Customer Reviews

Kensei - Sacred Fist

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kensei: Sacred Fist is a great fighting game. It icncorporates different styles, locations, and even game types to add to a general great experience.
I know this is an old game, but it's one of those good old games, right up there with the carnivores series and Atari's deer hunter (actually, the last one I mentioned I haven't even played, but I've heard it's very good.) The characters range from the dwarfed Japanese 'Zou' to the gothic, weak-framed Allen. There are two characters of each different style (well, actually, they're all supposed to have different styles, but they don't really) and they are all slightly different. There's a special move on each player and it's really rewarding if you get it right. They all have different sayings after winning a fight- some simply laugh, some make dim-witted quirks, such as 'this place will never be yours,' or whatever- and they are each more suited to a specific location. You'll also find that many of the men scream like women, which gets quite annoying. And Anne, the posh english women, gasps dismissively as if her arm had brushed against a wall when being booted in the face. Oh well. Moving on.
The locations are okay. There's not many, but they get the job done. There's the dojo, simply a room used for fighting. And there's also the dock, a seaside environment, which I quite like. But there's always a set arena in each area, and you can only back away so far.
The moves that you get to choose are pretty cool. Zhou, as I mentioned before, generally just waddles around slapping people with the odd low kick here and there. There's also over-compicated attackers, like Yugo, who ponces around doing strange poses before actually hitting anyone. Oh, and there's 'afro' Steve, who flips in the air when kicking as if he's trying to enjoy a nice 60s style disco. It's a blast really.
On one player mode, the enemy AI is quite good. If you react slowly, they won't just do weak frontal attacks- if they get the opportunity, they'll grab you and do a 'painful-to-look-at' special move. They use blocks every now and then, but not extensively, so it's not too hard to attack. Even when on 'expert' mode, it's generally quite easy to defeat all the characters without being knocked out, or 'K.O'd, as they call it in the game.
Once you have unlocked all the characters, you'll notice that there's also another game type on the menu. I can't remember what it's called because I haven't played the game for a while, but it's now got nothing to do with fighting. You can choose your person from the usual selection of characters, but, instead of going into the arena, you'll be on a race track. It's a racing game! Actually, there's not much to it really, just running along an empty road trying to beat old records, but its not bad.
I generally recomend this product if you're interested. I mean, put it this way: before I played Kensei, Sacred Fist, I hated fighting games. But now I like them. Yeah.

It always infuriates me when certain gamers bash those games that aren't their favorites. Even if there's only a single thing that they don't like about a given game, these individuals automatically condemn it and use harsh language to describe what they consider to be its flaws. One game in particular that has received such treatment over the years is Kensei Sacred Fist, one of the most underappreciated fighting games for the original PlayStation. Released in the November of 1998, the exact same year as the clearly more successful Namco classic Tekken 3, Kensei has received an unfair (albeit understandable) reputation of being a "Tekken rip-off." However, while there are similarities between Kensei and the Tekken games, that doesn't automatically make the former horrible by any means. In order to understand how this can be, let's take a look at what works in this game as well as what doesn't.

On one hand, the game has the basic elements down pat and benefits strongly from doing so. For starters, it has bright, crisp, smoothly animated graphics for a PSX/PS1 game. Granted, there are instances where the polygons for some of the characters could use some smoothing out (e.g., their hands), but other than that, the visuals are right on par with those of more well-received games of the time like Tekken 3 and Bloody Roar 2. The sound is also something to be impressed with, what with its heavy-hitting sound effects, adequate voiceovers (Japanese for Asian fighters and English for American and European characters), and an impressive musical soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka that many gamers still search for on the Internet today. Even the controls are solid, being simple enough for newcomers to learn yet challenging enough for more hardcore gamers to master, and while the gameplay itself could benefit from picking up the pace in some spots, I commend the programmers for emphasizing skill and strategy over raw speed. Sure, being able to juggle your opponents with hundred-hit combos would be nice, but emphasizing substance over style really makes things worthwhile here.

Unfortunately, I will admit that Kensei isn't perfect. To begin with, the game's story is minimized to what the player will read about in the instruction manual or, failing that, in a walkthrough for the game. Even then, said information is only the back story for each of the primary nine characters, so you have only a limited idea of why everyone is fighting one another. Worse yet, there are no endings for any of the competitors upon completing the game, only a roll of the credits and a video package of the primary nine fighters beating each other up with their most devastating combos. This is especially a shame considering how much personality each fighter in the game has based on what they say after winning a match (unlike in at least the first three Tekken games, where the characters mostly grunt and shout during battle and strike a pose after all is said and done). If only Konami had added outro FMVs for each character, this issue might have been resolved, and the fighters would have been made to be every bit as unforgettable as those in some of the more popular games and game franchises of the time. More importantly, however, are the learning curves for the defense and grappling systems in the game, as timing is utterly and undeniably crucial for defensive tactics, especially when escaping opponents' grapples. Not only that, but just as with the first couple of Tekken games, most of the unlockable characters (with the exception of Zhou Leimeng) have move sets that are almost identical to those of the initial nine competitors. Granted, the familiarity of these characters' fighting styles makes them easy to use against the competition, but even so, the lack of variety in their added maneuvers makes these competitors seem like blatant clones of their "originals." Last but not least, the Running Bugi minigame, which players can unlock after having unlocked all twenty-two characters, is only fun for a short while, as all it consists of is choosing a character and racing around one of eight different tracks in order to get the best time. There aren't even any obstacles to avoid or opponents to race against, and it's this lack of challenge that makes this mode of play less addictive than the Tekken Force and Tekken Ball minigames in Tekken 3.

Overall, Kensei Sacred Fist is actually pretty good. It has the basic elements of a solid PSX fighting game down pat and has impressed many PlayStation owners in years past because of this. I definitely recommend gamers who have yet to play it to check it out for themselves.

a few cheap characters, alot of pucnching moves but nothing special. a degraded version of street fighter- THE GRAPHICS STINK!