NCS Game Notes
* Will be updated within the hour. Edit: Make that 7 hours. Apologies for the delay.

* The Intro shows the various fighters in fast cut scenes, postures, and motions (boobs was jumping) while a gal sings a song. Riho Futaba's twins are shown swinging as she walks while the others are shown in action poses - even the pumpkin-headed kid of "The Splatter Action" makes an appearance as an able fighter with chainsaw.

* There's a gallery mode where the various fighters may be viewed, rotated, swiveled, and stared at. There are 14 spots for all of the characters but only one character is viewable at the outset - Riho Futaba in her trademark pastel blue bikini. The L1 and L2 triggers are used to focus in on her while the D-pad turns her around and over in 360 degrees. There is a subset of options which allows viewers to change her hair color and the color of her bikini. Action lovers may also select actions for her to perform such as jumping, walking knobby-kneed, sitting on the ground with her chest heaving, a wicked-looking jumping jack, a fall-down drop-dead spiral and many other moves for a total of 52.

* There are six stages to fight in and the fighters fill up nearly 3/4 of the height of the screen. Everyone is also cel-shaded for beautiful visuals. There's no way D3 Publisher did the work... and from the title screen, it would appear that the developer is an outfit called Digital Zero.

* The stage backgrounds are visually pleasing and include a sea scene where a biplane floats on the water to the left with propeller spinning and a yellow sailboat is on the right with a waterfall dropping. There's a stage with a realistically animated waterfall in the background which looks like Digital Zero recorded an actual waterfall and then used the video in the stage. In yet another stage, the battle takes place on the back of a moving flatbed truck that's ringed with barbed wire. A simple cityscape and highway passes in the background as the fight takes place. Another scene features a big cherry blossom tree in the background and a crashed Benz on the right side of the screen.

* Practice Mode allows training with infinite time against a dummy opponent. However, you may set the dummy so that it guards against attacks or performs an action such as jumping, crouching, or just standing. During the training exercise, all of your D-pad moves are recorded in a streaming column to the leftmost portion of the screen. The most recent D-pad moves appear on the top and are subsequently pushed downwards as new moves are performed.

* If Pumpkin-head is not moved during a bout, he'll grab his own pumpkin head with both hands and spin it for a loop. If you watch him, he will get dizzy from the spinning and wobble around a little bit to recover from the loss of balance.

* The D-pad is used for movement and all four face buttons trigger an attack. There's a linking combo system for chained attacks and Riho may perform a forward leaping attack where her chest sticks out as her arms and legs curl backwards. We had her chaining this particular move together to defeat Pumpkin-head in 29 seconds. By pressing the SQUARE button, Riho will blow a pink heart at her opponent. It's a short distance attack which we suppose is a love smack. To blow out a long distance big heart attack, do a semi-circle on the d-pad (Think Ryu and fireball) and press SQUARE. Throws are also possible where an opponent is grabbed and tossed away. Riho's other signature move is a reverse butt bounce. We'll leave it up to you to figure it out.

* When you lose a match, the text on screen flashes "LOSER" after the continue timer runs down.

* The sight of two model-types fighting in bikinis is ____________. Use your imagination.

* The character models are nicely done and drawn but the fighting action is flat and uninspired. The fighters move and animate well but something is missing. The controls aren't necessarily bad since they're responsive but there's a lack of depth here. Anyone looking for a deep technical fighter won't find it in All Star Kakutou but it's unlikely that anyone would be comparing Street Fighter Zero to a D3P game. What All Star Kakutou will offer however is an amusing action game with characters that are recognizable to fans of D3P's line up of games.

View the back cover and screenshots on the main NCSX site.

Jan Code: 4527823993365

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