Melty Blood: Act Cadenza (PS2) Preview
Posted by Tommy Coloma on 07.19.2006
A 2D fighter made by amateurs that can take on Capcom, SNK, and Sega/Sammy?
Developer: Type-Moon and French-Bread
Publisher: Ecole
Genre: Fighting
Release Date: August 10, 2006 (Japan)
Platform: Playstation 2
Ever since Capcom released Street Fighter II in 1991, many companies have taken it upon themselves to challenge Capcom's dominance in the 2D fighter genre. Some will argue that over the years, both SNK Playmore with their King of Fighters series and Sega/Sammy with their Guilty Gear series have already surpassed the aging champ.
The last real Street Fighter game, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, was released in 1999. Of course, if you want to count the versus games then you can include Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom vs. SNK 2 which were released in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Capcom Fighting Evolution was released in 2004 to little fanfare and is often looked down upon, even by diehard fighting fans. In essence, their last well-liked and tournament-worthy offering was released in 2001.
With SNK Playmore and Sega/Sammy already stepping in to fill Capcom's shoes, is there enough room for another challenger? It would appear that game publisher Ecole believes that they have a fighter that is worthy. In early August, they are set to release Melty Blood: Act Cadenza for the Playstation 2.
Melty Blood: Act Cadenza is an arcade port of one of the most popular doujin fighting games today. Doujins are "self-published Japanese works" that are "most often done by amateurs" or fans. (credit: Wikipedia) The original version of the game was released in 2002 by French-Bread, a "dojin soft" company, as a PC fighting game called simply Melty Blood. The story and characters were based on Tsukihime, a visual/graphic novel created by Type-Moon, another "dojin soft" company. Basically, Melty Blood was created by amateurs and was based on characters made by other amateurs. The in-game story takes place about a year after the events in the Tsukihime novel.
The first revision of the game came in the form of Melty Blood ReACT in 2004. ReACT added new characters, fixed balance issues, and updated some game mechanics. In 2005, Type-Moon and French-Bread ported a newer version, called Melty Blood: Act Cadenza, to Sega's Naomi arcade system. This is the version that Ecole will be porting to the PS2. There is some confusion as to whether Act Cadenza is the newest version or if the recent patch for the PC version - Melty Blood: ReACT, Final Tuned - is. Fortunately, Final Tuned only adds gameplay functions that make it resemble its arcade counterpart.
The fighting system makes use of four buttons. Three are used for attacks (weak, medium, and strong) while the fourth is used for shielding (more on that later). Throws can be performed by pressing the weak and shielding buttons at the same time. Dashes are done by double tapping to the right or left or by holding left or right and pressing both the weak and medium attack buttons. Air dashing can be performed by double tapping to the right or left when in the air. High jumps are done by pressing down and then up and the direction of your enemy quickly. Double jumping can be performed by pressing up while in the air. For the most part, a player can chain any attack with another move as long as it is not the same as the previous one (weak attacks excluded). Shielding is similar to parrying in Street Fighter III - successful shielding allows the player to counter an enemy's move with any move of his or her own. There are, of course, many other advanced techniques that complete the whole package.
It should be noted that many are under the impression that Melty Blood borrowed many of its gameplay mechanics from the Guilty Gear series. The reality is that Melty Blood took many of its cues from the "Queen of Heart" fighting game series. Queen of Heart '98 was an earlier game which was also released by French-Bread (then called Watanabe Seisakujo) in 1998, a few months BEFORE the first Guilty Gear game came out.
At this point information on what the PS2 port offers is scarce. Thankfully, some details can be found here. A quick Google translation of the page gives the following -
As for PS2 edition, the full voice correspondence by the famous dubbing artist. "Kotono Mitsuishi", "Kosugi ten thickly" and so on the full voice correspondence with the luxurious dubbing artist position which is begun. Being defeated voice many recording. We fully load the Advanced Capability only of PS2 edition such as survival mode and training mode and special mode. In addition, the grapple part fully loading the PS2 original mode which adjusted opposition balance anew!
Fortunately, a far better translation is available at the "Beast's Lair" forums –
The features of the PS2 version include:
- Full voice
- Bonus voice
- Survival Mode
- Training Mode
- Special mode
- PS2 original balanced version
Act Cadenza was featured in this year's Super Battle Opera, one of the biggest fighting game tournaments in the world, so it clearly has a decent following (at least in Japan). Does that mean that it is set to take the world by storm upon its release? Will this port of a port bring in a new audience to the 2D fighting game scene and satisfy those that are already in attendance? We will find out in August.
