Initially, my opinions of Battle Arena Toshinden were conjured up on my first day with the PlayStation. 

The original SCPH1001 console released in 1995 shipped with version 1.0 of Demo 1. Aside from the tech demos, Visualiser software and other games was nestled this, the first 3D fighter for the system. 

Pipping Tekken to the post just marginally. Battle Arena was, with the exception of Virtua Fighter, one of the first 3D fighters I’d ever played. 

Back peddling slightly, the very idea of a demo disc, or sampler was a novelty in itself. I was agog at the idea that I could even try a game without paying out big bucks. With this in mind, and framed in context of a time when games generally came on expensive cartridges, I was fairly amazed at just how much they did give away on that first demo. Two fighters, which, at least theoretically you could fight with eternally in this stripped down full demonstration of a game. 

Well, that was what I thought at the time!

Playing the actual game now is somewhat different. 

   

Attempting to play this title, being mindful of the realitive time of release with Mortal Kombat 3 and Street Fighter Alpha being its two closest 16-bit contemporaries does excel this game ever so slightly into the realms of the unbelievable. 

Like Ridge Racer before it Battle Arena Toshinden had the feel of a true arcade experience. 
Rolling into and out of the foreground, whilst appearing fairly twee now, were a ground breaking feature at the time.  The flat-shaded polygonal fighters, whilst looking basic by today’s standards blew the socks off a teenager in 1995. The addition of weaponry was the first thing to set this game out realitive to Virtua Fighter – the “top dog” fighter at the time. 

The first thing I notice, even today, is just how “high res” the title graphic appears. It’s hard to do justice on this blog – but compared with contemporary games at the time outputting 240i the clean, crisp title graphic always struck me as 480i. In truth in unsure what it’s outputting, but I’m imagining as it is a static image rather than a shaded polygon where colours start to become limited by how much information the console can output, the graphic is less restricted and therefore appears in by comparison, much clearer. 

  

The game itself has aged fairly badly. It’s a slow affair with understandably out of date controls. You see, as I mentioned before, the big thing about Battle Arena Toshinden was the ability to roll into and out of the foreground and background. It’s not just a gimmick either. In my time with this title it’s almost imperative to success. Even with the options lowered down to “very easy” there are still points in this game that appear to be incredibly difficult. In my first play through with Eiji – the central character – I reached an almost impossible stumbling block when I met Kayin. Every other adversary including the final boss Gaia fell fairly easily, but Kayin beat the crap out of me each time without fail. After a near death experience for the controller, I threw in a few dives. It seems the game might have been trying to suggest that this is the way to play!

The second big thing about Battle Arena is the use of weapons. It’s often cited as a precursor to the later, and much better, Soul Edge. Whilst the weapons certainly are there they serve almost no purpose. In my playthrough there didn’t really appear to be any special need for them to be included. All the staple special moves are included and none really appear to rely heavily on weaponry. 

The graphics are fairly good considering this is a launch title for the PlayStation. However, they are let down by slow gameplay. 

The game lacks many features which would come to play important roles in the future, most specifically save features. Whilst there is a score (but no hi-score) and the ability to fight “secret” characters there’s no way to save and reference these features later.  It’s also worth noting that Sho, the “real” final boss is only reachable if you play through the game on hard and beat Gaia without using a continue. It would take a while to achieve this!  Mainly due to the slow nature of the gameplay. 

Onto the scoring. 

BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN

GRAPHICS/SOUND – 8/10

The graphics for its time are still fairly impressive. This is remember, the first time 3D fighters came home from the arcades. Whilst very blocky by today’s standards the stages and backgrounds have a nice variety, the final bosses background is a vomit-inducing trip-fest however where they obviously pressed all the buttons when programming it. There is also a nice touch in a background where a video screen screening the fight appears. The characters themselves do look good. Particularly Ellis whose clothing has a reasonably good transparency effect which is impressive this early on. 

The sound and music is a tad annoying but nowhere near as bad as the Ridge Racer soundtrack. The SFX is weak and the dialogue where available are repeatitive and annoying. 

IMPACT 5/10

At the time this was a revelation, but would be quickly eclipsed by Tekken. As mentioned above the gameplay was a fair bit weaker than Tekken with the lack of grappling moves and the inclusion of weapons.  Whilst the game spawned a number of sequels it never had the mass appeal that Tekken would carry forward. 

PLAYABILITY – 3/10

I’ve ranked this very low mainly due to direct comparisons with its sibling Tekken. It lacked save features, it lacked a multitude of secret characters and the special moves were a little more difficult to pull off. 

APPEAL – 4/10

I’m sure there are Battle Arena Toshinden fanboys out there somewhere. For the vast majority of collectors and players of retro videogames this ranks fairly low. The game itself is an easy find. It was critically acclaimed when it was released getting 10/10 in much of the gaming press and therefore sold accordingly. I picked up my copy for £3 in reasonable condition as seen below. 

OVERALL – 5/10. 

In its day a powerful launch title which would be quickly eclipsed by technically superior competition. 

Some screenshots:

 
  

Below I’ve included the scans of the product case, cd and manual. 
Only in taking these photos have I realised that my copy has “promotional copy not for resale” on it. Weird!
   

Note no save functionality noted.