Alright! Crank that Lever and Let the Gods Decide!
Yeah I don't know what the fuck this is.
Okay, it's some time later, and I've found that this is a fighting game! It's based on a manga, that maybe was featured once in the pages of Gamest. (A Japanese gaming mag focused on arcades that ran throughout the 90's.) I say *maybe* because I searched through about 30 issues, and couldn't find a reference. That being said, Sokko Seitokai: Sonic Council is *probably* a parody of arcade fighters of the time. For example the center character up there in red, Ai Honda? Wall-to-wall Street Fighter references.
Banpresto...at this point, I think the only other games in the genre they'd released had been the Dragon Ball Z arcade fighters?
Big character portraits, never a bad thing.
You can choose from Story Mode, Vs., a functional but unimpressive Training mode, and in Options you find a unique little thing called Diagrams. In Gamest, they would track players wins with different characters, best out of 10 against each other character, as a way of defining tier rankings. I remember looking those up when I was getting into Garou: Mark of the Wolves, I think Japanese players had Kain down as the best. (Jokes on them, it's that bitch Kevin.) You can track your wins and losses and save multiple diagrams. Kinda neat!
Story Mode is just this lady, with a green screen and some images, introducing each fight with the rest of the roster. The character is named Kotono, presumably for her voice actor, Mitsuishi Kotono, or Sailor Moon and Misato from Evangelion. Also neat!
Okay, here's the deal. This is *not* Asuka 120%, or Variable Geo, with tits and ass hanging off a Street Fighter 2 knock-off. Sonic Council is closer to Darkstalkers, and it's a decent impression. The combo system is familiar, flowchart chaining of normals, weak to strong, punch to kick. Special moves have to be linked to from normal hits, the timing is pretty tight and you need enough hitstun from your preceding attack to make it work, so heavy blows primarily.
For example, a combo would look like LP->LK->MP->MK->HP->HK->QCF+HP. Complicating things is crouching, you can chain crouched versions of any normal hit, animation permitting, and some are better suited to combos than others, it's character dependent. The game has a super meter that can be charged for a ton of stocks, and most characters have two super moves, but most of them don't work in combos. Most of the cast can't super cancel, and the ones who can only have one applicable move at that. This is pretty limiting, especially if you're used to modern fighting games.
That's enough jibber-jabber, let's see how I do.
Okay this bitch can Shun Goku Satsu, we got this.
YES WE DO
A quick nod to this champion, Naoko. She throws that cat for a variety of special moves, and actually needs them to return to her to use those moves. Trying to do so while the cat is away makes Naoko pull out a cat toy on a stick and quickly lure her familiar back to her side. The animation is *darling*.
This nerd, Yuko, has a full screen super that's like Bison's Psycho Crusher making four passes back and forth, and the AI spammed the shit out of it. Maybe the hardest fight in the game. The coloring of the sky and the surrounding building feels like an homage to Ryu's castle stage from Street Fighter II without being a direct copy, nice.
This stage on the other hand, IS a pretty direct copy of Chun-Li's. The big honkin' radish is kinda funny though.
The fuck does he even wear that shirt for? Weird nipples?
This is a good time to mention something, the AI is fucking DIM. Look in their eyes, its like a sky with no clouds. They will spam a few moves for any given situation, and you can bait them
very easily. Kato here, in particular, when at roughly the above distance, will constantly use a slow short burst palm strike, picture Ryo's fireball from King of Fighters 96. Thing is, he's tall as hell, and the strike can be ducked under. Even better, this character I'm using has a slide kick...and a Shoryuken. This is the default difficulty, granted, maybe turn it up if you play it yourself.
Anyways, with a lot of crouching HP's, DP's, and cancelling into a super DP (which also has an air version, Ai Honda isn't half bad), the rest of the cast fell swiftly and without issue. I was left then, to survey my domain...where's that music coming from?
How much rocket fuel can you fit in a sandal?
Oh shit oh fuck I don't know why those kids are there, let's just get this over with.
The boss is definitely the best character, with Goenitz-style ground burst lasers, big priority, and bigger damage. Thankfully, he's just as stupid as the rest! Stay right in his face, keep attacking, and if you have something with i-frames like a shoryuken to stuff him with, go for it. He has *no plan*.
Roll credits, motherf....wait, I hadn't looked around during the fight, are we on Spaceball One?!
Later, skater.
It's not the most rewarding fighter, but the 90's were awash in low effort brawlers looking to cash in, and this ain't that. Give Sokko Seitokai: Sonic Council a minute! I wasted time with it, and So....Can....
You!
i lasted a little longer but got KO'd again, the graphics look pretty cool kinda like One Piece.
so i decided to do the story line again but figure out some stronger moves. Eventually i figured out special attacks that made things easier but they had to be well timed as they can be interrupted or blocked
