Ranma ½: Hard Battle - Ryoga Playthrough

Описание: I got something slightly different in store in this video. This time I play another game that I haven't played in a very long time: Ranma ½: Hard Battle (Ranma ½: Bakuretsu Rantōhen in Japan). Safe to say, it is based on the popular manga/anime of the same name in which our main character, Ranma Saotome is in forced marriage to the daughter of his father's friend, Akane Tendo. It would come later that we find that Ranma has been cursed by falling in an ancient spring during a training exercise and when doused in cold water will turn into a girl. Afterwards, insert an assload of characters that either want to marry and/or kill Ranma, add some funny and, oftentimes, awkward situations, and then, as some would say, "hilarity ensues."

In this game, you play as one of 10 characters (12 if you count the transformed versions of two characters) and have them battle each other for different reasons according to which character you choose. There are three modes of play: your basic 1-player story and 2-player versus modes, and a 2-player 5v5 team challenge mode. Of course, I play the 1-player story mode as today's chosen fighter, Ryoga Hibiki.

While the reasons for why each character fights differ from each other, the main focus is still the same: Basically, Principal Kuno is pretty much manipulating each character to fight each other. He's doing this by using whatever situation a particular character is in against him and forcing fights as a result in order for said character to achieve his/her goal. In Ryoga's case, however, his problem is pretty sad. After getting himself lost... again (important character trait), he finds himself in the school where Ranma attends. Unfortunately, he's not only lost, but he's also came down with a bad case of amnesia. How, you ask? Well, it would appear that Principal Kuno cracked his head open with a coconut due to him apparently thinking that Ryoga was a burglar... yeah. So with Ryoga having questions about his memory, how does the principal help him? By having him fight all the opponents he chose for him. (What a nice guy Principal Kuno is, huh? *cough*sarcasm*cough) Thusly, with all that done, Ryoga's on his way to claim his lost memory... by slaughtering all in his path.

Anyway, as I said, it's been YEARS since I played this game. I still have certain memories about certain ways that the characters fight. In a nutshell, there are two attack buttons: a normal attack and a power attack. However, the power attack is of main focus as most of the stronger attacks (obviously enough) require you to either hold it down along with a direction for different attacks with accompanying strength depending on how long you hold the power attack button. Also, most characters have a powerful signature attack by pressing both the normal and power attack buttons. In a way, it's nearly a one-button game as the power attack takes a lot of focus in the offensive game. Crap, I really don't even use the normal attack at all in this playthrough.

The graphics are pretty good, but probably not as detailed as some others. I'd probably compare it to "Legend of the Mystical Ninja" in terms of art style, but that may be too generous depending on opinion. The music is also mostly decent with maybe a few misses in the soundtrack (Gambling King's theme is probably the most glaring "miss" to me). Gameplay can be a bit slow compared to some other fighters, but once you get going, unless you're really picky about fast-paced gameplay, you might not notice. The only thing that may be missing is the exclusion of the Kuno sibilings in the game, but I digress. Overall, I think that this is a pretty solid game, especially if you are fans of the Ranma ½ franchise.

With me not playing this game for a long time, I choose to play this on Normal mode. I plan on doing a few more playthroughs of this game: one in Hard Mode and one with one form of the boss of the story mode (spoilers be damned). However, that may be some time in the distant future... maybe. Until then, enjoy.