Genei Tougi: Shadow Struggle - PS1 Gameplay - Harry - Arcade Mode - An Obscure PSX Fighting Game
1Not a lot of people will know about Genei Tougi: Shadow Struggle (Or at least I don't Think they will) since it was only released in Japan and in all honesty wasn't very good....but it did spawn a sequel known as Critical Blow.
Shadow Struggle and Critical Blow are both rather odd games because they never received a worldwide release yet more people know about Critical Blow than Shadow Struggle. This will most likely be down to Critical Blow being the better game because Shadow Struggle certainly isnt a contender for Tekken or Virtua Fighters crown.
Gameplay is rather stiff with characters having a punch button, Kick button and Special button. Characters move rather clumsily and executing moves either happens or it doesn't.
Graphics wise its clearly taken element's from Virtua Fighter by having squared arenas but then it removes the danger of rings outs.
Backgrounds are all flat 2D renders with practically no effort put into them.
Characters are KINDA interesting in some areas, You can tell the company liked certain characters from VF/Tekken and tried to copy them but the end result isn't a memorable cast and only improves once we get to Critical Blow were characters get more effort into their designs.
Shadow Struggle isn't a bad game, its nowhere near as terrible as crap such as Killing Zone or others that I wont mention. Yet it isnt a god game either. Its hard to explain unless you lived through that time period but getting a rare Japanese only title for your PSX back then was special (Or at least it FELT like it) and when you booted it up you were expecting something different from what you normally were given. Obscure games such as Tobal No2 or Fighters Impact were not going to win any awards but you played and experienced those games back then because they were different from other fighting games of that time period.
While Shadow Struggle isn't a game I would recommend or claim that its a MUST HAVE title for the PSX it was at least trying to become its own thing at that time and offer its own unique style.
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