- Good character graphics
- Controls are reasonably responsive
- Survival mode can be entertaining for a while
- Laughably horrible single-player
story mode; feels more like a demo than a full game
- Generic selection of characters
- Won’t keep you interested in playing more than a day or two
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Kakuto
Chojin
Score: 6.1 / 10
After playing (and completing) Kakuto
Chojin’s single-player story mode in about 10 minutes or so you will you
find yourself incredulously asking no one in particular, “This is all
there is?” If the game’s developers were physically present you might
have more than a few choice words in addition to that once the reality
set in that you just blew 50 bucks. Kakuto Chojin (KC) is so short-lived
and shallow in its gameplay options that you’ll swear that a demo disc
somehow mistakenly found its way into the Xbox storage case you just
unwrapped.
As fighting games go, KC has one of the most laughably awful
single-player story modes ever to appear in a fighting game. I’m not
kidding, you can get through one character’s story mode in about 10
minutes. The only “story” here is a few paragraphs of text that scroll
down the screen once you quickly dispatch the required opponents to
complete the story-less mode. The cut-scenes that supposedly tie any
semblance of a story together are horrible too, not making any sense
whatsoever. KC’s story mode and done-as-an-afterthought background of
each character are so ridiculously bad that
it really seems that it was solely created for E3 2002 to only showcase
some of Xbox’s graphic horsepower and nothing more.
Making matters worse, KC contains a generic cast of characters that
seemingly borrow a little bit of this and a little of that from every
fighting game that has preceded it to create their appearance,
especially the Street
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Fighter series. You would swear KC’s Asad
is Dalsim, Vegard could be a doppelganger for Vega (the name is
shamelessly almost identical), and Sabre bears a resemblance to Ken.
Going for the Dead or Alive 3 (DOA3) impersonations are KC’s Roxy,
Vittoria, and Reji. The inspiration for the other remaining characters
could be right out of other big-name fighting series including Mortal
Kombat and Tekken. The KC character with the most hilarious similarity
is J.D. Stone, who looks strikingly like Brad Pitt from the movie The
Fight Club. (Edward Norton is nowhere to be found, however).
But at least they look good while ripping off character traits from the
casts of other more famous fighting games. The graphical treatment of
KC’s fighters is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dim overall
game. Surprisingly, as good as the characters look, the levels don’t
have the same visual appeal and are nowhere near the variety or quality
of DOA3’s.
That’s not to say that the game isn’t enjoyable – because it can be –
but only in a completely short session before being quickly relegated to
collecting dust on your game collection shelf. The best mode for a quick
fighting fix is Survival, which pits your selected character against
three opposing fighters at the same time. The goal is to go knock out
the others in multiples of ten before they can knock you out. Good fun
for a half-hour or so at a time, but that’s about it. The only other
interesting draw to KC is the four-player Battle Royal, allowing you and
three other human adversaries to fight each other all at once. Again,
good fun for a brief while, but not much more than that.
While the controls aren’t exactly DOA3 quality, they do the job better
than what you would expect from a game without too many other redeeming
qualities. Having specific combos to learn for each individual character
and being able to perform the move you want within an acceptable
timeframe save KC from being an all-out coaster.
For those looking to pick up a fighting game from the sparse titles
available on the Xbox, do yourself a favor and stay away from KC. DOA3
is your best choice right now or if you already have DOA3, the
surprisingly excellent Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is worthy of
purchase. With the disaster that is KC, Microsoft needs to make sure
that its upcoming in-house developed fighting games Kung Fu Chaos and
Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus turn out much better. They certainly can’t
get any worse.
Kakuto Chojin's unbelievably fleeting gameplay makes this title nothing
more than an overblown demo that gives the gamer a
blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of the Xbox’s graphical power. While it
has some decent graphics and reasonably responsive controls, only those
bored with DOA3 might consider renting KC on some rainy weekend. I can’t
recommend anything more than that for this completely disappointing
game.
