Project Justice

"The Most Underrated Capcom Game- Hell Fighter Ever Made. This Game is Gold!"

After 6 months of searching for it at a decent price, toiling every day for a good hour looking for it, and driving my sister insane while doing so, I had finally found a copy of Project Justice... for $20.00! I would have paid $600.00 for this game, it is just too amazing. Project Justice is the third game in the Rival Schools series (the second game being a Japan-only release for the PSX), and it improves in every aspect over its predecessors. There is something in this game that everybody can love, from the story, to the graphics, to the characters, and the game play. Game play is where we will begin.

Game Play: 10/10

Sheer brilliance. Of all the Capcom Fighting games, this has the easiest and the most user friendly controls and ways to do combos. Playing the Budokai series on a friend's PS2 also really gave me a really good head for the bar system (I was not very familiar with the whole Capcom fighting systems etc. before this game). The bar is 5 levels long, with 5 being the maximum. Every time a punch is thrown, or every time you are hit, your bar raises a bit. The more powerful the move, the higher your bar rises. At level one and higher, you can do a Burning Vigour attack (basically a special move). At level two and higher, you can perform a Team up attack, depending on which member you choose to team up with. At level five, you can do a Party up attack which does the character's school attack, and all three characters attack. The battle systems are fantastic, I could get into more detail, but I'd be here all night, the game is just so deep. There are 7 schools in total, and each school has a theme (Ex: All of Gorin High 's students are excellent sports people, all of Pacific High 's students are straight A students etc). There are also many game modes. Mmm we love game modes. There is the standard arcade mode, which can be broken down into story mode, and free mode. In story mode you play as a school, in free mode you can play as three characters of your choice. Then there is the standard vs. and training modes. There are two additional modes that make this game even more amazing, league battle, and tournament modes. In league battle, you can make up to six teams with different combinations. All teams then face of against each other, and the team with the most wins is the winner. In tournament battle, you play an eight bracket tournament with the winner being crowned ultimate champion. Whew, that is a lot of perfect game play. The story is just as plentiful.

Story: 10/10

One of the best game stories I have ever seen, and it is arguably better than Soul Calibur and Tekken (even though I still think they are tops). Hyo Imwano failed to take over Japan as he ahd planned over a year ago, and now, there is more unrest in Japan. A council (will not be revealed here) attempts to take over all of Japan as Hyo Imwano wanted to, however this council has 6 other schools to deal with. Each school has their own elaborate stories contained within the game, and all are supremely enjoyable, and sometimes, you play the game because you solely want to find out the school's story. There are also different paths you can take during the game to see different stories for every school. This is one of the few games that has a movie-quality storyline. Graphics are just as good.

Graphics: 9/10

Superb graphics here. All of the characters are detailed and they all look great. Some standouts are Tiffany (aside from the obvious, her costumes are very colourful and look good), Akira (weird looking, but cool nonetheless), and Nagare (no comment). The backgrounds are also superb, but they are the reason this section gets a 9 instead of a ten. They are superb, but they could have had a bit of improvement. The story drawings are done completely in anime form, but these drawing are also fantastic. Apart from looking great, they don't even look like they were ever drawn they are that perfect. No problem here, likewise with sound.

Sound: 10/10

Every character has their own specific sounds, and they are damn good sounds, be it dying sounds, move sounds, etc., they are great. The music is also amazing. They will leave you whistling or humming them in your head late after you are done playing. The standouts here being the amusement park, Seijyun High school, and the rooftop at Taiyo High school. No snags here in the sound department, and it continues this way for replay ability.

Replay ability: 10/10

Another perfect. After you have spent a couple of hours on the story modes and unlocking the numerous hidden characters, you can then play all of the story modes to unlock the last few characters. When all of the unlocking is down, you now have those 2 other game modes (league and tournament battle) to play hours on end with your friends. There is a lot of replay ability in this game contrary to belief.

Buy or rent?

This game cannot be rented sadly, because this game usually goes for $60.00+ on ebay and various other sites. Furthermore, it is so difficult to find it in a store, it is nearly impossible to do so. If you get a copy, have some of the most fun you will ever have in your life.

This is the first game that I have ever played that instantly became one of my top 3 games ever. I fell in love with this game the minute I began playing it, and it will continue to be that way for the rest of my life. There is just so much that anyone who has experienced this game can say about it, I haven't even scratched the surface about how amazing this game is. Capcom, you finally made a fighter that I like! Curse them damn Street Fighter games, Project Justice is the King of all Capcom fighters! "Dark-side Justice Council? What a lame name!"

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/06, Updated 11/10/08

Game Release: Project Justice (US, 05/16/01)