Again to Kobe

I discussed in my take a look at Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness that its developer, Konami Laptop Leisure Kobe, received a little bit of a nasty rap from their work. Nonetheless, even in these typically maligned Castlevania efforts, there’s a spark of life that was misplaced in future 3D entries within the sequence.

It made me curious concerning the developer’s different efforts, however it wasn’t my intention to maneuver straight onto one other one among their titles. Nonetheless, when the credit rolled on Rakugakids, I noticed I will need to have subconsciously picked up the cue since this Japan-only N64 title was developed by Konami Laptop Leisure Kobe.

Rakugakids has at all times fascinated me. The N64 was type of a horrible console when it got here to combating video games. There have been some respectable titles, however piled on prime of that was a heap of absolutely the worst. Rakugakids isn’t near being aggressive with one of the best fighters of the period, however its unforgettable visible model makes the expertise worthwhile.

The following mainstay

Rakugakids is your typical six-button arcade combating setup. The underside row of buttons are punches of various velocity and power, whereas the highest row is all kicks. There’s additionally the R-button, which triggers your “magical assault,” primarily only a tremendous transfer. Particular strikes require your normal quarter-circle/half-circle flicks. It’s a fairly pleasant setup. The characters don’t have very numerous particular strikes, so it’s somewhat pleasant to rookies.

The one maddening a part of the controls is that in the event you’re holding ahead and hit the kick button, it turns into a throw. When you simply need to kick, it’s important to keep in mind to not maintain ahead whereas doing it. It’s not a giant downside, however it makes the punches a bit simpler to make use of for organising combos, because you’re not working the danger of out of the blue hugging the opponent.

We’d want Chris Moyse right here for a full evaluation on Rakugakids’ mechanical chops. I’m merely a dilettante relating to combating video games. By my approximation, Rakugakids isn’t egregiously sloppy, however it most likely gained’t develop into a mainstay of combating recreation tournaments.

Cheese, ham, and onions

The place Rakugakids stands aside, nonetheless, is with its aesthetics. The story entails youngsters discovering magical crayons that they use to create proxies to beat the crap out of one another. Something they draw with the crayon involves life! There’s truly just one unhealthy man. It’s the neighborhood bully who stole a magical crayon to create his personal bootylicious drawing. The much less problematic youngsters are attempting to get the crayons again, however first they should… have a event or one thing?

Anyway, the result’s that the fighters have a childhood doodle look to them. They’re additionally imaginative sufficient that they cross for one thing that the diseased thoughts of a youthful monster would give you. I began of with Jerry and his fighter, Robotic C.H.O. Not fully certain what C.H.O stands for. He was an okay character however a bit gradual. I suppose it was my mistake for not realizing how superior Beartank is.

Beartank is so much like Avenue Fighter III’s Remy in that they don’t appear to care a lot about what’s happening. Their conduct additionally resembles a bear. They solely have two modes: napping and terrorizing people. I can relate to that.

Rakugakids options solely 9 fighters, with two of them locked in the beginning. That isn’t so much, however it’s not precisely extraordinary for the period. I wouldn’t say any of them are duds. How might they be? You will have a cowboy, who’s a bit much like an astronaut. There’s a cat. One is only a woman with a hen on her head. It’s fairly rad.

Bootylicious

What’s spectacular about Rakugakids is that it doesn’t look horrible by at the moment’s requirements. The visuals of the N64’s library have aged about in addition to gravy, however Rakugakids type of holds up. It helps that it didn’t follow simply being visually distinctive. Konami received a bit artful with the graphics, with one of many levels being in entrance of a mirror for no purpose other than the truth that it’s cool. It sells the flat look by placing most levels proper subsequent to a wall so a shadow will probably be forged onto it.

There’s this bizarre possibility within the settings the place you possibly can change the combatants so that they aren’t coloured in. It’s neat, however I don’t know why you’d flip off the fill.

It additionally runs and animates actually easily, which I’m completely not used to seeing on the console. Like, examine it to Clayfighter 63⅓, which apparently needed to lower lots of animation to suit on an N64 cartridge. Rakugakids doesn’t have that downside. It seems to be and strikes fantastically. I don’t know if I’ve given fairly sufficient breathless reward to persuade you of how spectacular it’s.

Coaching Mode

Rakugakids is just not probably the most ingenious recreation, certain, and it’s possibly a bit too easy for its personal good. You will get fairly far by button mashing, particularly contemplating the flashiest strikes are executed with one button. The AI is not less than ok that it doesn’t fail the shin check, however they’re additionally a bit manic.

The one factor that it does that’s a bit totally different is assist you to practice a CPU. You possibly can go into coaching mode and exhibit all of your greatest strikes. The AI apparently learns from this, after which you possibly can allow them to free on their very own right into a particular model of story mode. It’s… type of dumb. That AI isn’t convincing by way of the way it discovered from you, and I don’t see the worth of it in comparison with simply watching two computer-controlled characters go at it. I really feel like this sounded actually good on paper, and when it turned out to be a lame concept, somebody simply wouldn’t let it go, so it made it in.

Beartank lives

Rakugakids by no means actually made it throughout the ocean to North America. It was, nonetheless, launched in PAL territories. The Japanese textual content is basically unique to the story narration, nonetheless. Even the settings menu is in English, so I’m undecided why it wasn’t launched over right here.

That is simply a type of cool obscure video games. The idea is exclusive sufficient to face out, its visuals and persona are very interesting, so although it doesn’t have prime shelf gameplay, it’s nonetheless a worthwhile endeavor. Konami Laptop Leisure Kobe clearly had some affection for the property, since Beartank would discover his manner into cameo appearances inside Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Konami Krazy Racers. Sadly, after the developer was re-absorbed into Konami Osaka, the writer would overlook all concerning the recreation. That’s not stunning, contemplating it’s Konami, they usually need folks to overlook they had been ever good.

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