Some teenagers use a school trip to see the sights or buy cool souvenirs, but a bancho uses it as a means to find new people to fight. Atlus is giving you a chance to see what it’s like to be a bancho on a school trip with Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, which is our first taste of this Japanese series. There is some entertainment to be had with this beat-‘em-up RPG, which is undermined by its own price.

Kenka Bancho is centered on this school trip in Kyoto where you control a bancho that learns of a tournament of sorts between the many banchos in town to determine who the best in all of Japan is. A bancho is something of a bully, so beating up as many of the 47 that are in Kyoto as you can in seven days is certainly a challenge. And to cap it off, there’s something of a final test at the end to determine if you’re deserving of being called the best. In seven days, your main goal is to find other banchos by beating up the random thugs to find their itineraries or just wander around until you find their colored circles to initiate the fight. As you progress through the week, you can find banchos that have partnered with others so you can tackle the minions of a big bancho to save yourself the work of taking out the entire group at once, though there are pros and cons to each option.

What is cool about Kenka Bancho is the city you can explore to find these banchos. It’s not a big sandbox by any means, but there are several sections you can visit that are fairly large with a lot of shops and ways to get around. Your main options of transportation are the subway, bus, and taxi, which offer different levels of price and speed that you have to take into consideration. The game is at least flexible enough that you won’t be punished for technically arriving late for curfew or other deadlines as long as you’re on the way. You may have to stop back at your hotel to rest since you lose health and stamina after fights that aren’t recoverable without at least taking a quick 30 minute nap, so you should keep an eye on that kind of stuff when searching for banchos.

Clothing doesn’t really change much about your bancho besides the obvious visual change, as some clothes offer pockets that can help you hold more items, but there aren’t stats attached to anything to add to your defense or some reason to really visit the store more than once. There are a few shops that include a clothing shop and barbershop, but the most you’ll find are food marts and souvenir shops that offer food and other attribute-boosting items.

The combat in Kenka Bancho works fairly well, though it’s fairly clunky system that you can get better at using the system in your favor. There is a lock-on that’s supposed to help you focus on one person, but it’s more of a camera lock-on that doesn’t really help make it easier to focus your attacks on one person. That can work in your favor when you’re fighting multiple enemies after you get used to it, which is mostly because you can easily hit multiple people due to a bowling pin-like effect that can get annoying at times when they do it to you. Early on, you have some basic moves in your arsenal that grow as you level up and beat more banchos for new special moves, which also gives you skill points to spread across the usual attributes you’d expect in an RPG. There is a bit of ridiculousness to the game as you start fights with somebody by focusing your laser-like stare, literally, on their eyes and complete a quick smack talk sequence to get the first hit, which uses catchphrases that you’d expect from an action or kung-fu movie.

Though Kenka Bancho does look good for a PSP game, there are definitely noticeable things that show where the bulk of the visual detail was put in. People and vehicles pop in and out depending on how far you are away from them, though there is some decent variety in both normal people and enemies you’ll find in each area. The flesh-colored eyes are a bit odd at first, but the characters look fairly good most of the time. Load times aren’t that long individually, but they build up as there are load times for mostly everything, so expect to see the vocabulary load screens a lot. There is some music to enjoy, but you don’t hear much at all during your daily exploits in the game.

Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble offers a pretty good ride, but it doesn’t really hold up that well when you factor in that it’ll cost you $40 for what you get. Unless you find yourself to be really enjoying the game when you finish it in about nine hours, there’s no reason a rental wouldn’t suffice for most people unless you prefer to wait for a price drop to a more reasonable cost. During this busy holiday season, it’s probably a better idea to put that kind of money towards better experiences on the PSP or other systems.

Final Score: 7 | Recommendation: Rent It

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About This Author: Chris Selogy

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