The Bouncer

"A fun game... while it lasts!"

Being a Bouncer sounds like a good thing after playing this game… no, maybe not.

Square Soft. Whenever you hear this name you think Role-Playing Games based on the highest stature in gaming. Big name titles like Final Fantasy, the Chrono series, and etc. have all proved time and time again that Square Soft rules all when it comes to ambitious, fully playable titles. However, Square Soft is not really honored for their other titles outside of role playing games. Titles like the Arcade smash but PlayStation flop Ehrgeiz never really were known by many and many claimed that Square should stray far, far away from Action-themed games.

But Square Soft did not listen.

In 2001 Square Soft had released an Action Brawler-type title called the Bouncer. While Square isn’t known for Action titles, the Bouncer may come as an exception. The Bouncer is a fun title, but it is almost completely trampled by its faults, which tamper with the game and bring it down. Many claimed that the Bouncer was a cheap way to cash in on America’s youth, but underneath it all, though, the Bouncer is still a nice try for beat-‘em-up related titles on such a new console, the PlayStation 2, which almost makes most of its faults forgettable… or does it?

The Bouncer starts off with a quick news brief. Here they talk about the new Mikado and his plans to control the human race with his new bio-experiments and such. They also talk about his plans with his control over the satellite (which will somehow make him more powerful). Then the scene abruptly shifts over to a girl, Dominique, who strolls down the neighboring hood of Dog Street and meets a bouncer, Volt. They then go into a bar and meet the other bouncers of the bar, Sion and Kou. Dominique says she has a present for Sion and she soon gives him a pendant. Then a twisted crew came into the bar and kidnapped Dominique. Doing anything to get her back, Sion, Volt, and Kou go on a mission to save Dominique and to put a pure stop at the supreme ruler called Dauragon C. Mikado. The rest of the story in this game changes amusingly with each passing cinema in this game. At one scene you will see an old foe of Volt’s, Echidna, while in the next cinema you would have killed the person who abducted Dominique, Mugetsu.

Much like the story, the gameplay is almost just as good (well… sort of). As a selected bouncer you will engage in fight scenes in which you must take out all the enemies, or to scenes in which you escort Dominique out of harm’s way by trying your best not to get killed, or not to get Dominique killed. In about each scene you will take on about 5-6 enemies—enemies consist of fake security whippersnappers to huge robots that primarily make your character a midget in comparison. Enemies aren’t really that smart, though, so taking them down is pretty easy. Other then the enemies are the bosses—which you will most definitely have to fight almost every passing five to ten minutes. Bosses are a bit smarter then the enemies but if teamwork is used between your allies then the boss should be down pretty fast.

Control in this game is top-notch. I didn’t really read the instruction manual, but almost immediately I had found out how all the controls work. By pressing the several buttons on the Dual Shock 2, your character can taunt, punch, and kick his way out of desperate measures. Sometimes you can even link these attacks to form better moves like leer jabs and better kicks. However, if your character still isn’t strong enough to tackle out the later enemies then there is a way to change that. By beating up more enemies you will get Bouncer Points. Bouncer Points, also known as BP, are evaluated at the end of the area and these Bouncer Points help make your character stronger by raising his life meter, his defense power, and his offensive power. By powering up your character will also go through ranks, which will also supremely make him more powerful. While in your first game you won’t expect to get to Rank A, nor Rank S immediately well… don’t worry you are not supposed to. You are only allowed to get to the higher ranks by beating this game several times—a task, which is easier, said then promptly done.

So let’s recap here. You pick one of three characters and you go through a mode where you can increase the stats of the character you chose. But wait a second… if only one character gets the stat upgrade, what about the others? Are the others just lowlife bouncers with weak health and power? The answer is yes. If you only work on upgrading one character, then the others would be weak and would almost serve no purpose in battle. For example, if you constantly pick Kou then constantly Kou would be the only one who will probably survive, while Sion will suffer from low health and Volt would suffer from low power. So to be truly successful in this game you would almost have to pick different characters each time if you truly plan to finish this game within an hour or two.

But wait a second… did I just say ‘finish this game within an hour or two?’ That is right. The Bouncer, while filled with cinemas and save screens, is rather short and rather easy. In fact I finished this game in over 3 hours and most of the time was spent on the one minute save screens and the rest on the two to three minute cinemas. Fight scenes also don’t last for long. When you are fighting a crew of security guards you will probably finish them off within a minute. The big challenge comes later when you are constantly fighting bosses and robots, but that still doesn’t do any justice to this game. Also, if there was more challenge in this game then the short length would have been easily forgotten. Games like Final Fight and Double Dragon both had short length, but their difficulty was very hard to master (especially the Arcade version of Final Fight). The camera also becomes a pain in the ass, too. While I had no problems with it in the beginning of the game… later on, though, is where it starts to get annoying (especially when fighting the last boss, Dauragon, or when fighting the huge security robots which I’m always babbling about).

Once you have done everything that needs to be done in the Story Mode feature of this game you will be able to interact to the other features that this game presents to you. These features are the game’s V.S Mode and the game’s Survival Mode. In Vs. Mode you pick a character and must fight another. Here character’s are smaller then what they look like in the Story Mode version of this game, but nonetheless Vs. Mode is still a great feature that was implemented in this game (a screening that shows that this game was meant for more then one player). Survival Mode is also great. Here you also pick a character and then you fight against opponents in a specific area. By beating the opponent(s) in one area, you will then be appointed to the next and so on and so on.

Despite a few gameplay problems, graphically, though, this game kills most of the competition. This game’s graphics are splendidly done and well preserved for this next generation system. Characters are detailed to the fullest—with chains and tattoos that fill up their bodies and such. Environments are also a treat, too. Each environment feels truly lifelike and that’s definitely a good thing. What are even better are the cinema sequences. The cinemas surpass anything seen on the original PlayStation and they closely rival that seen in Square’s more successful game, Final Fantasy X. On this level Square Soft has really outdone themselves.

Audibly, this game is also a treat… and do not forget that this was the first PlayStation 2 game to feature Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound (a blessing to big audio freaks with big high-end stereos). The sound effects are your average fair of brawler type effects. Things like small gibberish and some edited screaming are just part of these sound effects. The voice acting, however, is a bit laughable and is almost a joke to what Square Soft had did in Final Fantasy X. Many of the lines are easily predicted and the melodrama that is near the end is just sickening (just down right sickening). Other then that, though, there is plenty of oomph and of satisfaction to go around to fully please PlayStation 2 owners.

Overall, Square’s ‘the Bouncer’ is a great game that indigently is brought down by some more of its obscure faults. There are some good points but just the faults are already enough to not guaranteeing a purchase. However, the exquisite graphics and high-end sound may impress some, while others will just go ahead and buy this game for the fact that it is a brawler (don’t see to many of those everyday, do you?). All in all, though, the Bouncer is a hell of a game but I just wish that Square Soft would have added a few more things to this game. Level interactivity, more multi-player options, a slightly longer Story Mode quest, and other external benefactors that would have made this game more of a success, rather then a letdown or a game that's really a huge movie (like everyone calls this game) in disguise. There would always be a next time, just not now (and definitely not now for Square).

7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/02, Updated 09/03/02