It's rare to see a game like this come out in this day and age. Ikkitousen Eloquent fist is a completely 2D traditional arcade-style-side-scrolling-beat-em-up game from Marvelous Entertainment.
If you are not familiar with Ikkitousen, it's a manga and anime series that features modern versions of ancient Chinese warriors (from Romance Of The Three Kingdoms). The twist is that it takes place in Japan and that most of the characters are all high school students- and half-naked females at that. So amidst the action, bouncing breasts, panty shots, and ripped shirts are present and ridiculously-overdone. The PSP game keeps the
ecchi content, but provides enough substance for those looking for a decent old-school style beat-em-up.
Eloquent Fist has 17 playable characters with varying fighting styles. The game play is all combo-based; characters attack using different preset combo strings with the square and triangle buttons. Circle unleashes a powerful scattering attack that takes a small amount of your lifebar, X jumps, R acts as a run button, and L powers up your character. Once powered up, pressing L and square (and later L and triangle once unlocked) will unleash a super attack. You can keep the combo meter going by immediately attacking one enemy after downing another; the overall game play system plays something like a 2D version of Koei's various Musou games. Characters can be leveled up to 30 and alternate outfits (which are generally various types of swimsuits) can also be unlocked.
Ikkitousen features story modes for three groups of characters, an arcade mode (where all of the characters are playable), and a gallery mode where you can look at various illustrations and listen to voice samples. Several new playable characters not featured in the anime series are also introduced.
The game's graphics are a mixed bag. The game allows for a total of six characters on screen at one time (your own plus five enemies), and the sprites are all very large and detailed, with animation ranging from decent to very good. But the backgrounds are bland for the most part, and you generally do nothing but go from the left side of the screen to the right side. This is standard for a 2D beat-em-up, but the backgrounds still could have been made a bit more diverse than the typical school, park, street, etc. backgrounds used. There are a lot of voice samples, including spoken dialogue in the story mode.
If you can get past the perverted elements of Ikkitousen, you'll find a solid beat-em-up with plenty of characters to offer. Worth buying for fans, worth a try for beat-em-up enthusiasts.
