Battle Arena Toshinden

"A classic that stands the test of time."

I remember vividly the day I got my first PlayStation. I carefully opened the box not to damage any of the precious contents inside. When I finally got the box open, to my surprise I found a demo disk and a full game. I remember popping the game into the PlayStation, firing it up and staring in awe. Before the PlayStation, I had never seen a 3D fighting game much less played one. Battle Arena Toshinden gave me a little taste of what the PlayStation could do.

Graphics - 7
For the time this game was made, these were awesome graphics and they are still great by today's standards. Like I said, this was one of the first 3D fighting games on the market but it was done extremely well. The environments were well done, the characters were modeled with great detail. This game even features ring-outs (something which most people hate, I don't know why). Ring-out are essentially the end of the ring and if you fall off the side, you loss.

Graphics on PS2 - 9
I'm not saying this is a drastic change, but it's a pretty profound one. Pop this game into your PS2, and breathe it some new life.

Sound - 10
The music is great and the sound effects are good. Everything fits nicely together here. Each character has their own little battle cries like all fighting games. Each arena has it's own music to it and there are a total of ten arenas (each character has their own arena).

Characters - 7
There are 8 (10 with a cheat) and no way to unlock new ones. True each character is well done in his/her own way, but still. They could've added more but I guess they ran out of ideas or were cramped for time or something. Each character also has two sets of outfits. The standard in all fighting games.

Control - 9
They had the PS controller and used it well. This game is as easy to control as Tekken and you can even program you shoulder buttons just like Tekken.

Replay - 6
Not very good I'm afraid. This game is a good game for two people and that's about the extent of it. This game lacks the feature to save your progress (as many of the first PS games do). But it is a fun game to play through by yourself once or twice.

Overall - 7
Good starter game, good choice to have this as a pack-in on Sony's part. I even still have this game sitting on my shelf collecting dust. It's not just a game, it's part of history. For this game, I recommend you play it at a friends. Not a must have or good rent being it's so old.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/01, Updated 07/20/01