Project Justice

"School yard fights will never be the same"

Rival Schools: Project Justice is the third outing and true sequel to Justice Academy: Legion Of Heroes, which was the first title of the Rival Schools saga (Rival Schools is the western title). The Playstation sequel never got a Western since it was just an update of the first title. The DC version with the rough title translation, Burning! Justice Academy is set one year after the events of Justice Academy: Legion of Heroes. It features a whole new storyline, new characters and improved graphics courtesy of Dreamcast's whizzy technological capabilities.

The game offers several modes to satisfy your hunger for single, multiplayer and group battles. In story mode, you'll be able to select a set of preset teams of three or custom pick your selection. Each fight varies depending on your chosen team and how well you'll doing. You'll be thrown into situations that will require you to fight certain rounds with a selection of people. The success or failure of these tasks will affect your game ending and any secrets that you need to unlock. Team Ups can be called up with a combination of buttons to unleash some tag team action, pulverise your unlucky opponent. You can counterattack them by hammering all four buttons to enable a Team Up counter, bringing one of your team members to face another team member of the opposite side. You can dodge normal and special attacks with the sidestep move, enabling you to swing around to face the back of your enemy. Holding the side step button will enable you to dodge from left to right, rugby-style. Three other modes, VS, tournament and league matches are made for multi-playing purposes. If you have played any of the previous titles, you'll know how they work. Training mode is also the same. Practise your moves, combos and tactics with any existing or custom characters you may have!

The board game entitled Burning Youth Diary is where you can create up to 24 custom characters per VMU, building up 4 characters at one time. The objective to this turn-based game is to get the highest points while building up your characters abilities and properties. The board is made up of squares, each with a property. They'll enable you to increase or decrease your stats, pick up points, add special moves or add game cards to your inventory. These game cards will help you or hinder your opponents as they can temporary add or subtract stats, increase HP, warp you to a different square and other mischievous activities. Litter around the board are characters from the game. Picking them up will increase your friendship level and will determine what team-up moves you'll receive for your character. When the game finishes, you'll enter a tournament where an automated fight will determine who will win the game. The winner with the highest points after the tournament will receive a special finishing move of their choice.

The graphics have improved from the PSX version, giving the game a much smoother and cartoon look with very lush 3D backgrounds. It looks to me like Capcom have used a similar technique to Namco's Tekken games to pull off the levels of detail and speed. The 3D graphics are still glitchy - hair seems to ''clip'' against clothing and you can see the joints in some of the characters. The music gives Rival Schools it's style, from pop rock to. er... rock. Sound effects are top notch as well, from the odd taunt to the bone-crunching impact that haunts your fateful opponents.

I'm a bit disappointed not to see Sakura back for this title. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to find her. Still if you get to know how the board game works, you will be able to make a clone of her since many of her moves are featured in this game. It's also a shame that the dating game-style feature and its mini-games are gone too! You'll just have to grab hold of the Playstation versions - the Japanese copy mind you. None of the Western conversions contain these features. This might be the case when the US and UK versions of Project Justice (the US name for this title) makes its way to our shores. We'll just have to wait and see. Until then, grab hold of this copy and get some practise and try out the board game! I've managed to create a decent custom character on my first go. I'm sure you can too!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/00, Updated 06/14/01