Imports Galore - The Week That Was

A wide variety of interesting import titles has been recently released in Japan. All last week, GameSpot News spotlighted one or two titles each day. In case you missed it, here's day five's report - the links to the right will take you back through the week.

Earlier in the week, we looked at two Namco Guncon-compatible shooting games, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s Elemental Gearbolt and Electrocoin's Guntu Western Front June, 1944; Namco's Klonoa - Door to Phantomile and Famista 64 - King of Baseball Games; and Hudson's Bomberman Fight. Today we look at Banpresto's Critical Blow for the Sony PlayStation.

Critical Blow is a polygonal 2D/3D fighter from the folks who created Shadow Struggle. In fact, enough characters have come over from Shadow Struggle that it can be considered an unofficial sequel. The game's anime-style fighters include the knife-wielding Bobby Loggins; Berserker, a futuristic fighting robot; Rickey Leon, the young punk hero; the Last Bronx-ish street fighter Kei Iwase; Chiaki Ichinomiya, a quick-reflexed professional killer; Sumo wrestler Neil McDaniel; the cyborg Reymond Norman; the Sofia-like Marry Phillips; Mark Stanford, the Victorian dandy; and the ice-wielding Mao Chilling. The title has a high frame rate and quick response time, though its graphics are somewhat blocky, much like those seen in Capcom's Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha.

Besides the basic tournament and two-player vs. modes, CB carries a trading mode where players can custom-build their characters and a theater mode, which displays anime sequences between rounds. Fights are staged on such places as on top of a train or on a steel girder, though players are not allowed to fall off either.

No US publisher has been announced for Critical Blow. Be sure to keep an eye out for the import review of this title on VGS.