Ikki Tousen is a fan service anime, all about breasts, fighting, pantsu, Chinese history and more breasts. So with the PSP release of Ikki Tousen: Eloquent Fist, Marvelous Entertanment brings us a toned downed eroge side scrolling beat-’em-up of the anime. While you won’t see any type of nudity, there are more than enough suggestive images that unlock throughout the game. The game is out in Japan only, and most likely will never see a U.S. release, but no need to fret, as no real knowledge of Japanese is needed to enjoy this title.
Ikki Tousen: EF is a typical Beat-’em-up button masher, that utilizes the standard scheme of punch/kick, jump, and special attack. The simple nature of the game’s gameplay and controls does not hamper the game in anyway, and is actually a nice break from more complex control schemes seen in other games. The game features two separate modes to choose from in Story and Arcade modes. In Story Mode, you pick amongst three groups of characters, each with it’s own storyline and play as various characters within that group. You also need to play through Story mode with each group to unlock all the characters for Arcade mode. Arcade Mode is where you choose a character and fight through eight stages of enemies, to unlock that specific characters images, audio, and information.
The character models in game are 2D and while they won’t break any new barriers, they will please any fan of the anime. The animations while fighting is basically smooth, and the combos look nice. When your character loses a life or you defeat a boss in battle, you will be rewarded with a very suggestive image of the character. You also unlock these images by finishing Arcade mode, which you can view from the Gallery. The images are very well drawn and vary within how much clothing is on the character. From being fully clothed to barely covering key areas.
On the audio front, the game’s Story mode is fully voiced in all conversations between characters and sounds great. The voice actors did a great job in conveying each character in the game, and will please all playing this game. Unfortunately the voices in battle are constantly repeated, especially amongst basic enemies, in which you will tire of hearing the same scream or yell, as they are defeated. As with the images unlocked in Arcade mode, you can unlock audio clips of each character by completing Arcade mode.
Fans of the anime will love playing through this game as their favorite characters and unlocking all of the images and other items. Fans of brawler and Beat-’em-up genres will find plenty here to keep them playing, as it is very reminiscent of old Final Fight and Streets of Rage games. Gamers looking for a more complex game will want to look elsewhere, as the simple gameplay and the obvious fan service will quickly turn them off. I do have to recommend this game to everyone who enjoys these games and the anime of Ikki Tousen will definitely want to pick this one up and enjoy all it had to offer. Considering the amount of characters you can choose from in Arcade mode and the three groups in Story mode, and the fact knowledge of Japanese is not necessary, there is plenty of replay value in Ikki Tousen: EF.