Let's Get Ready to Rumble... Fish?


There's no fish, er, peace on these streets...

I picked up The Rumble Fish for the PS2 over the weekend. It's a 2-D fighting game from Sammy, the same guys who did the popular Guilty Gear fighting game series. Rumble Fish has a unique look thanks to how the individual body parts of the characters are separately rendered and animated, giving the animation very fluid movements. Aside from the bright, well-animated fighters, the game boasts of a fighting system with quite a few elements such as guard breaks, super combos and desperation moves, air combos and advanced moves.
Which basically translates to lots of stuff you have to figure out if you want to beat this game. Button mashers and newbies may get through several of the CPU opponents, but most probably you'll meet a roadblock in the form of a fighter who will overwhelm you with combos and throws. ARGH! Anyway, I managed to reach the boss and got my ass totally kicked every time. BAH. Cheap supercombo no-lag high priority bastard. Almost as bad as SNK bosses. What's the story behind all the fighting? Who knows.

Anyway, the roster is kinda smalll- about nine regular guys and gals that range from your standard 'Ryu' hero character Zen, two girls dressed in traditional kimonos and hakamas (Kaya is the demure, mysterious one while red-haired Hikari is the more open and tomboyish), a big bruiser named Orville, an old man, a kid, a street punk, a bishonen and finally a busty nurse named Garnet rounds out the cast. The art for the game is very anime-esque and cool, which is one of the reasons why I picked this up. Still, it seems to be a pretty slick game, so I'll try to figure out the system and try to unlock the stuff that this game has to offer. Hope a US version is on the way though... whole lotta kanji...