped from my Ninja Gaiden Black review cuz I share similar thoughts:
Game's REALLY fuckin' good but REALLY fuckin' hard.... just like Ninja Gaiden ;D

Movement is god damn everything. E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶o̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶o̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ Ryu is more than agile enough to slip past every enemy and boss moves if timed well enough. M̶o̶v̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶s̶ ̶s̶m̶o̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶T̶r̶i̶c̶k̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶D̶M̶C̶3̶ ̶(̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶r̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶.̶)̶ With this game, they made god damn sure you use that movement at all times.

My only real problems are with a couple of enemies. T̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶n̶i̶n̶j̶a̶s̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶,̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶u̶r̶i̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶p̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶y̶ ̶b̶o̶m̶b̶s̶.̶ ̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶s̶h̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶l̶e̶v̶e̶l̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶k̶i̶s̶s̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶.̶
Fuck birds.
A̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶I̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶k̶e̶e̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶-̶p̶a̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶.̶ ̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶v̶i̶e̶w̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶u̶n̶l̶u̶c̶k̶y̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶t̶.̶ ̶A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶-̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶a̶u̶l̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶l̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶-̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶e̶r̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶.̶
Fuck how the birds respawn. And stage 6.

Badass game despite how soul crushingly hard it gets.

Man.... there really aren't a lot of pure Karate fight sims. Much less ones based off of the full-contact stuff. I'm guessing the devs (well.... dev) thought the same and decided to make one.

Compared to much more well known indie titles with less niche audiences, everything looks and sounds cheap. Badly drawn portraits, the sprite for the playable character is an edit (badly edited) sprite of Ryo's KoFXIII sprite, pretty rough looking fighting animations as well. There were also some minor bugs. While in the forklift job, the next set of boxes straight up not spawn 5 seconds in sometimes.

Surprisingly enough(and thankfully), the combat is the most stable part of the game. Nothing all too complex but I found it satisfying. It simulates Kyokushin 1 v 1 fighting which I can describe as two karate dudes beating each other (while REALLY close) until one gives out or gets a good kick to the head. It has tournaments with no-face punch rules and other tournaments that gets rid of that rule.
There are RPG elements which to be honest, I hardly noticed in other aspects other than how hard I hit.

Sadly, there's only one mode being the story. I don't want to rag on things too much for a project of this scale, but I think multiplayer would've been cool for something like this. Not online, but local is enough (again, small scale project.) The training minigames are alright for the purpose they serve, however I wish there were more than ONE job minigame.

Man. I really do like the mentality of "if someone won't make more of this, I will" and does it despite the lack of skills for the polish. Cheap or not, I think the game is cool regardless and is an accurate enough kyokushin sim. It may be trash but it's trash I cherish.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/240996817708253184/887540385088409622/20210914220027_1.jpg

I'm in a bit of a tight spot. I got to play a game from a manga franchise I'm not very familiar with. I was hoping it wasn't the usual licensed trash. In some cases it isn't, but in a bunch of places it is.

It's a hack 'n slasher and... it's a bit of a sleeper at times. Not because of anything involving depth, but that's another issue down below.
But there are some decent swords and combo upgrades. You pretty much have two styles, Single sword and dual swords along with a machinegun hand and cannon leg. The manga's premise keeps the gameplay from being completely bare. I like increasing my stats for the body parts from finding the bastards that took em.
The bosses are pretty cool albeit easy. The game in general is pretty easy which I don't treat as a negative since combat isn't exactly the best. I REALLY like how with boss fights, you can switch camera modes to focus on the boss or return to the regular camera. Not a lot of games I can think of that do this.
The upgrades really show their use, like being able to dash after you get your left leg (which I'm guessing one review below mine didn't reach yet) and it getting faster as you get more connecting body parts that increase speed. It can encourage you to revisit chapters to look for the hidden Fiends. Despite the fact that half of the hidden Fiends are clones of ones you fought in story, I still like the thought. But with revisiting lies my biggest problem....

Here's my big con, lots of areas are too big with a whole lot of nothing! And big areas mean a lot of walking and running which are more annoying to revisit for some chapters. At the very least, you can go in any area of the stages but damn. Even in the story, I'm just not a fan of these open spaces where there could have been actual levels. Pretty much stretching the game to be longer than it should.
Platforming can be finicky at times which I almost expect with these types games at this point.

Final verdict? This game was ALMOST good. Almost. Its a game I can tell that had quite a bit of love put into it and plays decently especially near the end. But has a some drawbacks that plague a shovelware action game at times. Probably would've given it 2 and a half stars but I at least had nice introduction to this franchise.