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Rival Schools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rival Schools, originally titled Justice Academy (Japanese: ジャスティス 学園 - Jasutisu Gakuen) in Japan, is a fighting game series made by Capcom. It focuses on students and teachers from various schools duking it out to fight for justice.
Despite being rather obscure, the series is known for being a very plot-heavy game for the genre, where storylines are usually ancillary and disposable. The games feature a story mode with dialogues advancing the story before and after fights, and include a secondary, non-fighting mode that reveal additional details about the characters and their lives.
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The first game in the series, Rival Schools: United By Fate (Shiritsu Justice Gakuen: Legion of Heroes in Japan), was released in arcades and on the PlayStation in 1997. The game features 2-on-2 fights, where characters could be switched out between rounds, and the second character could be called out during the fight for team up attacks like in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
The PlayStation version also included a second disc with several minigames, including a date-sim like game where a player could create a character who went through normal school life, interacting with characters from the main game and could be later used as a playable character in the main fighting modes. This mode was initially going to be included in the North American release of the game under the name School Life Mode, but eventually scrapped due to time constraints (the other minigames were included, though).
Shiritsu Justice Gakuen: Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2 (dubbed Rival Schools: Evolution 2 by English speaking fans), an update of the game released only in Japan, included a more elaborate version of this date-sim game and two new characters.
The true sequel, Project Justice (Moero! Justice Gakuen in Japan), was released in 2000 in Japan and 2001 in the United States and Europe for arcades and the Sega Dreamcast. In comparison to Rival Schools, Project Justice featured teams of 3, adding three-person team-up attacks and the ability to interrupt and stop 2-person team-ups. Like the previous game, Project Justice included a character-creation mode that came in the form of a virtual board game. This creation mode also was never released outside of Japan due to localization issues.
Sakura Kasugano, representing Tamagawa-Minami High School, appeared in the first Rival Schools game. In the storyline, she, Hinata and Natsu are childhood friends. Also, Rival Schools makes many cameos in the manhwa Souls to Seoul.
A comic book series based on Rival Schools was produced by UDON Studios and its first issue was released on May 17, 2006, with art by Corey Lewis. Originally, the comic was to be produced by Dreamwave Productions, but when Dreamwave showed signs of financial failure, the rights of the comic were sold to UDON, who already produced the successful Street Fighter comic. The comic also makes it that the Rival Schools series takes place in the same universe as the main Street Fighter series, thereby explaining Sakura's involvement in the first Rival Schools game. The manga will be available August 31, 2007 in the U.S.