This game has great multiplayer opportunities, but as far as the story goes…
If you really want to know about the game, the real review will say it all for you.
SUMMARY
--- Great graphics and responses
--- Realistic fighting that doesn't depend on button mashing (although you could if you really wanted)
--- Highly customisable multiplayer mode
--- Poor story
--- Steep learning curve
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE VERY, VERY UGLY
(------ THE BEST POINTS ------)
Excellent fighting motions and actions. Relatively fluid, realistic and always fascinating to watch. Variety in moves and motions – particularly grapples and dodges that not only vary button to button, but character to character. Feels much more like "This could really be happening somewhere" than many unrealistic fighting games. Each character also has their own signature moves – "Special Arts". Timing is crucial in much of the dodging, but is still extremely useful and well done.
Excellent variety in the multiplayer. Plenty of options, including weapon battles (two versions within this), plain knockout battles (1-on-1, 1-on-1-on-1, or even 4 all out), and team battles are just a few of the ones you'll probably use most often. You can control how many are players and how many computers – you could even have it all CPU and just watch the fights rather than take part yourself (but would you want to?). Multiplayer weapon battles feature 'special' novelty weapons not available in other ,more 'normal', fights – for example, a teddy bear, a kebab, and more. There are plenty of multiplayer modes you can use and they are actually organised in groups, so there are more than it may look – when selecting a character, you will often see a label saying "O Change" – press circle to change between characters in that 'team'. Each character also has their own special fighting style so you can see how kung fu holds out against boxing, karate or rush (there's more still).
(------ THE WORST POINTS ------)
Poor story. And when I say poor story, I don't mean merely sloppy, I'm talking really, really bad. It seems to me like this 'plot' was just an excuse to pitch you against various fighters in various different ways – which is probably true. Fights were linked to each other in only slight ways, just passing references to explain away repeated fighters. New fighters are almost always brought under the reason "So-and-so has hired them to get revenge". These new characters, in turn, 'hire' more to 'get revenge'. Of course, the point is that you never lose, so their revenge should never be fulfilled. When you do lose, just try, try again.
High difficulty – given that the game itself has extremely depressing attempts at plot already, it makes itself slip even more with its incredibly steep learning curve. It starts relatively easy enough, but difficultly quickly accelerates and even in the easiest difficulty available, you will eventually reach a level that proves to be a real challenge. This appears to be less a matter of proving how good you are, and more a matter of padding out a game that has next to no substance. Look guys, if you wanted it to last longer, make it BIGGER, not harder.
(----- OVERALL ------)
This game is not worth it for real entertainment. If you play the Playstation on your own, don't even bother. However, if you are the type to enjoy a multi-player brawl with real fight quality with your friends on a regular basis, rent this game out, if only for that. Don't bother unlocking characters by playing, just use cheats and get on with it, because the real game won't be very entertaining.