Crisis Beat

Today I’ve got another PSX game for you to review: it’s called Crisis Beat! The game is a 1998 3D brawler for the PlayStation. The gameplay is very similar to Fighting Force, another 3D brawler made by Core Design (except there is a time limit similar to Final Fight and the first two Streets of Rage games), and is among the rare few games that have been released exclusively in Japan and Europe (the European release was handled by the now-closed Studio 3 and was released on August 18, 2000, while the original Japanese version was released on June 18, 1998) with no North American release. The development was handled by the now-closed Soft Machine and was published by Bandai Namco (Bandai at the time of the game’s release, before the merger with Namco).

The players assume the roles of the passengers who go against a sea-jacking terrorist group on a luxury cruise ship. A second player may join in during gameplay to help beat the crap out of the enemies.

The game takes place in 1998 (2000 in the European release) on a Grand Princess-inspired luxury cruise ship named Princess of the Fearless, en route from Tokyo to New York, which has been hijacked by a Western terrorist group led by the renegade military leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Whigen. The game has four playable characters:

• Eiji Garland (v.b. Hiyama Nobuyuki) is an off-duty Japanese-American cop, one of the best in the force who’s looking forward to returning to the States… until the attack occurs while he’s in the lounge.
• Julia Jefferson a.k.a. “JJ” (v.b. the late Yanaga Kazuko, deceased 2014) is a Belgian supermodel attending a photoshoot, with her kid sister Milly in tow, and while Julia makes it out, Milly is nowhere in sight.
• Keneth Kurova (v.b. Sosuke Aizen from Bleach) is a Russian Special Forces operative investigating the theft of a Russian superweapon, whose mission somehow leads him to the Princess.
• Yan Haint Feisu (v.b. Hinata Wakaba from Justice Gakuen) is a British teenager and karate expert, working a part-time job as a cleaner on the ship.

Needless to say, when push comes to shove, it’s up to the four of them to take on the terrorists. Cue the ass-kicking and terrorist-punching!

The game’s combat system heavily emphasizes combos, air juggles, and the use of background objects to attack and it also features a Lock-On Counter system. The player gets to choose a character from 2 pairs, so their story begins differently. Each character has their own voice, and their designs give them an anime/manga look. Unlike other brawlers that the player fights baddies on city streets, the player fights baddies on a cruise ship, similar to Sega’s Dynamite Cop.

Soft Machine, the game’s developer, went out of business around 2002. Unfortunately, I don’t live in Europe so this game does not have a North American release… and I would try it.

And that’s it for this review of this video game. Cory out.

Here’s a bonus…