Last Bronx

The Good
For those of you that came in late, Last Bronx for the PC is a port of one of the semi-successful 3D clones of Virtua Fighter 2 that Sega released after said smash hit, using pretty much the same engine but with faster gameplay and more arcadey mechanics (remember Fighting Vipers? Fighter's Megamix? Those are just a few.

The story for this particular one is that in a futuristic Tokyo where gangs (or "crews") rule the streets, some badass mofo has murdered the leader of the reigning gang, and thus a one-on-one tournament has now been declared to see who takes the top spot with each contender being a representative of one of the major gangs in Tokyo and sporting their own colors and weapons (sort of like "The Warriors" only in Japanese). Taking the role of any of those mean gangsta badasses you go at it with a full range of comprehensive moves, counters and combos based on VF's three-button control scheme while speeding up the action and removing some constraints like the ring area (you can't fall out of it) and the aerial limitations (jumps are more closely related to the classic 2D fighter's leaps rather than VF's floating jumps). Graphically the game looks pretty much like all those VF2 clones except the backgrounds are now fully polygonal, there are some extravagant hit effects and weapon and body trails for some moves to add to the coolness level. So there. Right?.

The conversion is perfect as expected, all the arcade detail is there with some added extras (does anybody remember if the animé opening where there originally?) and the usual improvements (Saturn/Arcade models, etc.), different battle modes including a handy training mode that teaches you the available combos for each character, etc. Plus Sega finally wisened up and removed those awkward function key-based menues and added a solid interface for the game, that's got to count for something...right?

The Bad
Regardless of the perfect conversion and graphical glamour the gameplay just sucks ass to me. The removal of all the restrictions and the speed variation towards Marvel vs Capcom levels takes the core VF gameplay and essentially dumbs the game down to a generic button-masher a la Tekken while keeping the variety of techniques and moves. I realise this is a love-or-hate issue since some people seem to love that kind of gameplay. What can I say... any gameplay style where I (a complete newbie) can kick a master's ass just by mashing buttons is just messed up. I can't even see if there's any balance in the characters, or if there are more strategic features that somehow I missed, all I see when I play this game is that if I hit the buttons some crazy shit happens and I usually win. Man, if I wanted Tekken I would just go fish it out of the garbage.

Oh, and as usual there's no 3D acceleration support. Sega? Just what the hell is wrong with you?? Nowadays you couldn't care less but by 1997 you had to have a nitrogen-cooled Cray to run this game with full detail on.

The Bottom Line
A lackluster clone of Tekken (which is already a lackluster clone of Virtua Fighter)but with the VF flavour back on. Mind you, it's perfectly ported and it's still miles above pc fighting games standards, so those without any considerations toward the genre are bound to find it appealing, but for veterans of the genre this game is just a messed up travesty. If you want Virtua Fighter get Virtua Fighter, and if you want Tekken.... uh.... just why would you want Tekken?