Rival Schools: United by Fate

released on Nov 17, 1997
by Capcom

The main fighting game is best described as a polygonal Marvel vs. Capcom game, with some notable differences. Control wise, the game varies from other Capcom fighting games by only having four buttons (two punches and two kicks, which is closer to the SNK game format) rather than the standard six. A player chooses a team of two characters, and fights against another two character team. The actual fights, however, are one-on-one fights, with the partner only participating by being called in when a player has enough 'vigor' for a Team Up attack, done by pressing a punch and kick button of the same pressure. The Team Ups would be some kind of double team attack by the character and partner, or (for most female characters' Team Ups) would heal the main character or give them more vigor. After the end of a round, a player (win or lose) has a choice to fight the next round with the partner from the previous round, or to keep their main character in play. The 'vigor' meter (essentially a super meter) could go up to 9 levels, with Team Ups costing two levels and super moves from a single person all costing one level of vigor. Much like the Marvel vs. Capcom games, launchers can be done that allow air combos to be performed, with all characters having universal low and high launchers. The game also had a few defensive techniques. Tardy Counters acted much like Alpha Counters from Street Fighter Alpha, allowing a player to immediately counter-attack from a blocking position. However, the restrictions on Tardy Counters are very lax; any hard normal, special or super attack can be used to Tardy counter (Alpha counters are only limited to certain special moves for each character), and Tardy Counters do not cost any extra vigor to perform (Alpha Counters required at least a level of Super Combo gauge to do). Attack Cancels allowed a player to cancel an incoming hit simply by timing their own hit with the attack, which would cancel out both attacks (though it does not nullify the remaining hits of a multi-hit move). Also, one additional level of vigor is awarded.


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A great game with some weird memories attached to it. I think I view this game more favorably than Project Justice as I mainly played Project Justice with one of the worst people I've ever met in my whole life. Even so, it's hard to divorce learning how to play Hideo & Bowman in this with how miserable that other experience was.

On the first few fights this game felt kinda strange to me, but after some of them i got used to it and liked a lot. Some characters i just don't know how to use well, like Roberto(south americanbro), Batsu, and Boman, but most of them just feel so good playing, like Akira, Kyosuke(also nice seeing him here after playing Capcom vs SNK 2), Edge, Hinata, and Sakura, who ironically feels much better here than on Street Fighter EX. The mechanics are pretty fun, if you have momentum you can pull off normal and double specials or other moves in the right time, and it's very satisfying. Personally i just thought that the double specials for restoring HP when a male is paired with a female are very boring, because they are harder to hit, the HP restored is way too low, and it's repetitive, but besides that the specials work very well. The blocking mechanic that is similar to the alpha counter is easier to use here, that's nice because i'm really bad at this. Also Capcom put moves list here, which surprised since most of their fighting games from these days don't have this, and that's good, i really don't like googling this.

The designs and models have a lot of personality, the specials look awesome, the game has a lot of arts in loading screens, even though they didn't translated the japanese texts in them. I didn't find the OST to be memorable, but is kinda banger. The story is very silly but at least kinda entertaining while playing, and i didn't cared too much about the extra modes on disc 2, but this was probably very cool back in the PS1 days

One of the greatest fighting games ever made. Period. Lot of people don't know about it, but you can't really blame them can you? Capcom used to pump and dump their IPs and unfortunately, Rival Schools is a victim of that. From the highly energetic music to the vibrant cast of playable characters. From Story mode to a dating sim, the game comes with tons of content in it. Rival Schools: United by Fate came in 2 discs and that should tell you enough about how much playable content there is to this game. And its fun, fluid gameplay. Really easy to get into. You choose 2 characters and you can switch between either of them at the change of a round. The characters also have special abilities (that are really easy to execute) which are visually really well made. And the music! Oh the music. Just check the OST out on Youtube. I personally own the CD. It's that good! Only thing I'd say as a negative, is that the game doesn't really give you a memorable villain. No Rugal, no Shao Kahn, no Akuma, no Heihachi. There's just a dude with a sword and an old man who is a mole...man... Iconic fighting game villains weren't iconic because of their motivations or personalities.. It's the overall visual design and the movesets. In that aspect, it's safe to say that this game was lacking.

Throws teammate at you as the team up attack, I kneel so hard. From the school theming to the intense combos & specials to pull off, I want to master Rival Schools! While other fighting games I usually finish the arcade mode and move on, I 100% want to see everything that this game has to offer. Seems this PlayStation port comes with a bonus disc, let me see what this has to offer... (to be continued)

this game plays so oddly but the concept and characters are such a personal inspiration for me that i love it so much.