Rival Schools: United by Fate

About Rival Schools: United by Fate

Rival Schools: United by Fate (1997) is Capcom's comic 3D tag-team fighter about feuding students in a Japanese city, made for 60 frames per second on Sony ZN-2 hardware and later expanded on two PlayStation discs.

Rival Schools: United by Fate in Depth

It plays like a polygonal Marvel vs. Capcom with Star Gladiator's four-button layout of two punches and two kicks. Each player picks a team of two, but the fights are one-on-one: the partner joins only for a Team Up attack, offensive or defensive, triggered by pressing punch and kick of the same strength when there is enough "vigor". The vigor meter stores up to nine levels; Team Ups cost two and solo super moves one. After each round, win or lose, the player can switch to the partner for the next. Every character has universal low and high launchers into air combos. Tardy Counters let a blocking player strike straight back with any hard normal, special or super move at no cost, and an Attack Cancel, timing a hit against an incoming one, cancels both and earns a level of vigor.

In Aoharu City, schools are suffering attacks and kidnappings, and students set out to find the culprit, which turns out to be the elite Justice High and its principal Raizo Imawano, with his nephew Hyo as the true mastermind. Choosing two characters from the same school gives a story mode with set fights and 2D cut-scenes; mixed teams play a standard arcade ladder. Sakura from Street Fighter is part of the cast.

Making Rival Schools: United by Fate

Itsuno wanted a polygon fighting game that ran at 60 frames per second; Capcom's earlier Star Gladiator ran at 30. His first design drew a muted response, so he reworked it around a school, at first imagining 40 characters fighting to be class representatives. Capcom artist Bengus drew all the character art. An unfinished version was Capcom's most popular game at the September 1997 JAMMA show, drawing bigger crowds than Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, and Game Machine listed it as Japan's most successful arcade game in its 1 February 1998 issue.

The 1998 PlayStation version came on two discs, adding animated intros and endings, a voiced story mode and two characters, the PE teacher Hayato and gang leader Daigo, plus an Evolution Disc of minigames. Next Generation called the arcade game "good, clean button mashing" and the PlayStation version "one of the more enjoyable fighting games available". A Japan-only Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2 followed, then Project Justice in 2000; the band Rival Schools and its album United by Fate are named after the game.