Gekido: Urban Fighters is a beat’em up for the PS1. It was released in North America in June 2000. This is one of the games that was first released in Europe and later brought to North America.
I really want to like this game, but something is holding it back. The gameplay and controls are good, and I like the super-attack system.
TLDR: A Good Beat’em Up that can be a ton of fun.
Narrative
This game has a very familiar story. If you’ve played any other beat’em up, you have most likely run into a version of it. The world has gone to shit, a young girl has been kidnaped, and you have to save her.
Along the way, you’re going to be fighting a crime boss. The crime boss, Kintaro, seems to have made a deal with the devil. This story feels like an amalgamation of a few beat’em ups.
The story does a good job of explaining things. I’m glad it is there, even if it is rather thin. You don’t need to know the story, which is good because it isn’t a big part the game. For how cinematic this game tries to be, I would’ve liked to see more from that part of the game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty good. The controls are good, and it plays like many of the other beat’em ups from the 1990s. I don’t have any problems with this part of the game.
Like many of these games, the manual is avalible online. This came in handy as I had no idea how to pick up items when I started playing. I have no idea why it had to be complicated, and it reminded me of Soul Fighter.
When you look at the controls in the manual, you’ll see that there isn’t a block button. No matter how many times you smash the shoulder buttons, you won’t be able to block or dodge attacks. You can jump and crouch, so there’s that, at least.
As someone who routinely forgets about blocking in these games, this doesn’t bother me too much. I was more confused with having jump and crouch buttons. Those two actions don’t usually come up when I think about games like this.
There are two base modes in the game. The first is a story mode, which is a traditional beat’em up, and the second is a versus mode for up to four players. There are also four unlockable modes:
- Shadow Fighter – (Unlocked by beating the story mode once) This plays like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Fatal Fury, and other one-on-one fighting games.
- Survivor – (Unlocked by beating the story mode twice)
- Team Battle
- Street Gang Battle
Gekido has four playable characters and five unlockable characters. Here are the playable characters:
- Travis
- Michelle
- Ushi
- Tetsuo
Here are the unlockable characters:
- Kobuchi – Unlocked by beating the story mode with Tetsuo and Ushi
- Gorilla – Unlocked by beating the story mode with Travis and Michelle
- Kintaro – Beat the story mode with Gorilla and beat the story mode on hard with any character to unlock him in the story mode.
- Angela — Beat the story mode with Kobuchi and beat the story mode on hard with any character to unlock her in the story mode.
- Akujin – Unlocked by beating the story mode on hard.
I like that the super attack can be charged up instead of taking a bit of health from your character. It is a nicer way of doing it. You can charge it up three times for the maximum effect.
Like many beat’em ups, the game gets a little cheap as you get further in it. Most of this involves having a lot of enemies ganging up on you. The bosses can also be a little cheap until you figure out their pattern.
Many of the features in this game have to be unlocked. While this gives you a reason to keep playing, I find it a little annoying. If I rented this in the early 2000s, I would’ve liked it.
The gameplay is great. It had everything I was expecting to find in a beat’em up. The game suffers from issues with the visuals. I have a few issues I want to go over with that.
Visuals
I do not like how this game looks. There is so much going on that it makes the screen too chaotic. How the screen moves is also a problem when trying to advance the game.
For a game released in 2000, it doesn’t look as good as other games on the PS1. Parts of the game look good, and some of the enemy models look generic. It’s like the developers found the most generic bad guys to be in the game.
There is a weird moment that I don’t know if I like it or not. When you’re fighting in the city, some random people will be walking around. They don’t respond to the fighting, so maybe this is a daily occurrence in the city, or maybe they’re heading to a different beat’em up.
Maybe Gekido is like the crossroads of beat’em ups? It’s like the bad guys from other games have to pass through this one. I wonder if those games are better than this one.
My biggest issue with this game is trying to advance the screen. Like other beat’em ups, the screen will lock until you’ve beaten all the enemies. This is standard for most beat’em ups in the 1980s and 1990s. There is one big problem with how it is done in Gekido.
You outrun the screen as it advances to the next part of the level. This can cause you to get hit by enemies as they come on the screen. I really hate this. Gekido isn’t the only game that does this, but this game was released in 2000, and this shouldn’t have been a problem.
There is more good than bad in this game. The levels look good, but the game has some issues with character models and scrolling. It is also a very busy game. There is so much shit being thrown at the player that it can become distracting.
Reviews at the Time
Gekido received good to average reviews at the time. There were a few outliers that gave the game lower scores, but nothing lower than a 4.5/10, which was still average for the time. I chose to look at GamePro, IGN, and GameSpot this time.
GamePro’s review doesn’t appear to exist anymore. The only thing I can see is the score, which is 3.5/5. I would’ve liked to get some insight as to how they came up with that score, but it seems to have been lost to time.
IGN gave the game a 7.8/10. The author really likes this genre of games and seems to lament the lack of good beat’em ups on the PS1. It seems like he didn’t like Fighting Force 1 and 2 all that much, or at least they didn’t live up to his expectations. Something he wrote reflects how I feel about the game, “despite Gekido’s flaws, I actually had some fun with it.” In the end, isn’t that all that matters?
GameSpot gave the game a 7.4/10. It isn’t too different from the IGN review. The author mentions that the game is “amusing, fun, and replayable.” He goes on to say that the game would be more fun with other players, which you could say about every beat’em up.
I think the reviewers got this one right. It is a good game that manages to overcome its flaws. I had a number of issues with it, but at the end of the day, I had fun with it.
8/10. Despite the issues I have with this game, I like it a lot. Once you get used to how much is going on, you’ll find a fun beat’em up.
Pros
- Fun Story
- Good Controls
- Good Gameplay
Cons
- Issues with scrolling
- Generic enemies
- No block button
Conclusion
I had high hopes for Gekido. At first, I liked the game a lot as it was a nice mix of older 2D beat’em ups with the graphics of a 3D beat’em up. The more I played it, the more I could see things I didn’t like much.
If I had to point to one thing that made me change my mind, it would be the graphics. As the game went on, the screen became so cluttered with explosions and projectiles. It was a mess at times.
This is still better than some of the beat’em ups I’ve played. I like the idea behind this game, and I liked how it bridged older and newer beat’em ups. Gekido is a fun game, but it has some issues with the graphics.
If you liked this post, please check out my other reviews, like Fighting Force on the PS1 and N64.