The Bouncer

"A great game with some annoying problems."

I love the classic side scrolling beat 'em up. Nothing beats the feeling of trashing lots of stupid enemies on screen. The Bouncer is an homage to that heritage. Retro gaming some would call it, but I call it fun. Unfortunatly, this game has some minor problems that are actually MAJOR quirks.

I saw the promotional movies, and I loved them. In fact I really wanted to love this game, but I don't. Don't get me wrong, its a great game. Its just not... Well... Fun.

Lets start at the beginning.

THE GOOD.

Ahhh! The power of the PS2 at its best! The characters are detailed, sharp, and clear. They are anime based, which allows some odd character designes. From Volt's horns to Kou's all over tatoo, this game exemplify's odd styling. I dare say the oddest outfit choice is the final boose's second outfit: a Black Jean Jumpsuit. Huh?

Still, no matter the outfit choice, they have small details like buttons, stains, and spikes. Long coats tend to flap in the breeze, and that is the occasional colored lighting effect.

Even the backgrounds are detailed. There is writing on walls, fully detailed posters, the ground has odd patches of grass, ect. ect. Its the usual Squaresoft attention to detail.

The gameplay is a mix of a fighting game/rpg/beat 'em up. Dreamfactory follows up its Ergiez run with this game and delivers the goods. In fact, I recognize several of the attacks and movements taken directly from the Ergiez engine. Of course they are changed a bit, and seem a lot smoother than what they looked like back on the PSX.

The beat em up comes from the Story Mode. You take the Three Bouncers on a quest to save thier friend Dominique. Here its single player only, and you progress thru stage after stage of badly dressed, eternally stupid thugs, with the monotony broken only by a couple of boss fights. Each Bouncer has a diffrent story which I won't spoil here. Needless to say, Sion's is fairly standard while Kou's is the most surprising (at least, at first). In order to see all stories, you have to beat the mode 3 times, each time using only one of the three Bouncers. Load times are minimal, but present. Still not bad for a PS2 game (See THE BAD)

The Rpg mode is present here as well. The Bouncer's all start out with a rank of G, and for every bad guy they knockout/kill, they gain battle points (BP's). These are used to buy upgrades on stats or to purchase more moves (This is where problem #1 comes in, see THE BAD). Way cool.

The fighting game part comes from Versus Mode. This is a cool mode which reminds me of Ergiez (its missing a few things though, see THE BAD). Here, 2-4 players can Duke it out to see who is the best. The three Bouncers keep thier ranking from Story mode, while every other character gains rank depending on how many times you have played and completed story mode.

There is also a team battle mode here, where teams of 2 can battle another for survival. Stages for this mode are taken directly from the story mode, so if you have a favorite battle ground, you can select it and kick butt there.

Lastly is Survival mode. This is pretty standard stuff, with you selecting one character and going thru a gauntlet of enemies until you run out of stamina. On the whole, not a bad selection of modes. (Still, it could be better, see THE BAD)

THE BAD

So what pray tell, is the problem, you ask? Well, in fact the problems are minor but SERIOUSLY annoying.

Lets start with the camera. Oftentimes, its just TOO close to the action. It makes it hard to see what the other Bouncers are doing, assuming that they are doing anything. It stays with the Bouncer you are using, which is nice, but its TOO CLOSE.

The game system is nice and easy to use, but its missing a lot of cool Ergiez features. This is confusing, since a large chunk of the moves are ripped right from it. First off, there are no boxes with powerups, or ANY bits of interactive scenery for example. On the PSX, this could be forgiven, but on the PS2?? This game's predecessor, ON THE PSX, had BOTH!

Some stages are multi-leveled. This is cool, but its useless, since NO character has moves which take atvantage of that fact. Not even the Boss, whom you fight on one of those stages. Why bother with it then?

The AI on the enemies is pitifully stupid, but thats the way its supposed to be. On the other hand, the AI on you're fellow Bouncers is also pitifully stupid, and that is UNFORGIVEABLE!

Since you go thru story mode with all 3 Bouncer's in tow, it only seems to reason that they would assist you right? WRONG! If you are fighting 20 brain dead idiots with a 2 move arsenal, the 2 other bouncers seem to go around kicking EVERYONE's butt. Since only the character who KO's the enemy gets the BP/EXP, they wind up stealing a lot of kills you need.

Unless of course, its a boss fight. Then they stand there like a bunch of idiotic punching bags doing nothing. Sure, the time you need the help the most, they stand there going Huh?

Actually they ocassionally Taunt as well. Which leads to one of the coolest looking, but USELESS attacks in the history of video gaming. You see if there are 3 Bouncers on thier feet, and 2 of them taunt at the same time, a cool 3 person move is pulled of. Good right? Wrong. Despite the complexity and coolness of the move, the damage done by the move is.... 0% And since the final boss can escape this move, you find yourself wanting to push you're partners INTO the final boss. As if to say, ''Get off you're ass and DO SOMETHING!''

And when you die... You know its going to happen in a beat em up, there is no way around it. You will die, and die a lot. The game designers seem to have thought that this wouldn't happen, though, cause they dont make it easy for you to get back into the game. Lets take the final boos fight. Lets say you get KO'ed. Now you wait for the death screen to load, then the title, then the mode select, then the mem card screen... Here let me narrow it down into one line for you:

Death -> Death screen -> Title Movie -> Title Screen -> Mode Select -> Memory Card access -> Memory Card load -> Cutscene -> Cutscene -> Cutscene -> Fight.

Takes about 45 seconds to get back INTO the fight once you left it. There are no continues, and no shortcuts like : 'Load Previous Game?' Consider that it takes lots of tries to beat the final boss (especially after play #2, when you have to face the final boss 3 times instead of 2), you're looking at over an hour of play, just to beat ONE GUY. Thanks Dreamfactory, thanks a LOT. I'd like to meet the programmer who decided this and repeatedly beat his head into the screen while shouting: ''LOAD FUNCTION! WHERE IS IT?''

Also, if you are near an enemy who

Still, an above average effort by Square and Dreamfactory, and well worth the rental.

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Graphics-10.
+ Nice small details
- Not enough of them

Sound-8.
+ Dolby Digital 5.1 sound...
- ...But not on everything? Why put it in then?

Controls-7.
+ Similar to Ergiez.
- And missing a lot of cool Ergiez-isms.

Playability-7.
+ Cool old fashioned Beat em up style game
- With a lot of loading/concept problems.

Replayability-8.
+ 2 Other stories to go thru.
- With few differences.

Overall-8

Amakusa is using his hunting skills to get the programmers who decided to leave out the loading function.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/01, Updated 03/19/01