compared to most fighting games of the era this includes an insane amount of single-player content, so much so that I managed to put about 10 hours into casually playing through it all. the mission mode stretches the roster and stage count tremendously with all sorts of different objectives and difficulties, including hidden missions I didn't even delve into. it was fun to put some music or a podcast on in the background and grind these out.

the graphics in this game are also absolutely gorgeous, and possibly the best indicator of what the dreamcast was capable of early on. this was the first game I played after buying a VGA cable and it is an absolute beauty, with detailed character models, excellent lighting, and varied stages. other than certain background elements being very obviously part of the skybox, it really looks like a game that would have been good looking even into the early 2000s.

the gameplay itself is easy to pick up, with none of the tomes of command moves and links required as in tekken. there's still a lot of depth to it between all the different weapon styles and different stances, special moves, etc. but you can pull off easy launchers and juggles without much effort at all. the ring out feature also makes the CPU easier to cheese when need be for certain difficult missions. while the different stage layouts don't make much of a difference, it's still nice to have multiple size and shape options.

without question one of the most classic dreamcast titles and an all-time fighting game great.