0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Battle Hunter

      

Battle Hunter also known as Battle Sugoroku Hunter in Japan, and just The Hunter in Europe, is a tactical role playing game with an anime style. Developed by Success and published by them in Japan where the game would release first in December of 1999 as part of the SuperLite 1500 series of budget games.

The game would also receive a European and North American release, the European release coming fist in April of 2001, this release was published by Midas Interactive Entertainment. The North America release of the game was in July of the same year, Agetec would handle the publishing in this region.

The game is based around the player controlled character known as a hunter, who competes against three other hunters in order to win a relic. The game used traditional RPG elements such as dice rolls and tile based movement.

The gameplay is based around this with the player or players up to 4 players can play the game entering a randomly generated dungeon that is represented by a grid, if less than 4 players are playing the game the other characters will be controlled by the computer, 4 characters are present in every dungeon.

Before starting the player creates their hunter, like several other RPGs you are given an initial pool of stat points to spend on the various stat categories, such as attack, movement and defence. These additional points have small effects on your overall starting stats, for example one additional movement star will require you to spend 3 of you initial ability points.

During the course of the game you will however be able to level up, this is done by gaining credits within the game for selling relics you have recovered from the dungeons as well as winning the dungeons over your competitors, once you have enough credits you can head over to the clinic in order to buy your level up.

 

When you get to levelling up your character, each new level adds 1 point automatically to your overall hit points, with a second additional point available for you to add to the stat of your choice, the game allows for a max level cap of 150.

Prior to each dungeon the player is presented with a mission to retrieve a specific relic from the dungeon, multiple treasure boxes will be present in the dungeon each containing their own relic, the key relic is however the only one that is needed to complete the mission.

As the player progresses though the dungeon trying to find the required relic they have three choices, they can either moving, attacking or resting. The latter of those three will restore a quarter of the player characters health as well as give them 2 cards.

 

Cards are given to each hunter before the dungeon begins, these are drawn from a deck of 100 cards and are drawn randomly, these cards however are always visible to all players. It is up to the player when they use these cards with each card having a different effect depending on when the player uses them. The cards are colour coded with Blue, Yellow, Red and Green. Blue and Yellow cards can only be used on the map or in combat, while Red and Green cards can only be used in combat or on the Map.

These cards have many different effects, for example Blue cards, these are used to increase the player characters movement distance, ranging from a +1 to a +3, in addition to further movement distance some may have an E on them, this version of the blue card will warp the player straight to the exit of the dungeon, handy if you have recovered the needed relic item.

 

Yellow cards are used to affect either defence or evasion, like the Blue cards they provide a stat boosts to either defence or evasion, this ranging from a +3 to a +9 for the stat. This colour card also comes with additional letter card either A or D, if used on the dungeon map these cards will increase the hunters ability to avoid traps. If a card is used the hunters defence will increase by the amount on the card, while using a D card will double the hunters defence stats, both trap avoidance and defence stat increases are for 1 round only.

Red Cards are next these affect the characters attack stats and can only be used when in combat, the Red cards have the same bonus stats as a Yellow card a +3 to a +9. there are also additional letter cards as well with a C and S card, the C card will give an attack bonus equal to the opponents attack stat, the S card will double your hunters attack stat.

The final colour card is a Green card, this card represents traps which players can only use on the grip map for the dungeon. The trap cards are broken down into four catagories, the first is the E which means empty, this causes the hunter who steps in this trap to discard all of their cards in their hand, and are unable to draw additional cards until the effect has worn off.

 

The S card is a stun card, this causes the unlucky hunter to be stunned and lose their next turn, the hunters defence stats I reduced to 0 and is unable to perform any action either on the dungeon map or in battle, the hunter is also unable to use card for that turn.

The D card is next this is simply a damage trap, with the hunter taking damage if they move on to the trip square, the final trap card is the L card which inflicts leg damage to the unfortunate hunter that steps on it, this trap reduced the movement score of the hunter to 0 for the remainder of the mission or until they reach the exit tile. a single tile in the dungeon can have up to a maximum of 3 traps laid on it.

The games combat is either between two hunters or a hunter and one of the monsters that are present in the dungeons, this being a turn based combat system fights are never over in one combat action, with both parties usually left standing.

When engaged in combat either with a monster or another hunter, the one being attacked has several options to choose from on how they will respond, they can either counterattack, defend, run away or surrender, as long as they are not stunned in which case they will have no choices.

It is at this point where the characters choose if they want to use a card or not, once chosen or not the computer will role two six sided dice for each combatant, two for the attackers attack strength and two for the defenders defence strength, any additional modifiers will then be applied and any damage to a character will be applied.

If the character chose to defend rather than to counterattack, the defenders defence stat is doubled, the player could also try to escape, in this event the defender would make an escape roll, with Blue cards useable to increase their chances of escaping, likewise the attacker can use their own cards to increase the chance of catching them. If the attacker is successful they will attack the defending character, during the attack the defenders defence stat is reduced to 0 during the damage calculation.

Surrender and Loss of all HP each have the same effect by warping you to a random point in the dungeon and the loss of an item to your opponent. This is where the similarities end, the you lose all of your hit points, you will lose an item chosen by the victor as well as being warped to another point in the dungeon, your character will also lose half of their maximum hit point total for the duration of the dungeon.

When surrendering you will have to give up and item in your possession, the major difference however is you get to choose which item you hand over, in addition there is not Hit Point loss if you surrender with the only downside being transported to a random point in the dungeon, which could be both good and bad depending where you land.

As mentioned before the game features a card system, in the unlikely event of all cards being used during a dungeon, there is a price to pay, and that price is GON, Not the little dinosaur from Tekken but a black large wolf like creature with a long black tail that is very difficult to defeat and defend against.

Earth had been driven to a third world war, wiping out large portions of the worlds population and driving the human race to near extinction. A few remaining scientists that survived the war set out to develop a formula to protect humanity from extinction.

To do this they require the vital information held in relics strewn throughout the world in the ruins of the old world. The scientists assign the dangerous task of finding and recovering these relics to an elite task force known as the Hunters.

The Hunters are technological bounty hunters scouring the land and battling a myriad of malfunctioning robots and horribly mutated creatures to recover their bounty, as well as the secret organization known as B PHS who are also targeting the much sort after relics.

Not a huge number of review available for this game, but the ones that are available rated this game as being pretty average. With review scores peaking at a 65 and dropping as low as a below average 45, as usual though we will start with the best which comes from Just RPG.

The review from Just RPG scored the game at an above average 65, the review saying in short the game could have been good, with what is in the game being good stuff, however the review found there to be just not enough of it.

The review continued by saying the game felt like and early version of an unreleased game, good concepts but just not enough depth and ingenuity to last. Concluding there reviewer said you could do a lot worse for ten bucks, and Battle Hunter will likely kill a weekend.

GameSpot were next up with their 57 rated review, the review finding the game reminiscent of other games with a simplified style from 2D RPGs such as Suikoden, while the tile based and random dungeons reminded the review of Solstice on the NES.

The review continued by saying, while the game is by no means revolutionary or a graphical showcase, the quirky attack animations, the many different missions and monsters and the complete lack of load time allow for a painless strategic experience.

The review also praised the multiplayer aspect of the game, calling the multiplayer mode an incredibly competitive game for up to four players in a round-robin match of kill the man with the ball. To conclude the reviewer had the following to say.

If you're not the type to write off a game based solely on its graphics, and you are looking for an inexpensive, very retro strategy title and also enjoy simple, attribute-based character development, then the world of Battle Hunter wouldn't be a bad place to spend some time.

PSX Nation were just behind GameSpot with their score of 55 for the game, the review questioning if a game without a story to tell or characters to relate to really be called and RPG. They continued by saying, Battle Hunter is an old turn-based engine getting dusted for the sole purpose of filling some poor soul's idea of a good time, the reviewer concluded by saying that the game is not YOURs or MY idea of what a good tactical/turn-based PSX game should be.

The penultimate review comes from Game Informer Magazine who like Just RPG said that the game could have been a good strategy game as well as being at a bargain price. However the reviewer found the admixture of board game elements brought too much randomness to the gameplay.

The reviewer finding that rather than winning by outmanoeuvring opponents, victory is often claimed purely through luck, the review also found the level advancements to be a joke since opponents levels will always be the same power level as you. Concluding the review said, at just $10 Battle Hunter could be a game that you might get some multiplayer enjoyment out of, however forget it as a solo act

Lastly we have a second review from Game Informer Magazine, this is the magazines second opinion which comes from Kristian Brogger who scored the game at a 45. Kristian small mini review called the gameplay monotonous and the storyline completely lacking.

The review continued by saying. Battle Hunter could probably be renamed “Boredom Maker.” You’d get more enjoyment out of using the disc as a Frisbee than you would playing the game. Concluding the review said on the up side It didn’t cost must if you made the mistake of already buying it.

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 will give you $4 if you are looking to trade in your copy of Battle Hunter. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of the game, you will be looking at an outlay of $12 from Gamedude.

 

Next up is Retrogames.co.uk who sadly don’t stock or even list this title in any of the three title variants, so we quickly head over to eStarland.com who have one complete used copy of the game currently available. This copy can be picked up for $12.50, eStarland also offer a trade in for this game with up to $5.75 being offered for a copy of the game.

 

Lastly we head to Amazon.com where we find a decent supply of the game available, where we find a good quality and complete copy of the game available for $11.99. A like new copy is available for $13.36 with a $4.63 shipping free bringing the total to $17.99.

For a couple of dollars more a very good condition copy which is labelled as collectable which is a bit of a stretch for this game, anyway this copy can be picked up for $19.95 and comes with free shipping, another couple of copies are labelled as collectable both are in good condition and can be picked up for $19.95 and $19.96.

Another very good quality and complete copy is available on the second page of listings, this copy can be picked up for $19.99 and comes with free shipping, another couple of so called collectable copes in very good condition are also available for around the $21 to $22 mark.

Another like new copy which comes with free shipping can be picked up for $24.08. From here we now get into the new copy price range with the first on offer coming in at $33.98 once shipping has been added in. From here new prices continued to steadily with prices for a new copy of the game currently peaking at $60.64.

Written by

P J Gibbon