| Graphics: |    3.5 |
| SFX: | 4 |
| Music: | 3 |
| Gameplay: | 2.5 |
| Challenge: | 4 |
| Replay: | 3 |
| Overall: | 3 |
| Genre: | Fighting |
| Reading ability: | U.S. Release |
| Company: | Masaya |
Background:
Ranma 1/2 is definitely one of the most popular anime/manga series in America. It is one of the series that was introducing people to anime before the Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball shows were aired in America. It's a great series that has a strong following of all ages, male and female.
This is one of the few games based on an anime series to make it to the American market in the early days of the anime explosion in America and Canada. It featured terrible cover art on the box that enraged Takahashi fans. Even though this game was heavily sponsored by Viz, it still flopped. I think most of the people who went out and bought this game were anime fans who wanted the game just because it was Ranma 1/2, like myself. In fact, this was the very first SNES game I bought. There were even a few people who were introduced to anime through this game.
The Game:
This game is a bit different from your typical "beat-em-up" game. The controls are quite a bit different than other games of this type. This can either be a plus or a minus for you. I gave the Gameplay a score of 2.5 stars because although it is a lot easier to learn the controls of this game than a Street Fighter II game, however this can be a hinderance if you're used to regular fighting games. There is only two attack buttons instead of six. As a result, the gameplay is not as deep as it could be. If you are used to the Street Fighter type of game, it may take some time getting used to this one, especially because there is a button for jump instead of pushing up on the D-pad.
You get to choose between twelve characters: Ranma Saotome (boy), Ranma Saotome (girl), Akane Tendo, Shampoo, Mousse, Ukkyo Kuonji, Genma Saotome (as a panda), Hikaru Gosunkugi, Bakuchioh King, Pantsuo Taro (as a boy), and Pantsuo Taro (as a hideous monster-like thing). When you play one of the first ten characters in Story mode, Taro is the end boss of the game, and you must beat him in both his boy form and his cursed form. After that, you can play either version of Taro in the Story mode. The end boss for him is Happosai, who is a real slippery little fellow. Because of his size, he's pretty hard to beat with any other character than Taro.
Secrets:
There are a lot of secrets for this game. These are taken from the FAQ:
The Good:
This was the very first game I bought for my SNES. In fact, I bought it before I bought my SNES. I used to stay up all night playing this game until my fingers hurt. The "VS." screens and the animated sequences have some pretty nice graphics, but the regular game screens lack a bit. The game brings out a lot of aspects of the manga/anime series. I like how you fight in familiar places like the Jusenkyo springs and the Tendo's back yard. Ryoga's umbrella and headbands are a nice addition. And I like Ukkyo in this game. She's very cute in this one.
The Bad:
First thing's first: the North American box art completely sucks. This has to be the biggest gripe people have had about the domestic version of this game. It's like DTMC thought that the anime art was too unpopular for the mainstream, and so they instead decided to put some lame looking drawing on the cover. Either that or they did not have the rights to print any Takahashi artwork on the cover. In which case, that's stupid.
But the biggest crime are the voice-overs of the domestic version. It's a shame that DTMC felt that it was necessary to dub over the original voices. It's not like they had to translate anything. The only English that is used is when Ranma says "I won!" after defeating an opponent. They still shout out their attacks in Japanese. But, the dubbed voice for Shampoo is very cute, most will agree. Almost on par with the original voice actress. Nevertheless, the original voices should have been left intact. But fortunately for those of us who own the import version, we don't have to worry about this.
As for the game itself, it has some pretty worthless characters, like Gosunkugi and Gambling King. It's rather difficult to master those characters and be good at playing them. They're just not very strong characters to play. When I play against King, I usually just toss him from one end of the screen to the other until he stops moving (especially with Shampoo). Genma isn't a very good character to play, either. Shampoo seems to be the easiest character to play (at leat for me). Ryoga and Akane are pretty strong as well. My gripe is that they should have made the characters more evenly matched overall. It would have been nicer to see the Kuno siblings in the game.
Overall:
Although Hard Battle is certainly not as good as Super Battle, it still is a nice game and has some good points to it that is not carried over to Super Battle. I'd still recommend it for completist Ranma 1/2 fans. You can probably still find Hard Battle for a good bargain at video game stores.
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