Thanks to Tatsujin's little preview of
Ane-san, I decided to give this beat-em-up a try. Double Dragon II and Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom) are the only decent beat-em ups I found on the PC-Engine so far, but they're still not up to the quality that is something like Streets of Rage 2/TMNT/Final Fight, etc.
Unfortunately, this still isn't quite up there with the above beat-em-ups, but I'd say it's up to par with something like DD2. The list of moves aren't huge, but unlike say, Riot Zone, the "feel" of beating your opponents to a pulp is there. The game is quite short, and the balance issue is a bit off -- some of your characters may be too weak at times, where you die with just a few hits from a grunt, whereas with some characters, you hardly ever get hit at all.
However, there are a couple things that make Ane-san stand out. First, you get to purchase power-ups between stages, which is really cool. I haven't gone through all the power-ups yet, but this is something that worked well in these type of games (i.e. Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom). I wished more beat-em-ups did this type of thing. But more so than that, what makes this game stand out is the campy all-female bosozoku-theme (Japanese biker gang). The music is bosozoku-rock as well. Think of Elvis-type rock with whaling Japanese, sometimes Engrish, voices--it's hilarious. The garbs these characters wear and the dumb bikes these folks ride are quite funny as well. Though I can't say I endorse these punk kids' activities in real life, since I'm big into bikes, I admit that I can empathize with their sub-culture :oops: -- I was once a young punk kid on a bike too. The graphics also point out to this theme, and some reviews I read point out how ugly these girls are, and I guess that's true, but since the whole point of being a bosozoku kid is trying to show how tough and cool you are, the programmers went all out to make these female characters all tough and intimidating, in a hilarious way, rather than cute/hot.
Considering that the Duo sorely lacks quality beat-em-ups, I was really happy I got to try this. Yes, I downloaded it to try it first as I see it going for a higher price range -- around $50 -- on ebay. I dunno if this one is worth that much, but I will whip this one up when I see it going for a more reasonable price range. (If it's $50 on ebay, I'd guess maybe 3000yen or so in Japan? I'd probably shell out for it my next trip down there)
Back cover of the game.
Real life bosozoku girls.
Topic: Ane-san (Read 277 times)
