Last Bronx (Saturn) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Sega's 1997 versus-fighter arcade port for the Sega Saturn, Last Bronx.

This video shows me playing through the game twice:
2:34 Arcade mode with Lisa
11:25 Saturn mode with Yoko

Last Bronx was one of Sega's several 3D fighting games introduced in the mid/late 1990s, and I've always felt it to be one of the strongest. It was developed for the Sega Model 2 hardware (which served as the base for several of their arcade hits, including Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, and House of the Dead) and the game made the transition pretty admirably to the substantially weaker Saturn hardware. It runs in the high-resolution mode (720x480) while maintaining a blazing fast 60fps, combining a (relatively) razor sharp image with fluid animation. The graphics quality has been dropped a bit from the arcade to facilitate a stable frame rate, and it seems it was a necessary move considering how fast the combat is. But, the compromises will likely go unnoticed by anyone but the most die-hard fans of the original arcade game. They look extremely similar, and this is another example of just how capable the Saturn really was in 3D rendering when the game designers knew how to program for it. It certainly doesn't hurt that this was also an early example of motion-capture being used early on in 3D games - the animation really helps to sell the sheer brutality of some of these strikes.

It has all the typical trappings that you'd expect of a mid-90s fighter, though it carries them off with a lot of style. It goes for a gritty gang-violence theme, but with an anime aesthetic - an interesting combo, to say the least, but it works well. The intro music video and the individual animated endings look great, and the music throughout is pretty good. I have to say, though, that the translations are pretty typical for Sega at the time. Some of these stage names are hilariously weird - I mean, who would think they'd be fighting at "Lust Subway" or "Naked Airport"? Seriously?!

The moves and controls are identical to their arcade counter-parts, and they borrow quite a bit from the Virtua Fighter 3-button system. There were a number of things that differentiate Last Bronx from Virtua Fighter 2, but the most notable of these is the use of weapons. Rather than giving them huge swords, clubs, and axes like Namco did in Soul Edge/Blade, this crew all wield some extremely heavy-hitting real world weapons. Each of them feel different in terms of weight and speed, and they make a huge difference in how you approach playing each character. They also give the combat some real teeth, since opportune weapon strikes do massive damage, and with the speed that the game moves at, matches turn into brief but brutal and intense affairs wherein one flubbed combo can mean the difference between dominating your opponent and being beaten half-to-death. I loved the flow of the fighting in this one - there aren't any lulls in the action, and though the entire game barely lasts ten minutes, be assured that those ten minutes will be fraught with tension and excitement. It's hard to describe just how good this fighting system feels until you try it.

I didn't play it when it was new, but was introduced to it a few years later by a friend who swore by his Saturn. He's introduced me to all sorts of awesome games over the years, but this Saturn gem still stands as one of my favorites.

So, if you like older, high-quality 3D fighters, this one is way up there on the list. It's complex enough to have you playing for months, but it's accessible enough that a newbie can pick up a controller and have the basics figured out within a couple of matches. It's also one that has been sadly overlooked (probably due to both the limited US audience for the Saturn and the sheer number of high-profile releases in the genre at the time), and is well worth a look by anyone who might've missed it the first time around.

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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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