Title: The Great Battle II: Last Fighter Twin
Release Date: 03/27/1992
Developer & Publisher: Banpresto
So here we have our first Japanese only sequel to a Japanese only game. Wow, how far we have come in only eighty-three games. This will be a short post because there really isn't too much meat on these bones.
Background
This game was developed by Banpresto, the development company that made some, culturally, very "Japanese" games. Nowadays, they make figurines and sculptures of manga and anime figures.
If you remember from the first Great Battle, this is a super deformed take on several Japanese tokusatsu and anime franchises, and fits into its own little franchise known as the Compati Heroes series. This game includes the famous F-91 from the Gundam series, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and an original character who ended up serving as Banpresto's mascot for the 90's, Fighter Roar (his mask is supposed to represent the mask in the Banpresto logo).
The story is a weird one to be sure: after the first game where peace had come to the world of SD Nation (remember SD means super deformed), the peace is disrupted when the weather starts to become incredibly erratic, and monsters start to appear. The heroes decide to look for the four magical Gachapon capsules (you know those little capsules you get from gumball machines with a prize inside) that can grant any wish when they are all collected. At the same time, though, the villain of this series, Dark Brain, is also on the hunt for the capsules too to enact his evil plans. Dun dun duuuuuuuuun.
Gameplay
Unlike the previous entry in the series, which was a top-down action platformer, similar to Link to the Past or Lagoon, this one is a side scrolling beat-em-up. It...is not very good to be honest. A good beat-em-up needs frenetic and fast action with set pieces, enemy variety, a varied move system. This game has none of those things. The game is barely animated, with many of your attacks using two or three frames of animation. This gives your attacks very little impact, flow, or dynamism; nothing really feels weighty or connects, so the "beat" part of the beat-em-up doesn't feel very good.
The stages overstay their welcome; each one is very long, and all every stage seems to do is just throw enemies at you. The enemies, who are all based on monsters and robots from each of the respective series, have actually very little variety. There are some stage hazards, such as sand whirlpools or ledges to fall off, but other than that you are just fighting. Finally, the moves of your character are also very basic. You have your regular punches, kicks, throws, and you can pick up weapons dropped by your enemies; instead of special moves using life, you have separate energy bars to use SOME special moves (usually a ranged attack). All in all, this game is very slow paced and boring.
There are some neat things, such as branching paths through the game. This is usually determined by the boss fights. If you can't beat the boss at the end of the stage within a certain time limit, some story contrivance will occur which will set you to one stage instead of another. This is pretty cool, but pretty much the only neat thing this game pulls off. I will also give it credit that many of the SD designs do actually look pretty darn good (plus one of the bosses is a Mummy named Chubby De David; that's amazing).
Music?
It's not bad. Not great, but not bad.
Final Verdict
While the first game was really fun, you can just tell that they rushed the sequel. It is an incredibly bare bones experience, which is a shame considering all the franchises they had at their disposal. There are THREE more main Great Battle games for the Super Famicom, so hopefully the next game will be a more enjoyable experience.
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