#607 Battle Arena Toshinden 3 Bosses (1/4): Naru playthrough
0A playthrough of the hidden character Naru in Tamsoft's Battle Arena Toshinden (BAT) 3.
Naru's moves:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/196716-battle-arena-toshinden-3/faqs/3708
Well, let's return to the BAT series after that little detour.
BAT 3 is an oddity of a game. For a start, you have the ability to switch between a 30 FPS mode or a 60 FPS mode. Sounds great, right? Well, the downside is that setting it to 60 FPS means that the backgrounds become archaic and simplified, looking more like they belong in an Atari 2600 game than something on the PS1. I'm glad the mode is there, as I love me some 60 fps, but I also think aesthetics are one of the most important parts of a game, so it made me a little conflicted. I went with 60 FPS mode in the end simply because it would make for better footage, at least on the whole. What's more, although the game keeps the super meter from BAT 2, they added two "bomb" moves for characters. These are reminiscent of the bombs seen in shmups, whereby the character unleashes hell and gains temporarily invincibility while doing so. We'll also see this again in the obscure title Elan Doree when I get around to covering that, although I think it was done better in that game personally.
Adding to this oddity is the fact that, in the arcade mode, every single character you fight is a mid-boss. Every single one. They're all unlockable, and most of them are palette swaps in some way, but it's still pretty weird to have a game with 14 sub-bosses. You start off with the good-aligned characters playable, and when playing as a good-aligned character only fight evil-aligned characters, cultimating with the evil-aligned boss Veil. When playing as an evil-aligned character, you only fight good-aligned characters, cultimating in the good-aligned boss Abel. It's also possible to fight Sho Shinjo as a hidden boss, and he and the other bosses are all fought by Naru in her regular playthrough.
In terms of sub-bosses, you can tell they were obviously going for what Tekken did. Tekken certainly did it better, though. As a result, I won't be covering every boss in this game. Instead, I'll simply be covering the four main bosses; Naru, Veil, Abel and Sho. I don't think Naru is actually a boss per say, but she is the last character unlocked in the game, so I thought I'd count her as one anyhow.
Naru is actually the sister of Kayin (the Ken of this game). She's a rather comical character, utilising an oversized sword despite being quite young. Mind you, this game did come out in 1997, the year of oversized swords, so I suppose it's rather fitting. Naru is however rather quick on her feet, and able to unleash a flurry of incredibly powerful combos, which is compounded by the fact that characters in this game have tons of health to begin with. This, coupled with the fact that her small stature means the enemy has difficulty hitting her. This deadly combo of a small stature crossed with cheesy combos is something we won't see again, I don't think, until I cover Yoda in Soulcalibur IV. Naru is quite a competent character on the whole, and worth utilising if you're a fan of the series, but otherwise I don't think you'd be missing out on too much by not playing as her.