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Battle Arena Toshinden (PSX) Sony/Takara
Sometimes you need to manufacture a hit, even when you don't have one. The PlayStation was a huge unknown when it first hit market. Since it came from a brand-new player, it couldn't compete in one area: established series. Sure, a few minor series immediately hit the system (Parodius is an early example), but it was up to newcomer Sony and its third parties to make compelling, original games that would capture audiences. Namco provided the red-hot driving game Ridge Racer for launch, fulfilling a need and giving Sony a franchise it could bank on. Toymaker Takara attempted to provide another with a fighting game newcomer, Toshinden, which debuted to an eager Japanese audience in January 1995.
Why was this a great fighting game again?
Toshinden's visuals were well beyond those of the Saturn's hallmark fighting game, Virtua Fighter, and it managed to beat Namco's Tekken out of the gate because the company was too busy getting Ridge Racer ready for launch. Magazines and early Internet fanboys immediately started singing Toshinden's praises thanks to the excellent visuals (while ignoring its lackluster gameplay.) Its visual excellence captured players' attention because of how handily it trounced the competition and exceeded expectations.
Sony picked up the game for domestic release, where it launched alongside the PS1 as a killer app. Sony understood what was up, though; it neglected to license the second or third games in the series -- defunct third-party Playmates Interactive took that honor. The fourth, Toshinden Subaru, didn't even appear in the U.S., and the series eventually simply died quietly.
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ferricide: I have to admit that I was a total Toshinden fan back in the early PlayStation days. After a couple more iterations of the series it became increasingly obvious just how wrongheaded that was, but ... it was pretty, and when you had a bunch of people who didn't know what they were doing when it came to fighting games, it was fun. But it's a slow, awkward game with very little depth.
Rereading the hyperbole from the magazines of the day, though, is pretty hilarious. Comparing Toshinden to fighting games that came before, after, and during its short-lived stint at the top is sobering. Still, it did at least make a stab at both 3D gameplay (dodging on L and R) and weapon-based 3D fighting (though hewing close to the Street Fighter mold.) It's a flawed and funny game and a strange footnote to the popularity of PlayStation in the U.S.
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Ben: Seldom have the gaming public and press been so thoroughly hoodwinked as in the sad case of Battle Arena Toshinden. Takara's early-release PlayStation fighter featured then-stunning 3D graphics and ... well, it had 3D graphics. A few of the music tracks were good too, but there end the positives. The gameplay was downright vile, with no real combo system to speak of, no subtlety, and no reason to even bother with it. If it was the first fighting game ever made it might have passed the muster, but it wasn't and it didn't. That's not what the press would have had you believe, though. Most pubs praised it to the heavens, some even over more solid fare like Tekken. Today, Tekken is still around, while Toshinden didn't even make it to the millennium. Do the math.
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hardcore_pawn: I have to side with Ben on this one. Toshinden was one of the first import PSX titles I got my hands on, and boy, was it a letdown. In fact, the only redeeming feature I can remember was pulling off a power move with frail old man fighter that caused him to release a cloud of anal guff into his enemy's face -- hardly the best reason to overpraise a game. It was shallow, tame, and boring compared to the home PSX version of Namco's Tekken. How I wish I had waited those extra couple of weeks instead of having to buy both games. Sigh.
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