Title - "Shiritsu Justice Gakuen: Legion of Heroes"
Alternative title(s) - "Justice Gakuen"/"Justice Private Academy"/"Rival Schools: United by Fate"
Genre(s) - Fighting - 3D
Platform(s) - Arcade and Play Station

Note: I love "Justice Gakuen"! Well, there is a serious note I want to say. Four years ago, Shiozawa Kaneto-san, Imawano Hy's seiy, passed away. He also played as characters like D in "Vampire Hunter D", "Sailor Moon R's" Prince Diamond, "Street Fighter II The Movie's" Balrog Fabio La Salda/Vega, and "Tengai Maky Shinden's" Orochimaru. Before he pased away, he was able to provide voice samples for Hy again in "Justice Gakuen II". He has been missed for quite some time now.

"Justice Gakuen" is a totally fun, beautiful and exciting game. It's a shame you can't put those three adjectives together if you describe school in general. Anyway, yeah, the game is that good. Ah, how I love Wakaba Hinata, Kazama Akira, and the rest of the girls. *lol*

If you forgot what this game is or if you never heard it before, it is a 1997 Capcom 3D fighting game (not a 1998 game as some sites say). Some people say "2.5D" due to the fact that it doesn't play a 3D fighter. Weird and mysterious incidents have been going on. The center of the problem has been in the high schools. Students have been missing. Now is the time to find the solution.

How to play: unlike your standard Capcom fighting game, you have a four button set: two punches and two kicks.

• Light punch+hard punch - Throw
• Light kick+hard kick - Sidestep
• Any punch+Any kick, with the same strength - Team attacks, an action I'll describe later
• Any attack after blocking an attack - Tardy Counter
• Start - Taunt

You can block in the air. You can also high jump by press down and up quickly, and you can either dash backwards or run forward, by pressing the desired direction twice. Yeah.

Now pick your two fighters from 6 high schools and start your journey. If you pick two fighters from the same school, you get a story line. Here are the schools.

• Taiyo - It's your traditional Japanese school.
• Gorin - It's a school of athletes.
• Pacific (I could have sworn Sunrise is another name for this school, but I'm not sure.) - It's a school of American exchange students for the most part.
• Ged - This is the mischievous school.
• Justice - This is a school of elite students and also the academy the series is named after ^_^. Well, the group is represented by staff members. *lol*
• Tamagawa Minami - Finally, this is a special school that isn't really involved with the story, but rather, it has a special character.

Many, or rather, all of the moves and burning vigor attacks, your super moves, have motions, like those in the "Street Fighter" games. Speaking of "Street Fighter", Kasugano Sakura's in here too. There's that special character I was talking about.

There are no moves which make you charge back or down. This makes the game move faster. Good move Capcom!

You play in three 99 second rounds. At the end of every round, you have the option of switching fighters. The power bars are below and you can store up to 9 levels of power in the bar. BV attacks need one level, while team up attacks need two. Every fighter does a certain action in team up attacks. When connected, you get a benefit, most likely if your partner's a girl, or an aid from your partner to attack, in which, the guys are like this. One example of a team up attack would be that Sakura just attacks as you hold your opponent.

Art - 10

Sure there's other games with better graphics, but man, the game looks good already. The backgrounds, the character designs, the game does stand out. I especially like Kagami (Imawano) Kysuke's design, Hy's brother.

Story - 10

In a way, the story is like a story of a role playing game and that is fine by me.

Audio - 10

I love the music. You had Japanese pop and you had other types of music as well. Sound effects are fine. I love the voices here. Capcom really hired some professionals. Of all of Capcom's fighting game series, "Justice Gakuen" has the best group of seiy ever.

Hiyama Nobuyuki-san who does a few roles like Joe in "Garou Densetsu", Takeshi in "Initial D", and Hiei in "Yuu Yuu Hakusho" does the voice of Ichimonji (Imawano) Batsu here. Ueda Yji-san who does Keitar in "Love Hina", Akito in "Nadesico" and the brothers pair of Amiboshi and Suboshi in "Fushigi Ygi" does the voice of Sawamura Shma. Mitsuishi Kotono-sama who does Misato in "Evangelion", Mireielle in "Noir" and Usagi in Sailor Moon does the voice of Minazuki Kyok. I can go on and on, but this will do.

Control - 10

Throwing's a hassle for me, but other than that, it's responsive and easy to learn right off the bat.

Fun - 10

It's fun and exciting. The speed is so fast and Capcom did a fine job of making a game with an enjoyable and interesting system. Kudos to them.

Life - 10

You pick two people out of 21 characters, if you are playing "Evolution", which is just like this, plus two characters: Hibiki Ran and Namikawa Nagare. That equals many combinations and a lot of value. Note that you can only play "Evolution" on the Play Station. As far as I know, the extras were taken out as the game reached the States. I want to deduct a point in this section, but with the way the game is going, why should I?

Overall - 10

"Justice Gakuen" is fun, beautiful and exciting. It's really a top class fighter. Go and play it if you haven't done so. Here's to a "Justice Gakuen" anime!

+

Just about everything.

-

I never liked throwing by pressing both punches and the extras were taken out in the domestic version.

Date of creation - 11/28/02 (11/26/02 - real date)

Last update - 10/3/04

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