Underground Games: InuYasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale

I know what you’re thinking. Really? An anime game? Especially one based on what’s essentially a romance story wrapped in an action packed coating? But that’s exactly why InuYasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale deserves so much credit. Anime fans are constantly bombarded with really awesome looking games that end up being cheap cash-ins, and we usually fall for the trap every time. InuYasha was the exception to this rule, and it’s not just because I’m a giant geek for the series (InuYasha, InuJoshua, get it!?!). It’s really good. I promise!

At first glance, this game is easy to pass up as being one of those cheap cash-ins that I mentioned. It seems like fighting games are the quickest way to make a buck with anime games and I honestly wasn’t expecting much when I picked up my copy. It was weird to think that a brand new game based on a hot property was only $20, even if it was released for the PS1 during its dying days. As soon as I got home with my new copy and booted it up, my mind couldn’t help but be blown to a million pieces, much like the Shikon Jewel.

In essence, the 2D combat of InuYasha wasn’t particularly deep. You had three attack buttons and a special move button that could execute different moves depending on the direction being used on the D-Pad. But what started off as simple had become more complex than it ever should have been allowed to be, thanks to the air juggle system. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s nowhere near Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter or even Tekken levels of depth, but for an anime game? It was easy to spend hours finding new ways to link attacks with each character. And it was the characters that really made the game.

Rarely in the fighting game genre do the characters feel like they’re evenly matched. If you can still find one of those ancient relics called arcades, you’ll constantly hear people bitching about how one character is cheap or broken. That’s not the case in Feudal Fairy Tale, because each character felt just as strong as all the others, while being distinct enough to compliment various play styles. Whether it was the fast, in your face Koga, or a keep away fighter like Kagura, there was never a reason to blame the game when you sucked too much to win. It also helped because when you’re dealing with a passionate fanbase, you don’t want to alienate fans of a particular character when they suck too much to play with. Just ask Thor in MvC3.

But the game’s balancing wasn’t where the best part of the way the characters were handled. It’s not too uncommon for fighting games to feature special win quotes or fight intros when two particular characters are fighting, but to have special moves and animations during the fight is almost unheard of. This InuYasha game got the subtleties just right to make it feel like fans of the series made the game instead of a bunch of suits that were looking to make a quick buck (or in this case, yen).

One cool feature was the implementation of the sacred jewel shards that the characters are out to collect in the series. Evil characters defile the jewel while good characters purified them, so an evil character touching a purified shard would take damage, but would force it to revert to a neutral state and vice versa. Grabbing a shard of the same alignment would result in a larger power boost, but neutral characters could grab any shard.

That feature was all well and good, but the highlight for fanboys like me were the tailor made attacks that I mentioned before. It was so awesome to see Kagome’s throw attack switch to her trademark “Sit!” when she was fighting InuYasha. Or how the perverted monk Miroku’s throw would change to groping his opponent’s ass if he was fighting a female (yep, I can’t believe I wrote that). It made most match-ups feel special and in a strange way, added to the replay value in a way that’s not seen often.

If that was all there was to it though, there’s no way I would remember this game so fondly, since fighting without a purpose can only last so long. Back before online was a huge deal, single player was key for keeping gamers playing. Surprisingly enough at the time, the game’s single player mode featured a fully voice acted story unique to each character, complete with branching paths and alternate takes on the story if your character were to lose. There was nothing like the feeling I got when I felt like I was in control of the anime’s story, and even some of the “what if” scenarios were way too fun to play through. On top of the incredible music, voice acted fights and the numerous unlockable rewards, Feudal Fairy Tale had way too much going for it, or at least more than a constantly burned anime gamer like myself would ever expect.

I really could go on and on about this game. If it had any shortcomings, they would be that the roster was somewhat small, the load times could be terrible and the game had the bare minimum translated into English, making it feel like a really inexpensive import at times. Aside from that, InuYasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale was so much better than it was ever supposed to be. A budget title on a dying system based on an anime that the fanbase would buy regardless would have been easy to phone in, but the developers decided to give the fans what they deserved, which was a high quality adaptation of a popular series. Plus, my wife and I bonded over this game! So as I type away wearing my cosplay dog ears, keep in mind that not all games can be judged by their cover. It might seem like the idea of a game like this is a fairy tale in itself, but luckily for gamers, this InuYasha game was the real deal.