Yah yah you are DRUGGED if you think those games arent underrated. I’m not just talking one aspect. I mean everything. Sales, gameplay, art design and even geography.
Psychic Force 2012 was mentioned. That game is one of my fave fighters and guess what? To this day it has a solid following BUT, only in Japan. There is tourney footage as recent as a year ago
Why not in the U.S?
Again I look forward to doing this. Gonna be alot of research involved and I cant wait.
And the reason Rival Schools is the first game is because its such a HUGE oddity. Everyone has played it. I have never met anyone that had ANYTHING negative to say about it.
True. Plus I disagree with their tiers anyway. I think Zedd and Ninja MegaZord tie for number 1. Assuming Ooze is banned.
And he is always banned.
Actually, this is a good opportunity to do some “interviewing”.
How do you guys feel about Rival Schools? What are its strengths and weaknesses? When was the first time you played it? What thoughts and emotions did it invoke? How did it compare to other dominant fighters of the time like Tekken 3, X-men Vs Street Fighter, Alpha 2, ect?
In terms of aesthetics, what are your thoughts? Graphics, VA, sound, art and music. Like it, love it, or hate it?
If you kept playing or purchased the game, why did you do so? What drew you into the game and why do you feel the game didnt sell as well as many other fighters during its time?
Finally what is the competitive merit of the game? Unbalanced trash or solid game with enough depth to warrant tourney play?
Soh85 on YT used to have a shit ton of match footage for old/obscure fighting games, but apparently he just set everything to private due to some sort of copyright issues, which is gay. Most of it was probably nicked from A-CHO anyway, so I guess you can find them there.
But anyway while an idea like this seems pretty nice since I’m a fan of games like what OP wants to bring into the light too, I just think there isn’t a lot of high-level knowledge here in the western world when it comes to old and really obscure games that never took off as I wouldn’t take random GGPO/Supercade players as any sort of high quality information source. The truth is that nobody plays these games seriously and competetively, so the level of knowledge is at best medium, or whatever one can read from GameFAQ’s/random message boards/SRK Wiki and find in practice mode, hardly enough to fill a whole video any more than superficially IMO. And besides, even if you would get this thing started and it would be good, it’s not like anybody would give a shit or play these games any more than people do now, which I’m pretty salty about because I’d play Karnov or Breakers all day if it was possible.
I dont get it, why discourage information being shared? the fact a game not being brocken down is exactly why any information shared.
I think your missing the OP point. I don’t think idea is to make other play these games but be aware of them. Everything else is just a bonus.
Like my personal goal is to not make people play phantom breaker but Inform people of it. I hear people call phantom breaker a bad game but not for its actual faults but of poor understanding or just ignorant mind set.
With all of the above proving the importance of Japanese computers, it has to be asked: why aren’t they archived online, like say the Spectrum? Well, they are, but the files are tucked away into deep and dark corners of the Internet. The majority of games were dumped in the 1990s and shared on BBSs and message boards, often embedded inside JPG images to deceive automated servers which would otherwise delete ZIP and RAR files. Nowadays, p2p networks are the preferred distribution method, but Japanese p2p software goes to great lengths to maintain deniability and anonymity, and can be frustrating and difficult to use. Overall, the Japanese retro scene is a much more private and cautious place than the free-wheeling nature of Western sites like the Pirate Bay.
The main English source for anything to do with Japanese computers is the Tokugawa forums, which I visited for information. Another reason for lack of downloads, as one insider reluctantly told me, is that about a decade ago, prior to Tokugawa’s formation, there had been a collaboration between East and West to dump and share Japan’s retro computer games. Except the games ended up being sold online by one of the Western members… Apparently, Japan has yet to forgive this treason.
I asked Tokugawa’s founder, Ben, about some of the other difficulties found in the scene. He explained, “You have to know how to run a DOS game using Japanese DOS; how to install a Japanese game on a virtual HDD from several floppies; run a game in basic mode, since sometimes that game was originally a tape, and the list goes on and on. TOSEC tried to establish a data-set for several Japanese retro computers, but for some games, just because the save file on disk 12 was changed by 2 bytes, we ended up with another set for the whole game. There is a wide variety of dump formats for almost all machines, well over 10 for PC98, and emulators don’t come with English directions.”
Tokugawa’s resident PC88 expert, Danjuro, also spoke about the difficulties in dumping games, explaining that you need a 5 and 1/4 inch Amiga drive to read the floppies correctly – many also need to be cracked afterwards.
Other members also answered questions, and everyone shared software freely. But there’s a sadness visiting the Tokugawa forums, as you realise that all the hard work in collecting over 5,000 scanned covers and manuals, screengrabbing various games, plus dumping, renaming and organising the thousands of games themselves, all falls to the callous whims of ImageShack and RapidShare, and that the vast databank of knowledge accumulated over hundreds of forum pages is all at risk of a Home-of-the-Underdogs style disappearance. Were it not for the relentless hard work of these few fans, there would be little online in English regarding the history of Japanese computers and the games which you will find nowhere else.
Its Actually pretty funny you brought this to attention I myself have been doing reviews and breakdowns of classic fighters that I have a bit of knowledge on myself… I was actually gonna do something pretty similar to this… If I can help out or be apart of this… I would be very interested in helping!
Here is example of videos I have been and plan on doing more…
Yeah i love that game man!! lol I saw no one else was sharing any detailed character breakdowns about it…So I thought I could do that and maybe more people will be willing to give it a chance! lol We should collaborate on something man
Zedd was the top (non boss) character back when people used to play on ZBattle; he was uncombo-able and ‘Captain Corridor’ storm was one of the best offensive and defensive tools in the game. Ninja could force unblockable knockdown off a jump in though, and his crossup was pretty ambiguous too.
Worst thing about the game was the tech throw system: if you teched, whoever mashed (or turboed) hardest won. Going for tick throws would end up being dangerous for the attacker.
Never played Rival Schools seriously, but I can give you a few thoughts. I was around when it was released and remember seeing it in a few arcades.
I really disliked the visuals. The character models were very ugly to me, just so blocky. The backgrounds were okay, but paled in comparison to the other Capcom games of the time.
I also greatly dislike schoolgirls/boys in fighting games so a game full of them was a huge turn off personally.
The actual gameplay was kind of fun, though I only played it a few times in the arcade while I was waiting for other games.
The first reason probably contributed to its lack of sales, the whole schoolkids thing with a ton of different personalities/powers is also a more Japanese orientated thing so I don’t think it would have as much appeal in the states.
