OK so right off the bat I have to confess that I dropped the ball on this one. I knew that Pentavision Global’s Koihime Musou game had been scheduled for a Summer 2012 release but I didn’t think about checking on that until the other today. As it turns out, the kit for the game was released back in June, so I missed that completely. But as the saying goes, better late than never so here we go.
Back at the Amusement Expo 2012 event in Las Vegas this year, Pentavision Global, makers of games like DJ Max Technika 3 showcased a non-music game at their booth, a 2D fighter called Koihime Musou. This game had been released to arcades in Japan in 2011 by Rain Entertainment, previously it has been a manga and an anime show revolving around the story of the Three Kingdoms, which other games have also been about such as Dynasty Warriors. This is a kit release as opposed to a dedicated cabinet, which also improves the versatility of the game.
This particular fighting game lets you battle it out with the respective characters from the Koihime series although to be completely honest, I am not familiar with it at all to know how true this game is to previous Koihime Musou work. From a layman’s perspective, the arcade game looks like a cross between Arcana Heart (strong emphasis on female combatants) and Blazblue (some of the crazy effects that happen when you pull off a special move). I’m not sure exactly where this would go in terms of technicality but it does feature a four button layout and there is an EX gauge for powering up to unleash special attacks and combo chains. When you knockout an opponent, you get a brief animation showing the character to do their final combo attack move, which is an interesting touch and from what I have seen, funny in some instances.
- Koihime Musou at Amusement Expo 2012
The opportunity that this US release offers is somewhat rare since fighting game releases by US companies can be sporadic. Graphically it’s all done in 2D with great animation and colorful characters, plenty of special effects to boot. There is some blood but it is pretty minimal, nothing close to a Mortal Kombat type game, being minimal enough to almost pass by unnoticed.
Here are a couple of videos of the game in action via the developer’s website. If I understand the text correctly, the videos show the game running at 30 FPS while the actual thing runs at 60FPS. They also go up to 720p if your video card can handle that full screen.
Hey – how can you have dropped the bat if they never sent out a release telling us they were selling it?
they have it at round 1 in puente hills ca. as well as tekken tag tournament 2 unlimited
Round 1 Amusements in CA has recently had this game in their impressive selection of fighters including Tekken Tag Unlimited Tournament 2
@CD – can you confirm if the TTTU2 is on the network at Round1?
Pentavision had mentioned they had sold very few but I am not surprised that R1 would have one. I’m not sure who might have any others though since pretty much no one except for Round 1 regulars knew about it until now.
@ Editor. I’m not 100% tbh. The cabinet (that’s supports 2 btw) is connected to the patented Tekken Live Monitor. I was atually there when the entire setup was being installed.
On a few related topics. Namco has just released a patch for the arcade version that updates the game to console version standards. This means the console’s balance changes are now added to the arcade version for identical game balance. Additional console content (characters, stages) are not part of this patch so they remail console exclusives.
I’m also surprised that this site had no info on the recently established second location for Round 1 that opened around Sept 7th in Moreno Valley CA.
That would be because no one has told us. A lot of these site operators never tell us they are opening, we just happen to stumble across the news. Do you have more info on the new location?
I have yet to visit the new location myself so I’m not sure what their game lineup consists of. All I know is that the location opened in early Septemberand located in the Moreno Valley Mall.
I’ll look into it, thanks for the tip about the place!
You’re welcome. Love the site.
If they have the live monitor up, it’s on the network.
Well there youu have it. Other new selection of fighters that Round1 seems to recently offer are KOF XIII Climax upgrade (which appears to be rare even in its native Japan) and Chaos Code.