Ane-san

~ ANE-SAN ~

NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1995

People love to rag on Riot Zone, which is actually a perfectly playable brawler, yet they often let this complete piece of trash off with mid-range grades. Well, all the "flaws" that people hate RZ for are present (to more frightful extremes) here. The Ane-san uglies can perform even fewer moves than good old Tony and Hawk, and the game is even easier than RZ: pick a spot to stand in, crank up turbo on the attack trigger, and watch the mindless goons march right into your rapid-fire knuckle barrage like moths to a flame. And while RZ takes lumps for enemy repetition, the lack of variation here is so severe that it's ludicrous. You see the same three or four really boring battlers throughout the whole entire thing, along with a few motorcycle riders here and there.

Those standard enemy sprites look awful; and while the bosses look a little better, they're pathetic in combat, almost always succumbing to quick, routine combos in mere seconds.

The background graphics are very drab (much, much worse than Riot Zone's), while the music is quite crazy--not in a cool way like, say, Faussete Amour's, but in a repetitive, ultra-irritating way. And none of this awfulness is negated by the between-stage breaks that allow you to buy stupid things and play ridiculous bonus games.

I guess some people are willing to look the other way when a bad game does something different thematically--like, say, feature a bunch of ugly biker chicks. If you're not searching for such material and would prefer an actual decent brawler instead, well, pick up Riot Zone. It's a much, much better game than this piece of shit.