For the second game of my Four in February, I decided to finally play The Bouncer. I remembered this game somewhat fondly as being an early, and perhaps misguided, PS2 release. I think it was the first game that my friend Shane had for PS2 (mine was Orphen: Scion of Sorcery). The Bouncer was developed by Dream Factory and published by Squaresoft. Dream Factory worked with Square earlier to develop fighting games Tobal No. 1, Tobal 2, and Ehrgeiz. Though the games are not really related (other than the two Tobal games) The Bouncer is clearly a continuation of those works, a spiritual successor in some ways.
Graphically, The Bouncer was stunning for its time. The 3D graphics looked so sharp, especially through a component cable, compared with earlier attempts on PS1 and N64. Despite this, the game's world does not feel right. The goofy design of Sion, over-sized clothes and cartoonishly spiky hair, is more representative of the setting in The Bouncer than the more deliberate toughness that Final Fight or Double Dragon brought to televisions a decade earlier. The Bouncer feels like a continuation of not just Ehrgeiz but also Final Fantasy VII with Midgar replaced by Edge. And just like Final Fantasy VII displayed a dystopian future that was peeled away to reveal mostly rural landscapes, The Bouncer lacks the bit it tries to show. The characters in both games were designed by Tetsuya Nomura, so we have the same exaggerated hipness in both, The Bouncer taken a step further. About half the cast wears garish clothes, though Volt and Kou, the other main characters that are not Sion, look more the part that Square seemed to be going for in theory. Still, the weird and cartoonish designs of Echidna, Mugetsu, and especially Sion, along with the fighting anime tropes, give the game a half-and-half tone.
One other thing that I should mention graphically, is that the environments are empty, and the camera angles are disastrous. While the game was in development, there were plans for destructible objects and environments. Some areas retain these, but it is still a sparse trek through these industrial locations. The camera is so zoomed in that it makes it hard to navigate at times, perhaps going for a cinematic feel over a more usable game engine.
The sound design here goes along with the store-bought punk jacket aesthetics. The Bouncer has decent soundtrack that switches between metallic rock and weird electronic/industrial/metal. Some of the tracks are great, while others falter quite a bit. The sound effects are actually pretty good and even memorable. The voice work by the various actors ranges from well done (Volt) to corny (Mugetsu and Echidna) to flat (Sion). It's all such a mixed bag.
So how does it play? The Bouncer is again, a melange that settles towards the lower end. The game has the awful camera angles I mentioned earlier, but at least half of the game is watching long cutscenes. The story, a kidnapping of Sion's girlfriend Dominique from a bar by cybernetic ninjas, doesn't reach the dramatic thrills the creators seem to have hoped for, though it does go off into simultaneously strange and expected twists. Depending on how you play the game, you can end up with different things happening with the story. This depends on how you perform in certain sequences and which of the three characters you choose to play during crucial points. The characters do have significant differences, each feeling like a very different fighting style from Volt's wrestling to Kou's more technical kicks. The game utilizes the PlayStation 2's new, at the time, DualShock 2's pressure sensitive buttons. This was an interesting idea, and it works fine. If you press the button down hard, your character does a big slow attack while light tap produce small quick combos. This varies by character and button used. Looking at the controller with the shoulder buttons as the top, the game uses the face buttons, except 'O', to perform high, mid, and low attacks respectively. 'O' does a jump attack, and you use the shoulder buttons to guard and respond to taunts done by your teammates. Responding to a taunt executes a team attack against the enemies, but it does not work on all bosses. Isn't that awkward?
The most awkward thing, again, has to be the weird camera angles. During some of the fights, I could not see most of the enemies and got hit from offscreen. The Bouncer uses ragdoll physics, common for this era; when a character is struck, they go limp. If they get hit into the air, they can be juggled and knocked into other enemies. This is kind of fun, but there were times where I was almost wiped out from one exchange against one boss in particular. One of my allies would get knocked into me, the boss would attack me more, and I would get up with 1/4 of my health left after just starting the level. Making sure to defend appropriately is definitely important, but some of this was unpredictable. I should also mention that the controls are a bit delayed and you automatically lock-on to nearby enemies without a dodge maneuver, both of which make combat even less understandable. The automatic lock-on is especially bad when you encounter some of the stages that are more about avoiding than fighting. If you are imagining an Ocarina of Time-style lock-on, you are in for an unpleasant rigidity that doesn't work well.
Common for a Squaresoft game, The Bouncer has RPG elements. When you defeat an enemy, you get Bouncer Points or BP. I don't know why they went for such a goofy name for this instead of just saying experience points or something. Anyway, after each stage/event, the character you played as can use their accumulated points to acquire new maneuvers or increase their statistics (life, attack, defense). Powering up is kind of fun, but it has its own small annoyances too. Only the character you play as gets BP and only for each enemy they knock out. This means it's critical to make sure to finish enemies off if they are low on health, which is kind of annoying. Also, many maneuvers cost so much, more than you could get in one playthrough, so this game is all about doing it over and over.
If you get sick of the continuous story cycle, even with the different storylines that can happen, there's also a survival mode and a versus mode for up to four players or computers. The versus mode uses the same mechanics as the normal mode with the same frustrations of auto lock-ons, juggling, and ragdoll collisions. You can pick from the main three characters and a few more that you can unlock in the story mode.
The Bouncer is still pretty interesting as a snapshot in time. It showcases what gamers were expecting going into the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era: better graphics, an emphasis on cinematics and games as "art", enhanced physics and effects, and anime designs that often bordered on the outlandish. The game certainly tried to make something interesting, utilizing a lot of new technology, but at this point in time, The Bouncer, while not outright terrible, is not a very fun game.
The Bouncer receives a Neutral (4).
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