Cho Aniki: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen for the SNES

Those MUSCLES!

If you don't know this game already, I suggest you do, because the one best thing about this series is its uniqueness to most other games. In no game will you see a love for muscle, protein, and manhood. Naturally, the Cho Aniki series is a side scrolling shooter, where Idaten and Benten fight off an evil overlord who steals protein from various planets because of a short supply; or the game usually centers around a story relating to legendary protein or something of the sort. Cho Aniki is also well known for its homo-erotic themes and jokes, so try not to take the game seriously. The series is in fact ridiculous.

Now, what makes Bakuretsu Rantou Hen so different from the original series is that this particular game is a fighting game. Why? Well, at the time, fighting games were really popular since Street Fighter II and Alpha had successful console ports, so, why not make a fighting game for Cho Aniki? Was it successful? Nope. Judging by this review, you'll know, it's far from being a street fighter, not to mention, a "Dan Hibiki".

Difficulty: 8
Let's talk about the one thing that really makes this game atrocious; Controls and AI. Naturally, you'd choose the first character on the roster or the most "main character-looking" character because he's obviously balanced and simple to play as. Honestly, I don't know who is balanced in this game at all, or who the easiest character to use because the controls are just frustrating at times. The AI seems to use every character without a problem but sometimes even makes mistakes also. This fighting game works on a flight system to which you can fly anywhere on the screen and there are no walls to prevent you from moving anywhere.

It's interesting the the game stays true to its predecessor, but it is the fighting that is the issue here. If you can fly in any direction, you can also attack in any direction to which you have to press the directional pad to strike where you want using either the punch or kick button. However, I noticed not all characters have a direction strike for both punches and kicks. Sometimes they can kick both diagonally low and high, but they can only punch diagonally high and not low. This can at times cause for confusions unless you literally memorize what one character can do. In the moment, you won't always be thinking about this though, especially if you are new to the game!

Now, that may not sound as bad, but everything also feels a little choppy. With all the flying you can do, you would expect to have smooth attacks, but almost every attack makes you stop in place unless you dash and then attack. In other words, you might find yourself kicking the air a few times hoping you hit the opponent but it is hopeless! The dashing isn't anything better either considering you dash straight forward with possibly, horrible hit boxes. You might find yourself flying past the opponent like an enraged man chasing a fly down. Sometimes you will find that battles last a long time because of this, which I can't be too sure is a bad thing, but naturally fighting games are supposed to be fought under a time limit.

So, as fighting gamers know; fighting games should usually have simple input commands like the fireball motion to pull off special moves. This does indeed have that, and pulling off special moves aren't hard. There are back-forward, special attacks, down-up special attacks, and for super moves, it is forward-back-forward+punch or kick depending on the character. In a way, what makes the game really challenging, is the fact that almost everything you do expends your special meter.

Aside from attacking, you can guard with L and R which works beautifully, and rather than your health chipping away, your power meter chips away. The power meter is meant for special moves, dashing, blocking, super blast, and possibly even attacking if my eyes saw what they did correctly. However, it is rechargeable by holding down X and making circles with your D-pad, yeah, I'm serious. Who would figure that out on the first try? At first when I played the game, I thought it was left right left right when I accidentally charged my power meter. Then when I went crazy with the d-pad it worked, and the faster you make circles, the faster you charge. Does this game want us to go crazy on our controllers or what? Also, the motion your character makes while charging isn't dragon ball z either. With characters like Idaten, or Botei, they'll do a workout exercise. At least that much is interesting. The super blast as I call is performed by pressing the charge button plenty of times. This is the easiest move to do in the game and also the strongest, but you leave yourself open. In short, you Kamehameha your opponent and drain 7/8's of a full special meter (anything less and you'll put yourself into stun). Use it cautiously when you see an opportunity to make your life easier, and don't forget to try it with Adam. (the naked guy in the half moon based on THEE Adam)

The AI and difficulty is another thing in this game to complain about. By pressing select at the character select screen or start then select in battle, you can access configuration, difficulty, and etc. There are three levels of difficulty to chose, 1, 2, and 3. The default is two, so naturally you assume the first or second stage shouldn't be too hard right? Well, the computers I fought pulled out their best moves at every opportunity. I decided to change the difficulty to 1 and I saw no difference in their play style. Even on level 3, the computer was draining his energy meter empty and putting himself in stun condition allowing me a free attack. But still, the fact that the computer tries to beat you to a pulp gives you no chance to really learn much about the game or experiment. You are forced to use 2 player mode for training. (also, if you want to have literal training without 2-player dying and the rounds changing, use the search code option in the emulator, search for a decreasing value, leave, hit the opponent, run the search, and rinse and repeat until you have a few values left. Then experiment with each one making sure to keep them at a constant value (you don't need to max it out) so they'll always stay alive.)

Depth 3 & addictiveness 2:
Aside from what I mentioned in the difficulty subject, there really isn't much else to this game. I don't even bother to beat the game all the way through either because the AI becomes unforgiving, or I just get tired of the bad controls. The characters are interesting to see in action with their silly erotic techniques, such as Samson/Adon's moves. Other than that, you will only get a few good laughs from the game if you aren't trying to figure out, or...you'll be hating every second because your eyes can't tolerate the content in the game. (Trust me...there is much worse out there.)

Sound 6 & Graphics 7:
This is probably the only good thing about the game. The music and graphics. I won't go into detail about the sounds except for the fact that I hear a few recycled Ranma 1/2 hard battle sounds since the same publisher published the games. What is so entertaining about the music in Bakuretsu Rantou Hen is that Cho Aniki's music is pretty good and unique. For example, the big flower garden theme (stage 2) uses some funny voice noises, electric guitar, a cool bass sound, a choir sound, and cute little bell noises. It perfectly matches the hilarious background of huge, muscled fairy men wearing pink thongs amongst many huge, pink flowers. I kid you not, this stage is real. Most of the crazy stages and music is solely one of the reasons I play the game aside from its silly characters.

The graphics on the other hand are a real work of art. The characters are nothing crazy in game but then again, their muscles are all pretty detailed and noticeable. However, the character design and art in the character select screen is plain awesome! There is a great deal of detail placed solely on the muscles thus showing where all the work was placed in the game. Even the stages are well designed considering every single stage has some bit of muscle in it. For example, the temple stage (stage 3 I think) is full of huge ghostly, muscled men in loincloths, doing squats, and statues of two women holding each other's shoulders spinning around. The details are that noticeable. Some of the character move animations, especially Adam's, are pretty interesting, so be sure to look into it a little.

Overall, this game might not be anyone's cup of tea for the fighting aspect. For those who have a dire need to learn an entire move set of a character, good luck. But to others who love absurd or funny things might find their place at home with almost any Cho Aniki game as long as you are man enough to handle this very manly game.