Rival Schools: United By Fate (Shiritsu Justice Gakuen: Legion of Heroes 私立ジャスティス学園 LEGION OF HEROES | lit. "Justice Private Academy: Legion of Heroes") is a 1998 fighting game made by Capcom. It focuses on a large cast of students and teachers from various schools duking it out in their fight for justice. The game takes place in 1997 Japan, one year before the release of the game itself.
Despite being rather obscure, the game is known for being very plot-heavy for the genre, where storylines are usually ancillary and disposable. The game features a story mode with dialogues advancing the story before and after fights, and includes a secondary, non-fighting mode that reveals additional details about the characters and their lives. It was followed by a sequel, Project Justice. Character and promotional art by Edayan. A two-volume manga was published in 1998, followed by a comic mini-series by UDON in 2006.
Story[]
The story introduces the player to a Japanese city called Aoharu City, where several local schools are the victims of unknown attacks and kidnappings of students and staff. The various characters in the game set out to find who is responsible for the attacks on their school, with the cut-scenes and fights portraying their interactions with the other schools and among themselves. Eventually, the story reveals that an elite school in the city, Justice High, is responsible for the attacks. The player's team eventually faces off against Raizo Imawano, the principal of the school, and first boss of the game. If certain requirements are met during the fight against Raizo, the story continues and the players play a last fight against Hyo Imawano, Raizo's nephew and the true mastermind behind the events of the game.
The structure of the single player game of Rival Schools varied depending on how characters were selected. If two characters from the same school were selected (with a few exceptions), single-player would play in a progressing story with fights predetermined beforehand and each fight preceding and ending with short 2D cut-scenes to explain the story. If two characters from different schools were chosen, the single-player mode would instead play similar to other fighting games, with the player's chosen team fighting against random teams of opponents before facing the boss. In the arcade, character selection was initially limited to selecting two characters from the same school and free selection of any character was accessed through time; the PlayStation versions, which included all characters unlocked by default, had no such restrictions.
Characters[]
Taiyo High School[]
- Batsu Ichimonji - The main character of the game. A recent transfer to Taiyo High, he is looking for his kidnapped mother.
- Hinata Wakaba - A first-year student at Taiyo. She immediately joins Batsu in the investigation of his mother's disappearance.
- Kyosuke Kagami - A first-year student and member of the school's morals committee. He too joins Batsu in his investigation.
- Hayato Nekketsu - First appears in the Playstation port of the game. A PE teacher from Taiyo, he seeks out the persons responsible for the attacks in order to help his students and to watch over them.
- Ran Hibiki - Appearing only in Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2, she is a journalist for the Taiyo student newspaper looking for a scoop on the kidnappings and attacks.
- Chairperson - (Iincho in Japan) first appears in Hinata's ending in Rival Schools, notifing her of their classmates being inspired by Hinata to take up martial arts. In the ending, Chairperson is referred to as Class Leader. The School Life mode in Rival Schools expands on her character a bit more (though without mentioning her real name). She makes her first playable appearance in Project Justice, working together with Ran and the students of Pacific High School to find out the cause of the recent school violence. She has long raven hair with a red hairband, and her primary outfit is a Taiyo High physical education uniform, complete with bright red sports jacket and white sneakers. (This may imply that Hayato is her favorite of the teachers at her school, but this is uncertain.)
Gorin High School[]
- Shoma Sawamura - A baseball player for Gorin High. He seeks out the people responsible for injuring his older brother, Shuichi.
- Natsu Ayuhara - A volleyball player for Gorin. Like Shoma, she seeks the people responsible for hurting her junior high pupils.
- Roberto Miura - A soccer player for Gorin. He helps Shoma and Natsu in their pursuit, as well as serves as mediator for arguments between the two.
- Nagare Namikawa - Appearing only in Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2, he is a third-year student and swimmer for Gorin High. He investigates the incidents on his own, as well as keeping tabs on Shoma.
Gedo High School[]
- Akira Kazama - A first-year student and new transfer to Gedo High who claims to be the younger brother of the school's gang leader. Akira is later revealed to actually be his younger sister.
- Eiji "Edge" Yamada - A student at Gedo and member of the school's gang. He is one student that joins Akira in searching for the gang boss.
- Gan Isurugi - A heavy-set student at Gedo and member of the school's gang. Like Edge, he helps Akira in searching for her brother.
- Daigo Kazama - Appears as non-playable supporting character in Akira's ending in the arcade version and as a playable character in the PlayStation version. The leader of Gedo's student gang, he cares much for his hometown and seeks the persons responsible for the attack to extract vengeance on them.
Pacific High School[]
- Roy Bromwell - A foreign exchange student from the United States. He is investigating the attacks and kidnapping at the request of his father.
- Tiffany Lords - Another American foreign exchange student, and a cheerleader. She follows Roy in his investigation, not only to help solve the case but also impress him.
- Boman Delgado - A foreign exchange student and preacher-in-training. He joins Roy and Tiffany to help solve the case, although the fighting conflicts with his moral beliefs.
Justice High School[]
- Hideo Shimazu - A Japanese language teacher. He is recruiting new students for Justice High at the request of the school's principal.
- Kyoko Minazuki - Justice High's school nurse (later, science teacher). She is asked to join Hideo in recruiting students to the school.
- Raizo Imawano - The principal of Justice High. Appears to be the mastermind of the kidnappings and attacks on other schools. He is later revealed to be Batsu's father and the uncle of Kyosuke and Hyo. Appears as mid-boss, and is selectable in Playstation versions or in the arcade by time release or code.
- Hyo Imawano - A student at Justice High. He is the true mastermind behind the events of the game. He appears as the final boss, and is selectable in Playstation versions or in the arcade by time release or code.
Tamagawa Minami High School[]
- Sakura Kasugano - A crossover character from the Street Fighter Alpha games. Childhood friends with Hinata and Natsu, she helps them in finding the people responsible for the school kidnappings and attacks.
Extra Characters[]
The original Japanese version featured a character edit mode. It was removed in the U.S. version. Instead, the character designs and facial expressions were used to make the 24 "extra" characters. For example, the females from Gorin have the same exact outfit and hairstyle, but one may have a smiling face and another a frowning face. Here is the list of characters in the order of which they are unlocked:
- Rika (Taiyo)
- Will (Pacific)
- Koji (Gorin)
- Aki (Aki)
- Jill (Pacific)
- Saki (Gorin)
- Ben (Pacific)
- Saya (Taiyo)
- Taku (Gedo)
- Amy (Pacific)
- Goro (Gorin)
- Yuji (Taiyo)
- Mai (Gorin)
- Eric (Pacific)
- Maya (Taiyo)
- Sho (Gedo)
- Judy (Pacific)
- Taro (Gorin)
- Hide (Taiyo)
- Eri (Gorin)
- Ban (Gedo)
- Beth (Pacific)
- Jiro (Gorin)
- Teru (Taiyo)
Gameplay[]
The main fighting game is best described as a 3D Marvel vs. Capcom game, with some notable differences. Control wise, the game varies from other Capcom fighting games by only having four buttons (two punches and two kicks, which is closer to the SNK game format) rather than the standard six. A player chooses a team of two characters, and fights against another two character team. The actual fights, however, are one-on-one fights, with the partner only participating by being called in when a player has enough 'vigor' for a Team Up attack, done by pressing a punch and kick button of the same pressure. The Team Ups would be some kind of double team attack by the character and partner, or (for most female characters' Team Ups) would heal the main character or give them more vigor. After the end of a round, a player (win or lose) has a choice to fight the next round with the partner from the previous round, or to keep their main character in play. The 'vigor' meter (essentially a super meter) could go up to 9 levels, with Team Ups costing two levels and super moves from a single person all costing one level of vigor. Much like the Marvel vs. Capcom games, launchers can be done that allow air combos to be performed, with all characters having universal low and high launchers.
The game also had a few defensive techniques.
- Tardy Counters acted much like Alpha Counters from Street Fighter Alpha, allowing a player to immediately counter-attack from a blocking position. However, the restrictions on Tardy Counters are very lax; any hard normal, special or super attack can be used to Tardy counter (Alpha counters are only limited to certain special moves for each character), and Tardy Counters do not cost any extra vigor to perform (Alpha Counters required at least a level of Super Combo gauge to do).
- Attack Cancels allowed a player to cancel an incoming hit simply by timing their own hit with the attack, which would cancel out both attacks (though it does not nullify the remaining hits of a multi-hit move).