The early days of the original Xbox were wild. Microsoft did not have a stable of well established franchises. Third party developers also seemed a bit squeamish about giving it big name exclusives. For a decent while they invested in smaller teams with original games. The problem was that while many of these were hyped very few of them were actually good. Kakuto Chojin: Back Alley Brutal was one of these original titles. I loosely followed it at the time of release but the reviews were pretty mediocre. As a huge fighting game fan I recently decided to give it a go. Unfortunately the reviews weren’t far off. Let’s check it out.

Kakuto Chojin: Back Alley Brutal (let’s just call it Kakuto Chojin from hereonout) actually started life out as a tech demo for the console. The developers made it into a full fledge game because of the positive response it received. I hate to start off so negative this soon, but Kakuto Chojin never fully escapes its roots. This is evident as soon as you start it up. While storyline is never going to make or break a fighting game the decided lack of it here is a bit jarring. It’s basically non-existent. There’s no opening FMV sequence, character bios, or anything like that. They each have their own endings, but these are entirely text based. For a game on a sixth generation console it’s bizarre to say the least.

It’s a bad first impression but let’s shake it off. After all story isn’t a strong point for this genre. Kakuto Chojin is a 3D one-on-one fighting game. It’s more similar to something like Virtua Fighter and Tekken than it is Street Fighter or Bloody Roar. What I mean by this is that the developers took a more realistic approach. Kakuto Chojin is based on real martial arts and other fighting styles. You won’t be throwing hadokens or sonic booms. Instead punches, kicks, and throws are the name of the game here. The game is based on stringing together your strikes to perform combos to drain your enemy’s life bar before they even have a chance to strike. Unfortunately issues with the gameplay engine make themselves apparent all too quickly.

The game has 13 playable characters, and each with their own stage. What’s more is you start with two costumes per each fighter. Unfortunately the cast is weird. They’re assembled from across the globe and have some cultural differences but for the most part it all feels like budget Tekken. There’s not really a cohesive style or design to them. What’s more there are some serious fighting game tropes in play with a few of the characters. It just all feels all so generic. That’s kind of par for the course when it comes to Kakuto Chojin however.

Now we get to the real issues. there’s no side step button. Instead Kakuto Chojin let’s you move freely in all directions. By default you’ll only go left or right (you automatically face your foe) but using the joystick you can move up and down as well. This sounds good on paper, but in practice it’s not. This mechanic is more awkward than anything. No matter how much I practiced I couldn’t make it as useful as a basic sidestep. I think it has to do with character speed, because avoiding attacks by moving out of the way is super difficult. There is a run button oddly enough, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Holding down the left trigger let’s you move faster, but it also changes the direction your character is facing. This completely interrupts the flow of combat. I just ignored the function.

Ignoring these issues I really liked Kakuto Chojin at first. Unfortunately this lasted only a few minutes. When learning the mechanics you’ll no doubt find yourself button mashing. Performing flashy moves and multi-strike combos with random button presses works extremely well. Unfortunately it’s when you try improving and playing a deeper game that you realize button mashing is pretty much all Kakuto Chojin has got. Gameplay is extremely basic with the old high/low attack mechanisms in place. Unfortunately these are a bit unwieldly. If you’re holding a direction an intended punch can sometimes become a kick, and vice versa. Special moves should have the same basic strike type as the button you press in a game like this. That’s why it’s so puzzling that this is often not the case here.

The special moves are also remarkably boring for a fighting game. Kakuto Chojin is a beautiful looking game, and while there are lots of flips and dives it isn’t something we haven’t already seen in other titles, and better. I am not a big fan of the inputs themselves. Most of the time it’s repeated same button presses. Sometimes you’ll have a direction to press at the beginning or end, or even have to switch to separate face key. So many of the special moves are either barely noticeable or too similar to one another. Upon completing the game you unlock a secondary fighting style, but honestly this just seemed faster. I didn’t think this made gameplay more interesting necessarily. It’s clear that Kakuto Chojin needed more time in the oven, because it sure feels undercooked.

There are also some technical gameplay issues that most fighting game fans will immediately notice. We’ll start with the big one. There’s a weird pause after performing every combo or special move. Yes, recovery frames are a normal thing, but this goes beyond that. It’s almost as if your character stands still a split second after each string of inputs. It’s awkward, and completely messes with the flow of gameplay. This also leaves your character wide open to get knocked around even when you’ve done well. I’m going to assume this is a technical iss ue, because it makes zero sense why the developers would purposely throw this in.

The lack of options is also a major bummer. Story mode is the meat and potatoes of the experience here. As I already mentioned there’s almost no plot so calling this ‘arcade mode’ would have been much more fitting. Here you battle against all of the opponents in the game and face off against the boss shadow. It’s pretty basic stuff. Then there’s practice which allows you to learn the combos and get accustomed to the mechanics. Aside from that we have multiplayer, but this does have a twist. This mode offers four player action. It’s too chaotic for my tastes but I’m sure it was one of the big selling points. You can also just compete against one friend too which is nice. Aside from these there’s almost nothing else here. You can customize controls, and change difficulty, but that’s about it.

Kakuto Chojin’s graphics were it’s main selling point at the time of release. The character models have tons of polygons and many frames of animations. The backgrounds are also chock full of special effects like lighting and reflections. It has all this going for it while the engine keeps a steady sixty frames per second. On a technical level it’s pretty impressive. So how did the developers screw it up? The art style. Yes, the entire game looks pretty weird. The characters have a weird plastic finish to them, and their designs are downright ugly. It’s pretty unpleasant to look at if I’m being honest. The soundtrack on the other hand is pretty good. It’s kind of a mix between acid techno and grunge rock. Asad’s theme in particular is amazing (too bad that’s the reason the game went out of print due to the controversies behind it.)