"A 2D Fighting game with a strange gameplay, cartonish graphics and singed background music?"

This is a very strange 2D-Figthing game, very different from SNK standars (like "Fatal Fury" or "Samurai Showdown"): the charachters are very strange and the gameplay looks like the one used for "Street Fighter Alpha". And even there is a 7 in his name this is the first chapter of this saga

Gameplay 8
Like I already said, something has been took from SFA: I'm talking about "Victory symbols" and Charging and combo system; in fact the simbols change when a characters is finished by a special move or when someone wins when time finishes, and super moves (not DMs or SDMs) can be done using one or more levels from the power bar, that can be charged by using normal moves or by letting time pass. But in this game there aren't only Super moves, called "Doki Doki" (they are powered versions of normal moves) but also Super Super Moves, called "Hara Hara", that, after the background flashes with a "warning" message do TONS of damage and cannot be blocked but they have a really long start-up time. This game also has another thing more usual in 3D-Fighting games that in 2D ones: a character that is on the ground can be hit before he gets up, and there are also moves which let charachter get up and attack or run away.

Graphics 7 1/2
A cartoonish graphic, some very funny carachters (like Politank Z or Bonus kun, a piece of tofu that mimics Ryu from SF series) and some nice backgrounds but nothing more, and sometimes the colours can be very irritating.

Sound 9
The sound effects are on standard levels, but background musics is where this game rocks! They are very beautiful andsome are also singed! Maybe this is the only game where there are true songs instead of background musics. The backface it's they're in Japanese (after all this is a Japanese game ;)

Story 5
Well, fighing games never had a great storyline (this is RPG's domain) and this one follow this rule. But do you really need to know why these crazy people want to fight each other?

Afterall 7 1/2
The gameplay is not bad, even if something has been copied from SFA and Tekken 3 series, and playing with a friend is very funny, expecially when using "Doki Doki" and "Hara Hara" (after you learned them, you'll forget how to do normal moves); CPU level is not too hard, but it's easier to end the game pressing the buttons without any sense that with a strategy. This is a good game, not like King of Fighter '98 or Real Bout 2, but if you want to break SNK rules or if you got annoyed of standard fighting games this one is for you.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99