I think manga about samurai is firstly popularized with Rurouni Kenshin or known as Samurai X. When i'm high school student, i got a glance about another manga with same genre: Samurai Deeper Kyo. Hey! There's a game adaptation on it! Samurai Deeper Kyo (2002) by Bandai on Sony Playstation.
There's bunch of character from the manga. I don't think there's option menu there. That most bottom menu takes me to some character selection and controller setting for them but leave it that alone for now. The menu in middle is exhibition mode where you choose to fight CPU, or 2 players. Or even see CPU fighting each other. Language barrier is serious problem but this is fighting game so i'll be fine as long as i mash buttons, right? :P
The premise of the story is there's peaceful medicine peddler Mibu Kyoshiro who share the same body with Demon Eyes Kyo. Obviously both Kyo have the polar opposite personality but both of them are skilled samurai. For my convenience i like to call Mibu Kyoshiro" The good Kyo" and i call the Demon Eyes Kyo "The evil Kyo". The good Kyo has similar personality with Himura Kenshin from Ruroni Kenshin. Pacifier until he meets situation where violent is inevitable and as you would expect from this kind of manga, the occurrence of it is as often as how many people drink liquor in tavern. Otherwise the story won't be so good to read. The evil Kyo is cheerful fellow. He like to cut anyone in half with evil smirk in his face and eyes bright red as traffic light that tells you to stop no matter how much in the hurry you're. It's said that he's responsible for killing of 1,000 samurai at Battle of Sekigahara and he even murder the infamous Oda Nobunaga (while in written history, he's killed by Mitsuhide Akechi in rebellion)! He eventually defeated by The good Kyo and his mind/soul fused to his body.
I'm not going to lie. I like the craziness of the story so far.
For the test run, i played as the evil Kyo. So this time i pick the good ones. After selecting the character, the game gives me these 2 options. I think the left one is "official partnership" while the right one is "Advanced Setting". The official partnership means you will change your assist to defeated opponent while the "Advanced Setting" gives you more option that written in Japanese so i leave it to official partnership.
Before match there's always dialogue between your character and their next opponent. I ensure you that i can't read Japanese at all and i only know so little about the manga. But i have feeling this Kunoichi have bone to pick with Evil Kyo but she mistake the good Kyo as the evil ones. Her name is Mahiro, by the way.
The basic is here: move joystick left/right to move left/right. Move joystick down to duck. Move joystick up direction to jump. Move joystick backward to block enemy's attack. Pressing circle and cross will execute weak attack and medium attack respectively. Look at how far the range of that normal move. Yes. It's just normal move and it already has good range and power. You achieve victory in a round by either depleting your opponent's health bar or having bigger health bar when timer reaches zero. But the problem is the timer is in Japanese so i can't tell how many seconds that i have to defeat my opponent. But luckily, every match occurs very fast so you can ignore the timer at all.
If you press circle button near you opponent, you will initiate auto combo and you can string it: 1) With more circle button press for normal string. 2) With cross button press for string of low attacks. 3) With triangle button press for lunging attack that can deal heavier damage.
Personally i like to combine it with low attack because it seems enemies can't block low when getting hit by combo.
My next opponent is a lad named Benitora. I remember his name from character introduction on manga back then. Pressing triangle button will make the good Kyo tries to catch his opponent's blade with his fingers. It may sounds awesome but through my entire playthrough i can never make this move to work at all. Either because the ai is too smart or too stupid to fall for this parry move. It will be more efficient and faster if i just hack them left and right like what i did before.
Naturally for this kind of game with super bar, there's super move. It's activated by pressing simultaneously two button of any face button. Simple and easy. Unfortunately, Sasuke Sarutobi here can dodge it easily. As expected from a ninja. Don't let that kendama toys that he always carries around fools you. He's still legit ninja.
Next opponent is Sasuke's master: the famous Yukimura Sanada. But Sasuke is willing to go against his master but only for this match. There's assist like in Marvel Vs Capcom 2 or some King of Fighters. The assist bar will be gradually filled. Once it's fully filled, your assist is ready to help you. If your control setting is basic/simplified, your assist will automatically engage once the bar is filled. If your control setting is advanced, you tell your assist to engage in combat by one of shoulder buttons. Assist can't be interrupted by enemy's attack.
Eventually my super move manage to hit my opponent. If it finishes my opponent, Kyo will deliver some kind of one liner. I think he said "Can you hear it? The voice of the wind"
My next opponent is Akira who wield long sword in one hand and shorter one on the other hand. He's pretty similar to Leon from Asura Buster. This Akira has interesting backstory. Akira was a peasant kid from village where evil Kyo destroyed. He's the only survivor on that fateful moment. He refuses to cry over this devastating event instead he intended to challenge evil Kyo to fight. Impressed with his bravery, Kyo decides to adopt Akira instead of killing him.
My next opponent is Shiina Yuya the main female protagonist. She's bounty hunter who seeks revenge over her dead stepbrother. Surprisingly to me, he's killed by the good Kyo and not by the evil ones! Anyway, Shiina has gun and she's clearly zoner character but the ai controlling her is not bright so she's defeated easily. Luckily, the good Kyo can cast projectile of his own by simply pressing square button. That's right. There's no need to input special command even as simple as hadou ken motion. There's advanced control setting but that only add just very little input complexity like backward + attack button or sort like that.
So my next assist is Shiina Yuya. That well-built muscles can't save you from gun, Bontenmaru. You can imagine what kind of character this muscular bastard is. We will talk about him more later.
Bontenmaru's assist is Akira. That's kind of awkward. He knows it so he looks smug back there.
The challenge not only comes from outside of The good Kyo. The evil Kyo wants a piece of him inside of his body. Demoman_battlecry02.wav
I like to say that the Yin Yang symbol on their cloth is certainly indication that they have double personality with opposite difference.
This is not mirror match as you probably guess. They have different stance, see? Even though their eyes glows red.
The good Kyo has projectile move and counter move. While evil Kyo is all about hack and slash. He can be perfect protagonist for Hack n Slash game. The good Kyo has super in form of fast dash while the evil one's super move is projectile that move along the ground. For some reason enemies seldom block the super projectile move. Is it unblockable? I doubt it.
Strangely there's assist in fighting match on inside of our body/soul. Okuni there is just glide gracefully. Easy to dodge. But when you get hit by her she will cling unto you and makes you unable to do anything including attack and block, which is not good. Her attack is unblockable, by the way.
After fighting within myself, it's time for another battle in reality. I don't what's the deal with this smug guy. He's unarmed and like to teleport around. Turns out he's Ieyasu Tokugawa himself! It's honor to have a match with you, sir. o7
Next opponent has more imposing look. I mean look at him! He blocks my super move with forcefield around his hand. Shockingly, he's the infamous Oda Nobunaga himself! No wonder he looks arrogant and evil. But strangely he bears no moustache like the generic image of The Demon King.
Oh no! He's about to execute his super move. What kind of demonic power the infamous Oda Nobunaga will unleash upon me? Never mind. I interrupt his super with my projectile just in time. :p
Suddenly a frozen body on Akira's
stage begin to awake. I wish i can burn it back then. Who's he?
His name is Mukuro. Not much of clue there. After more deeper [sic] research, he's the original body of The evil Kyo! So it's good vs. evil redux, i guess?
That charging move of his has "armor" property. By that i mean his move there can't be interrupted by any mean but he still takes damage if you hurt him while doing so.
I get hit by is super move. It's just barrage of sword slash but it's really hurt me. D:
So far i can win the fight with no problem but against Mukuro there i lost a whole match. At least we get to see the continue screen. I think that's Muramasa the blacksmith and master swordsman who teach swordsmanship to the evil Kyo. Also i think i have infinite continue (unless when the candle melts completely that is) so i choose to continue.
This time i have to be more aggressive. When he does the "armored" charge, i hit him with my super move. Thus i give him devastating damage without taking damage to myself. Soldier_DominationSoldier05.wav
After defeating Mukuro, the good Kyo throws his sword and never use it again. Watch where you throw that thing dude! Someone can get hurt on its way down. I think the evil Kyo has better ending where he tramples the good Kyo after defeating him (as the final battle) and presumably takes over good Kyo's body for himself).
But there's bit more. Mukuro is awake, again? Maybe that means the evil Kyo is finally returns to his original body. How nice! :)
As promised here Bontenmaru. He's actually Masamune Date! I should know from his eyepatch. You can alreasy guess that Bontenmaru's strength is his grappling move. Pressing triangle alone is how you execute the normal grapple move. His super move is also grapple. I think i like him because grapple is very rare here.
Here's the main problem with the game, there's so little way to punish turtling opponent or shpuld i say enemy that keep on blocking. There's no guard bar that when depleted will make the character have a guard crush status where they are stunned temporarily and vulnerable to any attack. There's some unblockable move like Okuni's assist and Bontenmaru's grapple. Do you know why zoner character -for example- Ryu from Street Fighters 2 has ability to throwe even though he's not close range fighter? That's because he needs it to punish his opponent who's get too close to him and put them back to his safe distance and not as main method of damage like Zangief. So there's no reason to not give every character in roster ability to throw/grapple at least to punish opponent that always blocking and seldom to attack actively.
Bandai's Samurai Deeper Kyo (2002) is pretty interesting fighting game. I think this game is meant for the fans of the manga/anime rather than for pro competitive game because of that turtling aspect that i mentioned before. Unless the game implements no blocking mechanic like my dearest Fighting Masters :p, it will be more balanced but not in desirable (by anyone but me) way. The roster is pretty balanced. But some of them available as assist only. The assist system is pretty solid. They can only be called when assist gauge is full and when they're out, their action can't be interrupted. The simplicity of control is rather unique. You don't need to remember special move input at all. You just have to remember that circle is for weak attack and short attack that initiate combo. Cross is for medium attack. Square and triangle is for speciallty of your character so you have to do some kind of experiment to know what they're for. Also remember that pressing both button is the way to execute your one-and-only super move. Luckily, the enemy's AI is easy to defeat. They like to forget to block most of the time, except Ieayasu Tokugawa and Oda Nobunaga. The music is pretty good. The sounds effect is okay. The art presentation and (probably) the story is consistent with Anime/Manga.
Samurai Deeper Kyo (2002) is swordfighting game based on Anime/Manga that's less famous than Rurouni Kenshin in western region, sadly. Thus this game will never get official translation. Moreover it came out when Sony Playstation 2 is already out so it's one of game that released only to prolong Sony Playstation 1's life service a little longer. But you can consider this game as hidden game with average quality with bit uniqueness. Give it a try. Also watch/read the anime/manga while at it.
Special thanks to: jygting for providing me with the one and only FAQ about this game in gamefaqs.gamespot.com
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