Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble is one weird little game. It is like someone took Fighting Force for the PS1 and mashed it up with an RPG, then sprinkled some weird Japanese culture on top. A JBRPG (Japanese Brawler Role Playing Game) if you will.

The story is fairly easy to grasp. You are on a school trip and are taking the opportunity to get into some fights. Your goal is to prove you are the strongest Bancho in the land. To do this, you will wander around picking fights and beating up other Banchos. Because your school trip only lasts a week and you have a curfew, you have only a small window of time to find the other Banchos and beat them up. I never felt like I had enough time to accomplish everything I could. I felt the time pressing down upon me as I frantically tried to find as many Banchos as possible.

To track down the other Banchos you have to find their itineraries, which will tell you what part of the city they will be in on what day. When you find them, you shoot them with your Menchi beams (laser eyes) and begin Smashtalk, which was one of the weird highlights of the game for me.

You are given a phrase, then parts of that phrase pop up with one of the buttons next to them. For example: you might get the phrase “I am the greatest” and then it would be up to you to select “I am” from a screen filled with other words like “I’m not” or “I do” if you manage to select the whole phrase successfully you are able to get in the first punch. I would occasionally put in the wrong phrase on purpose because some of the combinations were so ridiculous. When that happened the other guy would get in the first punch.

After the Smashtalk you begin the real fight. Here you can use weapons like baseball bats or lead pipes if you’d like, but a real manly Bancho only needs his fists. Each attack drains a little bit of your stamina and special attacks drain your spirit. Keeping an eye on these is key if you want to win. It is very frustrating to run out of stamina and start gasping for air, because your opponent will take that opportunity to pound your face.

After you defeat each Bancho, you will gain a little experience and learn new moves. Your endurance will also increase, allowing you to fight longer and harder. The Bancho then becomes your peon so you can call him if you need a helping hand. By the end of the game I had a couple of these guys following me around.

Sounds fun right?

Have you ever gone to a restaurant where the atmosphere is great, the waiters are friendly, the appetizers are delicious, but the entree is just mediocre? Kenka Bancho is like that restaurant. All the peripheral parts of the game are great. It has a lot of personality, tons of customization, re-playability and some very funny humor. Sadly, the actual fighting is just mediocre.

The problem with the combat stems from the fact that it is too easy to get locked into a combo animation. This is fine in the early stages, but by the end of the game, when the enemies are able to slide out of the way and punch you in the head while you are punching at air it gets very frustrating. Even when I was able to connect, I found myself sticking with the same combo over and over: square, square, square, square. Sometimes, if they fell down, I would hit L1 and then: square, square, square.

There have been a lot of improvements in action games over the last decade, but Kenka Bancho’s fighting felt too stiff and unresposive. It feels like playing a brawler from 1997, not 2009.

If you can get past the mediocre fighting, the rest of the game is a joy. There is always something to do or find, whether you are ditching class to go fight some Banchos, buying souvenirs in the local shops, or talking with the local girls. I don’t feel like I came close to finding every secret, and even started a new game+ so that I can discover more of what the game has to offer.

With the time limit looming over my head the whole game, I was always rushing to beat up the next Bancho or level up my guy. Even then I did not come close to maxing out my character.

Kenka Bancho is not for everyone. I heartily recommend this game if you are a fan of quirky Japanese humor, or if the idea of a JBRPG sounds intriguing to you.

This review is based on a copy of Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble provided to us by Atlus.

Tags: Banchos, Fighting Force, JBRPG, Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, laser eyes, psp

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.