Battle Arena Toshinden (PlayStation)


Battle Arena Toshinden is a fighting game that was pretty innovative for its time. It was touted as having brought fighting games in to true 3-D due to it's awesome sidestepping and fighting in a 3D environment. Characters also fight with weapons similar to in Soul Calibur, but before Soul Calibur.



Like most fighting games, you press buttons to attack your opponents. You can also hold the back arrow to guard or press the shoulder buttons to sidestep. Or side flip, or cartwheel, or spin. Moving around in this game is almost too easy and you'll easily find yourself further or closer than you intended to be. You can also run at your opponents and knock them off the screen with attacks, or be knocked off if you're unlucky. Beware that the edge of the arenas are quite slippery and you can easily find yourself falling off.



The story is incredibly generic. Fighters gather to fight... for stuff.... and things. Many have reasons. This reasons are not overtly explained and you probably have to look for them. Likewise the ending is just as generic, although you do get to see a special move by your chosen character. In this "story" mode, which is basically just 1P mode, you have to fight every character in the game, followed by Gaia, the boss character. As in most fighting games, you can set the difficulty and round count, etc. It's rather short and doesn't take long to playthrough. There's also a 2 player mode, obviously, and an option to just fight the computer. There are also a few unlockable characters.



Characters:
(In no particular order)
Eiji: From Japan, uses a Byakko Katana
Kayin: From Scotland, uses Excalibur
Sofia: From Russia, uses a whip
Rungo: From United States, uses a large club
Fo: From China, uses iron claws
Mondo: From Japan, uses a Seiryu Spear
Duke: From France, uses a large two-handed sword
Ellis: From Japan, uses twin dirks

Overall this game is clearly older and not up to today's standards, or even the games that came out a few years after it. With that being said, it was very fun. It controlled almost comically, the voice acting was cheesy and awful and amazing all at the same time, the characters look rough, and the backgrounds are horrendous. But the game is incredibly fun and charming and it was a lot of fun to play another piece of fighting game history. The game is incredibly cheap (around $1 US on Amazon) and I would highly recommend it if you want some lighthearted and mindless fun and entertainment if you enjoy fighting games.

Verdict:
LIKED IT A LOT