Rival Schools 1.5 is still fun
We here at GI are strong proponents of anything Japanese, fighting games and education.
So, you can imagine the delight that is a generous mix of all three. To that end, it should be obvious by now that we love Rival Schools and its overall series Project Justice. Despite the fact that it comes from the brain trust known as Capcom, we’re still entranced by the concept of Japanese high school students fighting to save themselves.
The middle game in the series, Rival Schools 2, is an interesting addition to the family of fighting games. It’s neither a true sequel nor a spin-off of the original game. It’s an addendum, which Capcom is notorious for pushing on the general buying public. It’s more of the original game — which we love — with some upgrades thrown in to make it worth importing. This version was never released in America, thus there are modes that you will never see. That makes importing the game worth the time and trouble.
RS2 is your standard fighting game, which doesn’t make it unique. However, the inclusion 
of the board game mode and the character creation mode that plays out like an eroge simulation are some of the goodies that we’re missing out on in the U.S. There’s also the addition of three new characters: Ran, a photojournalist who uses her camera to attack; Nagare, a swimmer; and, Chairperson/Iinciyo, who leads the charge for Taiyo High School students to defend themselves. Other than these gifts, there’s not much different here than the first game. You’re still fighting to defend your chosen school, and there’s still fun to be had in a slightly deep fighting game system. There’s not too much different aesthetics-wise, in that there are a few new stages and new stage themes. The older stages are still here and it’s fun to play against the newcomers with older characters or a created character.
I have two caveats with recommending the game to others. The first is the fact that it’s in Japanese mostly and reading is a must to get through the character creation and board game modes. That’s a bit much if you’re not into the language or know enough to navigate through menus. The other issue is the fact that, as usual, Capcom has seen fit to deny American gamers the best of a series, 
shortchanging loyal money-spending fans who would pay a high price for the goodies of the character creation mode and the board game mode. The dirty truth of it all is Capcom has never thought highly of its American audience. We’re not going to see something awesome like either mode because “we just wouldn’t get it anyway.” A fun fact is that both modes were to be included in the first game but were left out in America because it would have been too much trouble to include them for Americans, according to Capcom of Japan. But we’re smart enough to make cash grabs off of for multiple version of Street Fighter, though, right?
The moral of this story is that Rival Schools and its further sequels all deserve to be played by a wider audience. Although it’s a slight rehash of the first game, RS2 was deserving of respect and a proper introduction to the American audience. Thankfully, we were allowed to see the next sequel, Project Justice. Here’s hoping for a class reunion.
times and keep eyes on the product. At its core, it’s a game about samurai and other warriors fighting to the death. What sets it apart from the competition — even from within its own stable with brethren King of Fighters — is its production values. The games have always been gorgeous and there’s a level of detail that hasn’t been seen in other series except for the likes of Tekken. Within the collection of that is Anthology, all of the naturally gorgeous artwork and level of detail is on display. It’s important that this be emphasized because that’s what Samurai Shodown is about at the end of the day: Samurai fighting to the death while looking fantastic.
soundtrack is an excellent concerto of Japanese bamboo flute and shamisen. This may not float your boat, but for a package that focuses on samurai, this is an excellent choice to make up the backing soundtrack.
PlayStation 2. For decades, 
with, the music, characters and graphics are top-notch and the story is simple. My only complaint is that there’s one cheap-shot character that loves to pounce. For all of the SoulCalibur clones flooding the market these days, I proudly say Samurai Shodown Anthology has great replay value, and it 
game that places various characters from both companies’ top-selling series into a exclusive fighting game treat. Inspired by the Marvel vs. Capcom series, TvC allows duos from either Capcom’s or Tatsunoko’s rosters to fight against other characters with the winning team going on to face Yami from Capcom’s adventure title Okami. If you like to mix a Capcom character with a Tatsunoko character, that’s also possible as a way to give the gameplay more variety. In addition to the original arcade mode, there are survival and time attack modes that allow you to test your skills via limited health regeneration and defeating your opponents in the shortest time possible. An additional feature includes a mini-game shooter called “Ultimate All-Shooters.”
It’s simplified even more thanks to the Wii’s Classic controller, GameCube controller, third-party arcade sticks and the regular Wii remote. You will love the character roster consisting of each companies’ top franchises such as Street Fighter, Rival Schools, Viewtiful Joe, Lost Planet, Darkstalkers/Vampire and Mega Man for Capcom while Tatsunoko is represented by Karas, Tekkaman, G‑Force and Yatterman. There are other characters that can be unlocked via use of money (Zenny) earned in each game, which also will allow purchase of alternate endings, costume changes and other unlockable surprises.