The Bouncer Introduction - Playstation 2
0Touted as Square's first title for the PS2 and being co-developed by Square and Dream Factory (Tobal series, Ehrgeiz), "The Bouncer" isn't a horrible title in and of itself, but (like most early PS2 games) bit off more than it could chew and was rushed to market to meet strict deadlines to pump out "quality" early PS2 games, which eventually took the game down a few pegs. The end result is a mixed bag that vehemently wanted to prove with its visual stylings, musical score and "epic" story that it was the tip of the iceberg in (at the time) next-gen brawling and gaming but just fell too short.
With dedication and patience, unlocking the game's various goodies and viewing the story from its various angles can give gamers a glimpse of the game's potential, but it's also a stark reminder of things that "could have been" when you consider the elements that were later removed from the game (such as destructible environments). Even when you consider what was left intact, its got its share of problems, but nevertheless is enjoyable enough to complete at least once or twice.
One of the first problems was perhaps when the game was marketed as a "playable action movie", where loading and cutscenes take up anywhere from a few minutes to over half of the overall experience (depending on whether they are skipped or not). It's not because its story was a problem in and of itself, but because they spent more time on the visuals and plot than the actual gameplay mechanics. When it comes time to fight, you can use the characters relatively limited assortment of moves and bash enemies to strange ragdoll physics with controls that aren't as refined as previous games by Dream Factory for the PSX/PS1.
The fighting environments are usually of a decent size, but generally lack even the relative depth of the arenas found in Ehrgeiz, where you could clearly jump up and down structures and where characters had many more moves to use in said arenas. It's also annoying that if one character gets knocked down, they all usually do and lose a significant amount of health in the process, and the camera doesn't help. You can raise the basic parameters of each character and do a story-only "Trinity Rush Attack" that looks stylish but adds little to fights as well. Additionally, the game has an okay four-player mode.
If a little more time was spent fine-tuning the story and gameplay of the game, it clearly could have been far more enjoyable. I understand that it was perhaps put up on a pedestal upon pre-release, but it's lacking overall. If you're interested in having all the Square games you can get your hands on, this title should be pretty cheap these days, but you wouldn't be missing out either way.
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