Rival Schools

"One of the most revolutionary fighting games ever (I may win TotD with this synopsis)"

After a big time, I came back reviewing ... here I am again, to review one of my favorite fighting game series, Rival Schools. One of the most underrated fighting game series ever, but the one of the coolest too, this game is simply awesome, Rival Schools for psx, although not having somethings that PJ has, it is still better than its sucessor. The formula for this success is not much explainable. but now let's go to the review

-GRAPHICS AND SOUND/FX-
One thing that impressed me, was how awful and outdated the graphics are, I saw some screenshots on Gamespot and I must confess I denied on buying it since it has shameful graphics.
Guy, the graphics are plain horrible for a fighting game, and it was published around 98, why can't Capcom make games like Tekken. even Soul Edge had better graphics than it and why was capcom so lazy to improve graphics. The characters look blocky, very blocky, as if they were made years before, due to the blocky characters, we have some stupid views of some, like Hinata, she was supposed to seem cute but with that awful face ... while others seem atleast tolerable like Tifanny Lords or Kyoko, but overall the graphics aren't pleasing. But don't worry, the fast paced action will make you forget the graphics, or someday ... you might even like it ... maybe.
The sound seems also outdated at best, not really that admirable regarding sound, but although not being great is not annoying, unless you hear it much, like Goryn stage etc.

-GAMEPLAY-
Rival schools has one of the most revolutionary gameplay ever. You may already played this game and I just review for fun of sharing my ideas. well.
Well, the rival schools of playstation is way better than its sucessor, oh why, you ask me, let me tell ya, although not having the same lots of characterrs that PJ has, RVS has a faster gameplay than its sucessor, if you notice, the gameplay is faster this is good, not that PJ has a slow gameplay, but RVS is faster. also the story is way more developed than PJ, but I'll talk about gp now.
If you played RVS before, I don't need to tell about team up and team party, but if you never played, I will tell, RVS uses a new engine similar to the Vs. Series, the tag team feature, you can call a partner to help you, pressing R1+R2 you call your partner, so he'll perform a team up party, an extra attack that causes big damage against the enemy, unluckily, there isn't 3rd member so there is not also party up tecnique, also using just 2 characters (1 tag) isn't so good, it doesn't give you many options etc, just being able to choose 2 characters to play a battle.
The modes of gameplay are very bland, you have arcade, vs and training mode, the rest is options and record, pretty bland uhn, well you have more options when you put CD2, the evolution disk, there you have tournament and league battle (like PJ had), they both don't fit that well because the number of characters you have, to use tournament you must use your partners, is impossible to not use repeated characters. There are also, lesson mode, which Hayato teaches you some fighting lessons, you really don't need that do fight, nothing a training mode can't win, Cooperative mode and team battle sux because you need to play with friends.
In the new arcade mode, is way different than the normal disk one, there's no story here, and I dunno why this modes is here, it'd've been training mode instead.
The character selection is pretty good, but not that pleasing, there are so few awesome characters (not few, 4 normal teams, 3 characters per team, plus Justice High School that has 4 members), sometimes thw CS lets you confuse, making you try to choose what character to usee, is pretty hard to do it because most of the charaters are excellent.
Well capcom added somethings to collect, like images of loading time (oow there is a image with Kyoko his her legs crossed), The images are pretty useless for me, except the one I did mention.
Well, This game is too hard man, just play the game even in easy mode and see how hard the game becomes.
The secrets you receive are ridiculous, for example, you can unlock some secret ''naughty'' costumes of Tifanny, Kyoko, Hinata and Natsu, just beating the game with them, but not that worthy, they just have some extra team up attacks etc.

-Story-
If I tell the story is about a man wanting to conquer the world you won't like it, but If I tell some details you will get pretty interested.
Well, I won't spoil much, but just give a try and see the dialogues that the characters have in the story (to see a story, just select 2 members from the same team). You'll love the story.

-SCORING-
Graphics: 54%
Sound: 78%
Gameplay: 96%
Extras: 76%
Difficulty: 88%
Replay Value: 90%

Closing Statement
Rival Schools although not being as perfect as PJ, the gameplay is faster and etc. it has a very good story that stated it all. despite the poor graphics. RVS is an excellent buy.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/02, Updated 01/13/02