Battle Arena Toshinden 3

"That's the Game I've been whaiting for."

First of all I want to say: this is not a perfect game, and that's the reason for giving it a 9 and not 10. My introduction is pretty linear and clear: How can it be that so many people around the net disliked this Masterpiece of a Fighting Game? The reasons are, mainly:
1) This people, maybe, never liked Street Fighter and its sequels.
2) They don’t like the BAT series at all.
3) This is not their kind of Fighting Game, I mean, this kind of games should be divided in 2 different ways: Realistic games (Virtua Fighter, Tekken and so on) and absolutely fantastic games (Fireballs, energy shots, etc. just like Toshinden and Street Fighter).
Now let’s go deeper in the review.

Presentation (4):
Oh my, flat, flat, flat! Hardly seen a presentation that bad realized. Usually, if you saw PS1 game’s presentations in the past, you see the game graphic of today’s games on PS2. That’s not the case. The graphic’s so bad you’d never want to see a Toshinden for PS2 realized like that! Don’t even speak of the animations. Characters in the presentation look like toys, not real persons (have an exeption, maybe, for Vermillion). It is long and says nothing, also, there’s no good use of textures too. Forget about the presentation, it is really a baaaaad thing. Also the sound’s inappropriate.

Gameplay (10):
Wow. Woooooah! This game really shines in gameplay over all the others BAT in the series. When I played Toshinden 1 I said: Hey, this is really a nice game, good graphic and all but one problem: the collisions with other characters. They looked plain, no real reaction from the opponent and so on. The same feeling came, sadly, with the second episode: the only thing making you understand that you did Hit the opponent was it’s sound: uha! No timing at all, the opponent did not stand in pain for a pair of seconds, giving you the opportunity of making a combo; infact, I found no combo system at all in BAT2! What a sadness. Then arrives the third game called Toshinden: this is a revolution, under all of the aspects! Combos? Lot of. They’re called Strings here and you’ll find a lot of them, even if you don’t use a FAQ or guide. Controls are intuitive and addictive, special moves are done as usual (Street Fighter stile) while Super Moves (In this game they’re Overrides, Life Bombs and Desperations) are to be done by pressing more than one button at the same time; Example: Triangle + Square. Many says it is too simple but not in my opinion, if compared to the game stile: you want to combo a Super move with a special? You can, but just because Supers are not so difficult as in other games: another thing to consider: super moves are graphically wonderful, but does not inflict a great amount of damage, so, it is not bad for them to be done that simply.
What else to say? Many think that the game did not improve at all: that’s, completely, WRONG! Look at the combo system: seen any in the others Toshindens? Not only: Arena became closed and not opened: what changes? First of all now the game does feel really a 3D game and not a 2D with 3D polygons: you can use any part of the arena to fight and slam your opponent against the wall, making it easy to continue with a HUGE combo, for the joy of you’re eyes and brain. New Super moves where added too, and I mean, really NEW! In this version you see, for example, the Life Bombs and the Secret Moves! Great idea, specially the last, there are, in fact, a number of hidden special moves, great to be seen and difficult to be performed but, also looking at the damage, most of times they’re worth a try.
Speaking of the Arenas: there’s even the floor! You can throw an opponent on the floor and see it smash against it! Ehe he, that’s really funny, believe me, when you connect such a move in a combo! Absolutely the most funny of the series and not only: you’ll hardly find a Fighting game that funny on the market! Even on a PS2 or Xbox.
Many says the problem of this game is that the gameplay did not improve: I have already described a great number of improvements but think of it: did Street Fighter improve a bit in a thousand of episodes? Basically, not at all. Only some minor changes where applied. And that’s the most acclimated game in the history of Fighting games! This should teach something on that point: if a concept works, why should you completely change it? Just add some new stuff but you can’t play around it too much. I, and many others like me, like this game because it’s Toshinden stile!

Characters (9):
This should go into the gameplay but really deserves a comment on its own, believe me. How many? More than 30! A huge amount. And here’s one of the bad things: Many of these chars are merely mirrors of the others: like in Tekken 3, you know. When you finish the game with a certain character, you obtain another Char which is basically the same one with a different costume, a different body, different voice but the same moves. So, in my opinion, this kind of chars has not even to be counted. But, and that’s the surprise, many of this hidden chars are not mirrors at all! You can bet Adam (A nice Robot) from Rungo, and this char has really nothing of the original Rungo at all! The same thing can be said of Vermillion (you can obtain it by finishing the game with Nagisa), Tau (Only some moves similar to Gaia) and Shultz (completely different from Chaos). Then there are also a number of original but hidden chars! You can get Sho, Veil, Abel, and so. The variety of chars is really a great thing. After all also the mirrors are not bad! For example, Eiji’s mirror is someone similar to a pirate! You don’t like Japanese samurai people? Use this one which is dressed up as a pirate and even speaks like it! Or, for example, there’s a monkey…. I would never use a monkey character to fight, but it’s mirror is a nice, cute looking and blue haired lady! That’s all another think and I use it of course. Get the issue? Variety is the Key of Toshinden 3! Not a 10, in Characters, but only due to the presence of too many mirrors (After all they could at list change a pair of Super moves, no? Capcom did it for Star Gladiators! That’s a shame… could have been a 10).

Graphic (9):
What do you expect from a PS1? Tekken 3, of course, but remember that even if characters where a state of art for a PS1, the stages where bidimensional! Oh, oh, what a shame. In Toshinden 3, instead, Backgrounds are full 3D environments, and they shine. They shine for graphic accuracy and, specially, for game functionality. I mean, you don’t have the idea of how many kind of variants combos you can create using the walls! Tekken 3? Nothing but a nice looking 2D game, realized using 3D polygons. The graphical lack of Toshinden 3, which suggests the 9 and not a 10? Animations. Specially standing animations are really badly realized. You can notice the incredible difference that occurs between a Motion Capture realized game such as Tekken 3 and one of that kind. All the rest’s really great. And also the chars concepts are great. As I said, variation’s one of the strongest point of this title.

Sound (9):
I’m not an expert in sound but: this is really good. Specially musics, they’re great and created in a number of different stiles! You could really make a great Soundtrack out of this title. Some of the voices are not that good. A little too plain, maybe, but only some of them, so a 9 should do.

Replay (10):
How many times would you play a game like that? More than a million times! First of all is to be said: don’t download game saves! It’s all for your sake. You have to finish the game so many times, to obtain all of the extra chars and modes, that it is really addicting! Once you’ll have completed the collection of Chars and Modes, the game still shines! And it does it like a little sun: think of playing it in a Versus mode with a friend who likes fighting games! I can tell you, it’s amazing. You’ll never want to stop it.

Lasting appeal (9):
This game’s great in all of it’s parts, or almost every one of it. It’s really worth the buy. Don’t just rent it, listen to me: if you liked the others BATs in the Series, this will drive you crazy, literally. Go get it somewhere, it’s too much fun.
The only really disappointing thing is the presentation, but hey, who cares? Just skip it and go on fighting! When you play you can feel the adrenaline like in no other title, for real! Then, invite a number of friends at home and engage a monstrous VS mega Tournament. This is absolutely one of my preferred PS1 games ever.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03