swanton00's Full Review: InuYasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale for PlayStation 1
I can bet that pretty much all of you have heard of Inuyasha by now. It’s the not so new anime on adult swim that’s been recently sweeping through the US gaining a lot of popularity, especially with the teenage folk. Why is it only gaining popularity now (at least where I live) when it’s been out for like 3 years on adult swim I will never know. Anyway, it’s natural Bandai would have to come out with some kind of game in the US for a new popular anime, so they release this port of what I believe was an older fighter from Japan. Im also not quite sure, but I think this was Inuyashas first release for America. Bandai sure didn’t do much to change it from the Jap version…they even left all the voiceovers in Japanese. Now hear me out on what I think of Inuyasha’s very own fighting game.
A Feudal Fairy Tale
Kagome Higure, a 15 year old school girl is somehow transported back in time to the feudal era of Japan. Here she is believed to be the reincarnation of a priestess named Kikyo from 50 years ago. She meets Inuyasha, a half-demon who wants the Sacred Jewel of the four souls that rests inside of Kagome. The Sacred Jewel is an item that grants great power to anyone with demon blood who uses it, so naturally all the demons wish to get to possession of it. Just after Kagome enters the feudal era, a demon attacked her and the sacred jewel was taken out of her body and smashed into many tiny shards. Now Inuyasha joins Kagome on her quest to find all the jewel shards and bring the jewel back together. Along the way they will meet others who will join their pack and their vicious enemy, Naraku.
The Way Of The Feudal Era
A feudal fairy tale is an old school style 2d fighting game. Two dimensional for the none gamers means that there is no polygons and the game is flat going from one side to the next. There is a small variety of things to do in Inuyasha first title. Our modes of play consist of the very short story mode, two modes for 2 player and Kagome’s backpack, she is a school girl after all. The story mode, or a feudal fairy tale, can easily be beaten in a good 5-6 minutes…yes minutes, not hours. Fighting games aren’t known for there longetivity throughout story modes, but this is ridiculous! Five minutes huh? That’s not very long…regardless there is something to make up for it. Each of the 10, 12 if you count unlockables, characters have some differences to the story and things to unlock. You start off on a map with maybe 10 or so locations. Press the directional buttons to move from location to location and if there is a character or a shining white light on that spot, you will engage in an activity. At the start of each of these, you will be treated to still animations of your character talking to someone else. It will most likely turn out into a fight. If not a fight, then it shall be a mini game. Mini games allow you to get jewel shard if you do good enough. You might have to destroy a rock or knock poison bees out of the air. You will be given a time limit for each game. Even if your character is friendly with who they approached, you will fight for some reason determined within the conversation, likely just for training. A shining white light means that there is jewel shards there to collect.
The object of a feudal fairy tale is to collect a certain number of jewel shards. Like I just said, you can receive jewel shards from locations that have a shining white light on them. Each character has a different amount of jewel shards to collect. Once you have defeated everyone on the map, the shield to the bosses stage will be unlocked. The majority of the characters will face off against Naraku as their final fight but playing as Naraku himself, it will of course be someone different. Naraku fighting off against himself in the story mode would be silly. Certain events can also lead to a two on one or a two on two battle if there is enough characters in that location. Upon completing the feudal fairy tale you are treated to a picture of your character and a screen that tells you how many shards you have collected. If you have reached certain amounts, you will unlock a new character. This is how you will getting all of the characters with the exception of two more secret characters. Now you shall hear about the others modes of this fairy tale.
There is VS Fairy Tale and Dream fairy Tale. VS fairy tale is just selecting any character you want to go against another of your choice, this is a one or two player mode. The dream fairy tale is the same thing just that you can have two on twos, which can also be one or two players. Enough of the fairy tale titles, next we have Myoga’s training. Myoga is a litter critter demon that occasionally gives advice to Inuyasha. This is a standard training mode found in most modern fighters. It’s good just to practice the not so big combos you can pull off with each character. You can adjust what the COM will do. If you want the character to stand there and do nothing, have them guard, crouch and so on. This is good for practicing that certain combo you want to get down. Lastly there is Kagome’s backpack, because what kind of Japanese school doesn’t carry a bag? This is a cool extras menu where you can view unlocked pictures, listen to characters themes, play the mini games found in the story and the coolest thing is changing the characters voices. It allows you to change what they say to each character at the start of battles, during draws and such. It’s crazy because you can have one character say a certain thing to each individual character. Say you want Kagome to say a certain something to Inuyasha and something else to Miroku, do so. It goes down to multiple options for each character. As cool as it is, the things they say aren’t to cool. “I wont hold back on you” or “I’m goanna rip you to shreds!” Not to cool. But as uncool as they are, you wont understand them, all the voices are in Japanese. Now if you do understand the Japanese language then pardon me.
The battle system isn’t so complicated as say an SNK fighter, but its surprisingly more then just a bunch of random whacking until one character has no more life. The object is of course to drain the enemies life bar. To do this, each character is given FOUR! different attacks. Yes, there is merely four special attacks per character along with the simple jab and fierce strike. The special attacks take no skill whatsoever to perform. The square buitton is our key special button and each of the three normal special moves are done by pressing a direction and the square button. I say normal special attacks because the fourth is a super, which is easily done with the same direction button twice and the square. Very simple moves, heck a Haduken is harder. Triangle does a weak but speedy jab attack, perfect for furthering combos. Circles does a stronger but slower fierce strike. X is a counter button. If you hit it at the right time when you get hit with a jab or fierce strike, it will counter the enemy attack staggering them for a second. This can be a very useful tool to get out of combo or get out of the corner. Don’t like the like being right in front of the opponent? Double tab forward or back to dash inward or outward. You can catch your enemy off guard with dashing while striking.
Like I said earlier, the super moves are very simple to do and inflict at least a good 20% of the victims life. When you hit a super, you get to see a pic of the super from the show that will come across the screen for a moment. The game wouldn’t be to fun if all you had to do was perform a super a few times for victory now would it? That’s why no Inuyasha knows better then not to use a super bar in his game. The super bar is easily filled with attacks and guarding enemy attacks. The more jewel shards you have, the quicker it is filled. Certain characters will start the match with jewel shards but they can be knocked off the holder. Each character has one move that knocks shards off the enemy. Strike your opponent with this attack and a shard will fly out. The shard will be one of three colors, the color depends on who it came out of. Blue is a purified crystal, purple is neutral and red is cursed. Some characters like Inuyasha and Sango cant pick up cursed crystals, while Naraku and Kagura cant use Purified shards. Neutral can be used by anyone. Try to pick up a shard that’s not accepted by your character and it will knock you away doing slight damage. The shard will change to a better color for your character after being on the ground for a few seconds. There is a variety of locations from the anime to fight in. You can vist the 1000 year old Sacred Tree, Naraku’s Castle, the Wolfs Den and quite a few more.
What Things Looked Like In The Feudal Era
A feudal fairy tale must really be just a port of an older fighter from Japan because the graphics aren’t quite 2003 technology. The levels are all places taken from the show. I cant really remember how much they might look just like the locations. I guess they are true to the story considering they even have the skeletal remains of Inuyasha’s father in one of the backgrounds. The graphics aren’t really top notch and they are quite pixilated, but even for a few year old PS1 game it shouldn’t look this bad. The characters are detailed damn good though and look true to the show. Well, all except Miroku. His robes to fat and he just don’t look right. The game doesn’t run to fast and the characters move at a low FPS rate. I think I noticed about 3 FPS from when they were standing there breathing. At least the water sparkles. Graphics don’t concern me, but it could look better then this.
Feudal Era Sounds & Music
The soundtrack contains a lot of tracks straight from the show. I havn’t seen the show in sometime so I cant say if all the music is from the show but it’s got the main theme and during the last battle it will play the music from the times Naraku would always appear. The voiceovers are all in Japanese which I cant really say is bad. It sounds cooler hearing “I will kill you!” in japanese then it would in english. The characters usually blurt out the name of there attacks as they do them, or just make a confient laugh such as Naraku does. The talking before each event in the story mode are all in Japanese. Being a fan of that language, I like to hear this stuff in Japanese, it sounds cooler. I’m glad Bandai is to lazy to change the voices when porting the game over.
Matt’s Last Say
Being a fan of the series, I have an appreciation for the game. I wouldn't really recommend it unless your a fan or a collector.
Release: April 10th, 2003
Developer: Bandai
Console: Playstation
Genre: Fighting
1-2 Player(s)
cjrodehau@hotmail.com Store INUYASHA A FEUDAL FAIRY TALE PS1 GAME BRAND NEW, SEALED! Title: InuYasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale Publisher: Bandai Genre/Cate...More at eBay
Based on the comic by the great manga artist, Rumiko Takahashi, Bandai is proud to present INUYASHA for the PlayStation game console! Battle your way ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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