Tobal No.1
Square/Dream Factory
NTSC J version


        Tobal truly surprised me when I loaded it up for the first time. 
You are welcomed by a well done FMV intro, which shows all the characters
arriving at Emperor Udan's castle, warming up a bit, and then getting into
a bit of proper violence.  They are all particularly well animated in this
sequence, and you already have a good idea which fighters you might like. 
I was most impressed by Mary's 24-bit rendered cellulite.  You have to
look closely.  Ick.

        Then you are presented with the front end screen, which has
Tournament Mode, VS Mode, Quest Mode, and Option Mode to choose from.

        Tournament Mode and VS Mode are exactly what you'd expect from a
beat 'em up, with the possible exception of a rather odd opponent named
"Nork" who you will eventually encounter in Tournament Mode.  He's roughly
the size of my house, wearing boxing gloves and a cape, and making all
sorts of strange noises.  Quest Mode is a bit more special, however, in
the interests of bandwidth and time I'll leave this part out for now.

        Whatever mode you play in, the first thing which grabs your
attention is the incredible high-resolution graphics, on both the
characters and the backgrounds.  Everything moves so smoothly too, it's a
real step forward in quality for this type of game.  There are almost none
of the glitches which plagued Tekken, and to a lesser extent Tekken 2,
which gives the playing environment a substantially more solid feel. 
Motion blur on the faster moves too.

        To start off, you get eight players to choose from, with a further
three being obtainable later.  They all differ greatly from each other in
both looks and control too, but personally I would have liked more
characters to have been available, especially after the amount of time I
put in with Tekken 2 and its 23 or 24 selectable contestants.  But saying
that, in Tekken 2, I use only Jun and Paul almost exclusively, and in
Tobal I use Epon and Chuji to the same degree.  Maybe my limited brain
capacity only allows me to remember the moves and feel of two characters
at once.  Ulp.

        The control system left me boxed to a bloody pulp by my girlfriend
the first time I played, because it's so different from Tekken's.  You
have high, medium and low attacks, which are configured by default to
[Triangle], [Square] and [X] respectively.  Another oddity, which I have
only come across in "Way of the Warrior" (3DO) before, is a button for
blocking, [R1] by default, instead of pressing away from your opponent
like every other beat 'em up I've played.  The last weird thing regarding
the controls is using [L1] for jumping, that *really* took some getting
used to.

        Overall though, this new system works very well once you've gotten
into it, and the high-medium-low attack idea makes it extremely logical to
work out your own combos.  Most of the cooler initial moves I worked out
were executed by pressing a direction twice quickly, followed by an attack
button.  Yes, really easy to remember, and as I understand it there are no
moves which use diagonal directions on the D-pad.

        When you are fighting you can see the amount of work which has
gone into the motion of the characters, it's fantastic to watch.  There
are so many little things, like sometimes when you sweep someone but maybe
only hit one leg, and they stumble as they lose their footing a little
before recovering.

        The sounds provide a  satisfyingly bassy "whump" or sharp smack
when you manage to connect an attack with an unguarding opponent, adding
greatly to that overall solid feel I referred to before.  Even better: get
a good hit on Hom, a kind of geeky robot, and you'll be rewarded with a
powerful metallic "TONK!"

        So there you have it.  If you want to see how PlayStation games
should be made, while having a lot of fun in the process, get hold of
Tobal No.1.  While I agree games should be about gameplay first and
foremost, the full-screen, Hi-res, 60 frames-per-second, real 3D
environment should be indication enough that these guys know what they're
doing, and want you to have the best.

-- 
Graeme Nicholson
lbgn@easynet.co.uk
The Temporary Autonomous Zone