0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Battle Arena Nitoshinden

      

Battle Arena Nitoshinden also known as Toshinden Kids is a high school themed spin off to the main Battle Arena Toshinden series of fighting game developed by Tamsoft. This spin off again was also developed by Tamsoft and published by Takara, the game released exclusively in Japan on the 20^th of September 1996. The game was earmarked for North American release however it was cancelled.

 

Notable people who worked on the game, Junichi Ohno who worked as a programmer on the game also worked on Fatal Fury Wild Ambition in the same job role. He was the main programmer for 2003s Chaos Legion, and was the sound programmer for Onimusha  Dawn of Dreams in 2006.

Toru Shimizu who worked as a designer on the game worked as a Scenario Director on the 2000 release Skies of Arcadia, before being Design Director on the 2002 release Shinobi. He also worked on the re-release of Skies of Arcadia, titled Skies of Arcadia Legends which released in 2003.

Akifumi Baba who worked as one of the games Designers for Battle Arena NiToshinden, would go on to work as a Cutscene Animator for Sonic Generation in 2011, the following year he would be credited with working on the art/graphics for Asura’s Wrath.

Masahiro Morikawa who was the Executive Producer for Battle Arena NiToshinden, as well as Battle Arena Toshinden 3, Puzzle Arena Toshinden. He was a producer on 1997s The King of Fighters '96, his most recent credit was for Abalaburn, a game previously covered here with Masahiro Morikawa working as Executive Producer.

Executive Producer Takayuki Nakano has a long history with the Toshinden series working on a total of 9 Toshinden games as well as working on King of Fighters 95 and 96. he also worked as a producer on the first person survival horror game ...Iru! which released in 1998.

The game is set in a High School and like its parent game Battle Arena Toshinden the game is a versus fighting game. The game features several characters from the Toshinden main series with Eiji, Sofia, Ellis and Tracy, as well as a hidden character. Included with these are four new characters which take on the roles of stereotypical high school students these are Ryuji, Rika, Baifu and Shu.

 

Like the main series the arenas you will be fighting in are in full 3D with characters having a sidestep manoeuvre to get around the arena, this is the point where the game diverges from Toshinden. Unlike the main game each character is restricted to just six attacks, your standard hard, medium, light and low attacks, as well as a special attack and desperation attack.

 

The characters are differentiated by the range and speed of their attacks, there is no blocking in the game, rather the player must do a timed parry this repels your opponent stunning them briefly, this can be done for all none low attacks, these must be sidestepped to be avoided.

 Players also have a roll button which is the L1 shoulder button this can also be used to avoid non low attacks. The game also does not have a combo syteme but some moves can be chained together. The game has a practice mode which is a series of short videos, with a very enthusiastic Japanese woman and a small CGI version of the character Rika.

Critic reviews for this Japanese only fighting game are very limited with just two available, neither of these reviews score this game very highly, with both falling into the poor scoring range. As usual though we will start with the best of them which comes from German Publication Mega Fun.

The Mega Fun review scoring the game at a highly disappointing 36, concluding the review had this to say. Only absolute Toshinden freaks risk one eye on this game, all others fighting game fans and players flee before your feet fall asleep.

The second review came from GameSpot who scored this game even lower at a dismal 27, the review opened by calling the game the Toshinden game you will likely never play, they continued by saying trust me that’s really for the best.

The reviewer continued by saying NiToshinden fails on both levels that it shoots for, the reviewer called the game a sub par version of an already fairly basic to start with and continued by saying, and it's about as adorable as the Olsen Twins from TV's Full House.

The reviewer concluded their review with the following, There's a standard tag that's found on all games released in Nippon, and never has a title warranted it more: “For Japan Only.” Kudos to PlayMates Interactive for NOT releasing it in the States.

With critic reviews done we head over to GameFAQs not for their user rating but review with two available for this game, as with the critic review we will start with the best which comes from user Undead King who scored the game at a 2/5, which converts to a 40 overall, their review header reads Very, Very Bad….

The review opened by saying that the game is a dumbed down version of the other Toshinden games with some new characters. Gameplay wise the review called it pretty bad, the review was critical of the almost identical move sets of the characters, the review continued by saying. Even if you liked the original Toshinden series this game is trash.

The only saving grace for the game is the graphics which the review found  to be the high point, they had the following to say on them. Proof that graphics mean nothing. This is the high point of the whole game. Very nice light sourcing. I haven't noticed any slowdown. Nice and smooth movements. All of the characters bounce like they are made of jelly. A nice effect.

Concluding Undead King has the following to say. I do not recommend this horrid game to anyone. The only reason I own it is the fact that it came with my system. I highly doubt that anyone likes this game. But one mans trash is another mans treasure.

The second user review comes from Mitora who rated the game at a 1/5 which converts to a 20 overall, their review is titled Interesting concept, HORRIBLY executed! In opening Mitora admits to being a big Toshinden fan, they continued by saying Some of the sequels were either wonderful or just, well, good.

They then saw a SD Toshinden which I thought would have sounded interesting. But boy, I did not know that getting this game was a big mistake! A GIGANTIC mistake. In concluding their review they compared the game to being on The Brady Bunch, with the game being equally as sugary and painful to your teeth. While they did praise the visuals and sounds calling them nice, concluding though once you get past all of that you realise what a chessy, corny game this is and how it insults Toshinden fans.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, the same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com. So we head over to Amazon.com in the hopes of finding at least one copy of the game.

We find more than one we find a decent supply of the game available, and a plentiful supply of complete copies to choose from with prices for a very good complete copy starting at $9.04, this also comes with free shipping, as does the next cheapest copy, a good condition copy for $9.11.

Used prices continue to steadily rise from here peaking around the $12 mark mostly, a couple are price slightly higher around the $18 mark, but there are enough good or better quality copies available to ignore these two copies.

A decent supply of new copies of the game are available as well, with prices starting at a reasonable $14.54, this new copies comes with free shipping as do most of the new copies currently on the market. Prices for a  new copy of the game remain pretty competitive with prices only peaking at $18.46.

Written by

P J Gibbon