How many games let you fight the elderly? How many fighters use passing gas as a fighting style? Oh, and how many fighting games embraces the long lost art of racial stereo types? Well, Power Instinct lets you do all of that, and more! In anticipation for those great fighters looming on the horizon, I thought I’d share this gem from my collection….

Overall: 8.2
Presentation: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 8
Replay Value: 8

The Power Instinct series have been some of the most unique 2-D fighters around. In my opinion, the series has never been one of the more technically sound fighters–I’ve found them to be woefully unbalanced, with fighters that have almost zero recovery time between special moves. Otane, Thin-Nen, and Keith Wayne come to mind as characters who were so overpowered that they almost broke the series early on.

So why do I continue to find myself drawn to these games? The answer lies in the zany cast of fighters. Some of the moves they do are guiltily hilarious. Want to play as an 80 year old woman who can throw her dentures, and transform into a young version of herself by kissing her opponent? This is your series. How about playing as a native-American warrior who can shoot out chi-buffalos from his feet by doing the stereo-typical rain dance? Yeah–a few of the characters are eye-deep in ethnic stereotypes.

With this in mind, let me introduce the latest chapter in the Power Instinct series to be released on home consoles. Shin Goketsuji Ichizoku: Bonno Kaiho (Liberation of Lusts)-for purposes of brevity I’ll refer to this game LoL–released on the Playstation2 in 2006 in Japan. It was developed by Noise Factory, and jointly published by Noise Factory and Excite.

The game consists of 20 fighters who vary from an 8 year old boy named Taro who can transform into man dressed in a dog suit, to an old man whose special combo includes turning into a Japanese half crippled version of Randy Savage, and farting in his opponents, to a ‘roided up female wrestler / dominatrix who sets her opponents aflame with a crack of her whip, and dang near everything else in between.

The “story”–for lack of a better word–behind this tournament, is that a young girl named Princess has a magic box that will grant the wish of the winner. The funny thing about Princess is that her clothing bears an odd resemblance to the Pope, so I just call her Pope-girl. I tell ya, I couldn’t make up a cast like this for a game on my best day.

Gameplay is standard Street Fighter-ish 2D fare, with a lot of quarter-circle, half circle, and “Shoryuken” joystick movements to execute special moves. As your character attacks, and is attacked, you build up stress in your tension meter, which powers your super special attacks, and specials for your transformations (for some characters). Unlike the earlier games in the Power Instinct series, this one feels a lot more balanced. Granted, that’s not saying much when compared to the first two games. However, regardless of what character I use, whether fighting the computer or a human opponent, I never felt overpowered–except with the boss characters, but that is standard recipe with every fighting game.

Whether you use a fighting stick like the Hori Real Arcade Pro2, or one of those fantastic Saturn PS2 controllers, you’ll find that you’ll be able to pull off every move you attempt to execute, with the exception of Taro’s transformation super, which is moving the stick or pad left and right 8 times. The move is a pain to execute, and I really don’t see how it can be utilized against a human opponent. There is depth in the combat overall, but only the most dedicated will ever pull that from the game–it isn’t bad, but there are a lot of other 2D fighters that do it better.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that this game isn’t afraid of using racial stereotypes? Well, you don’t get too much worse than the end boss in this game. In the end, you face Bobby Strong.

Who is Bobby you ask? Well, he’s the likeness of Nigerian born mixed martial artist turned comedy buffoon Bobby Ologun. Apparently, he’s become quite the celeb in Japan, by playing up old stereotypes about Black men for some TV show. He rolls and bugs out his eyes, juts out his lips, and feigns stupidity like some modern day blackface minstrel. If you think those Shakka Zulu rejects from RE5 are racist, you ain’t seen nothing ’till Bobby Strong hits you with his booty power attack. Words simply cannot describe….

So, if you would like a nice slice of Japanese gaming culture, with some of the weirdest cast of characters around, and you have the ability to play import PS2 games, give LoL a shot. Its something else….

I’ve tried to include a link to a combo video I pulled from youtube. The last fight featuring Bobby Strong. Enjoy.

Tags: Reviews