/vr/ - Retro Games

Battle Arena Toshinden

Every Toshinden game released after the original PS1/PC release. In 1995, Toshinden on PS1 was amazing.

3-D fighters were just beginning with Virtua Fighter and Tekken and both were ugly as hell. They also were vastly different than regular fighting games as they lacked fireballs, super moves, and other 2-D staples that fighting game fans were used to.

When Toshinden launched with PS1, it was a huge hit as it was the best looking fighting game at the time, the music was great, the characters were creative, and the game was fun to play. It was the epitome of style of substance, but there wasn't much competition from the awful VF 1 port on Saturn and the ugly, janky Tekken 1. Watch this video of one of the final boss battles to understand how far ahead it was of the competition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Z5GtGO8Mw

There was such an epic feeling in the game.

After this though, every future Toshinden failed to innovate. While Virtua Fighter 2, Tekken 2, and games like Bloody Roar and multitudes of 3-d fighters began being release, Toshinden's sequels were mediocre at best.

The Saturn Toshindens were ugly as hell. The PS1 versions of 2 and 3 were boring with bad animations and annoying gameplay quirks.

The series final installment, 4 on ps1, didn't even make it out of Japan.

It is strange to have a series knock it out of the ball park in the first installment and then fail so much on future versions.