Rival Schools

"Fighting games as good as they come"

A general rule of thumb is that most 2-D fighters feature cool characters with crazy moves and billions of fireballs. Where as most 3-D fighters have realistic characters and moves and fireballs are almost non-exstinent. Well Rival Schools has cool characters, crazy moves, and billions of fireballs. However, it's in 3-D. Never has a ''2-D'' fighter worked in 3-D. So will Rival Schools be able to pull it out?...

You better believe it!

Rival Schools just may be the funniest, wackiest, best fighting game ever made.

The Main Stuff:
Rival Schools is a ''3-D only by looks'' fighting game made by Capcom. Based on the hit arcade game, it came out for the Playstation back in the day, but still has quite a following today. It has two disc, a arcade disk and an evolution disk that has a lot of extra stuff. It is a tag-team game. Though you can't tag in and out like Marvel vs Capcom, you can switch between matches and perform deadly team-up attacks.

Story:
The story is rather well done. The main plot is Taytio High School is attacked and the main character Batsu's mother was kidnapped. So he and his classmates must go search for her, getting into fights with other schools along the way. Other plots include all the weird stuff going on at Justice High School and Batsu's classmate Kyosuke's relationship with the main bad guy Hyo. Every character has a nice little story to them. It's a nice break to get away from the whole tournament thing.

Characters:
Rival Schools has one nice bunch of characters. It is divided among five schools: Taytio is the main average HS, Gedo with has the ruff n tuff kids, Pacific with is for rich American exchange students, Gorin with is a all sports school, and Justice the ''evil'' school. You don't have to pick within your school, but that will add story in between. The characters themselves range from a biker chick to a cheerleading boxer. A baseball player to a volleyball player. A School Nurse to a gym teacher. And Streetfighter fans rejoice. Sakura makes a guess appearance. There are over 20 characters in this game. And the best part is there is no bad character whatsoever.

Gameplay:
The reason why RS is so fun is the gameplay. Once again this is basically a 2-D fighter, but you have the ability to dodge left and right and attack your opponet from different sides. The team-up attacks really make this game fun. By pressing both punch and kick at the same time, your partner runs out and the two of you do a attack togather. Kyosuke and his partner do a bunch of kicks. Shoma uses his baseball bat and slams his opponent across the screen. And Akira's takes a hit of Evangelion. And most of the attacks are easy to pull off which means learning this game isn't that hard. But if you are a RS master or a newbie, it is still fun.

Extra Stuff:
This game really shines with this. If you have the Japanese version, there is an entire create a character mode. That was taken out in the US, but at least Capcom gave us a bunch of pre-made characters that are opened up after every completion on the evolution disk. Also on that disk are a lot of mini-games. A home-run mode, a volley-ball game, two different soccer shoot outs, a mode where you are tested on all your game skills, and a massage parlor! (ok, that one is really weird) Also there are a few secret outfits and artwork. Each character has two endings. There is alot of stuff to do in this game.

Graphics and Music:
Nothing too special here. There are a few really nice ( and funny) anime cutscenes. And the opening music is really nice. Besides that, nothing noteworthy. It may not be the best, but it sure ain't bad either.

Overall:
Rival Schools is probably the most fun I've ever had in a game and is the main reason why I'm into fighting games. I've been playing this since it came out, and I recommend if you don't have one you go out and get one.
10/10

THANK YOU CAPCOM!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/03, Updated 03/28/03