Let's Sperg Namco x Capcom - Turn-based SRPG autism where Dig Dug is a total badass

[GethN7]

Because I was horribly, horribly bored and remembered I had this beaten awhile back, and since @Jaimas and @AngeloTheWizard inspired me with their Let's Sperging, I decided I'd take a crack at an old game that, for those who have played the Project X Zone games, this is the prequel America never got and was only playable if you imported the Japanese version and/or added a translation patch to give it a wooden yet servicable English translation, which you could either play on a modded PS2 or the PCSX2 emulator, and for ease of screenshots, I'll be using the latter.

As the game title implies, this throws a bunch of obscure and not so obscure characters from both the Namco and Capcom franchises into a blender and has guys like Jin Kazama from Tekken and Ken Masters from Street Fighter joining forces to kick butt. And yes, that guy from Dig Dug shows up, only he's a LOT more badass, but we'll get to him later.

A decent writeup can be found here:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/namcoxcapcom/namcoxcapcom.htm

Given the sheer length of the game and given how due to clunky battle controls this game is really slow (due to the fact you have to input battle commands fighting game style most of the time), this is going to be more a "now you know the backstory of Project X Zone" kind of thing than some detailed strategy guide, but I'll toss in advice for those who want to sperg with me.


Anyway, let's begin.


Prologue 1 - Yuragi Street's Arisu

The prologue starts with a bunch of still images of the Shibuya district of, you guessed it, Tokyo. The backstory is that two organizations were wailing on each other 10 years back over some project involving dimensional quakes, with one wanting to open them, and the latter trying to stop them.

When the battle ended, Shinra (the good guy organization who wanted to close the dimensional holes) was victorious, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, since it resulted in Shibuya Ward becoming a danger zone of dimensional instability, and that instability caused dimensional quakes to keep occurring long afterwards to present day.

Needless to say, that means history is gonna repeat......


Anyway, game starts in 20xx, Roppongi Ward of Tokyo, where our main hero Reiji Arisu gets a call from his bosses to go head to Shibuya to check out the latest weirdness, and this is when his partner in crime Xiaomu shows up.

Here's a pic of the two of them from the Stage 1 titlecard (Xiaomu on the left, Reiji on the right):

Brief background on these two: They are actually official ripoffs of the characters Kyosuke Nanbu and Excellen Browning from the Super Robot Wars series, with Reiji ripping off Kyosuke's two-tone hair and being the "straight man" to Xiaomu, who rips off Excellen's hair color and perverted comedic relief. Also, if it wasn't obvious, Xiaomu isn't human, being a 765 year old fox woman who knew Reiji since he was a kid and has not so hidden feelings for him (but obviously decided to wait till he grew up, she ain't that perverted) despite the age difference.

Anyway, just know Reiji likes to slice things a lot with one of three different swords and shoot stuff with two gold plated pistols and a shotgun, while Xiaomu uses a blade cane/magic staff and occasionally breaks out her own pair of pistols.

Now, onto the plot:

Reiji and Xiaomu spend most of the opening cutscene of their intro going over the backstory, Reiji mentioning the brass of Shinra want them to meet with an American organization to compare notes after a meet near Shibuya, and Xiamou alternating between bitching about this and threatening to go on strike, which fizzles out in a hurry after Reiji tells her he was aware of that stash of cash under her bed and if she wants it back, she'll quit whining.

Cue the 765 year old fox woman-child throwing a brief hissy fit, then she gets over it and they head to Shibuya as the cutscene fades out.

We then cut to Freighter Elza in the distant future, and for those lost on the reference, that means the ship from Xenosaga I.

The conversation is basically Shion Uzuki (far right) asking KOS-MOS (far left) about some abnormalities in her systems, KOS-MOS telling her it's no big deal, her assistant Allen Marks (next to KOS-MOS) basically wondering why it's such a big deal, and Momo (next to Shion) getting worried over it.

Marks thinks Shion is being paranoid, but Shion ain't listening and wants to basically dive inside KOS-MOS' mind via Xenosaga's version of VR and figure out what the deal is and tells KOS-MOS to get inside the Encephalon (that thing in the background of the image above) so she can do the VR jump.

We cut back to present day Shibuya, and we find Street Fighter Alpha 3 era Chun-li (with the ICPO/Interpol) trying to keep Cammy White from entering Shibuya since it's cordoned off, saying she knows full well Cammy is with Shadowloo, which was supposed to be destroyed but is apparently making a comeback, and Chun-li demands to know where Bison (called Vega in the JP/fan translated script, and I'll be using the American name to avoid confusion) is.

This prompts her subordinates Juni and Juli to show up:

Juni and Juli wants to take Chun-li out right there, but Cammy tells them they have a more important mission to keep in mind. With that they disappear as Chun-li gives chase wondering if Shadowloo and the dimensional incidents are connected, as well as a mention of "monster sightings".

We then cut to the battle map of the Shibuya streets, which are deserted, and as Xiaomu tries to joke about how the empty streets mean the clothing stores won't have any lines, Reiji's more concerned with the obvious signs of magic in the air that means weird shit is gonna happen.

Sure enough, some "scythe-weasels" show up, meaning it's time to rumble:

As shown, the battles take place on an isometric, 2.5d square gridded map, so anyone who has played Disgaea should feel right at home.

The game has a brief tutorial you can skip, and whether you go for it or not, the first couple of foes are really easy to kill, since you can just plop Reiji and Xiaomu (who act as a paired up single unit) in middle of the enemies and use their Multiple Assault attack, which is them going back to back and shooting everything like a cheesy nineties action movie. Or, you could just try to have them fight these things one by one, but since that's retarded, we'll pick the first option.

Once the enemies are dead, Xiaomu hasn't forgotten Reiji is holding her cash stash, but cuts short her begging for it as she notices something weird, namely, a bunch of semi-transparent Gnosis from Xenosaga:

Reiji immediately assumes it's more enemies and decides to not waste any time and just shoot them, but the bullet passes right through the Gnosis. Xiaomu assumes Reiji decided to be a cheap-ass and use cheap ammo, but Reiji confirms he used rounds meant for killing ghosts, which means they are unable to be hit by tangible attacks, and just as they start to worry, that's when KOS-MOS, Shion, and Momo show up behind them.

Shion thinks this is part of the whole VR dive experience, until she realizes Momo is with her, which shouldn't be possible, while Reiji and Xiaomu wonder who the newcomers are. Cue a lot of confusion on both sides as Shion tries to wrap her mind around the idea they aren't in VR anymore, while Reiji wonders how they got to Shibuya. Meanwhile, KOS-MOS seems to be figuring out things a lot faster.

And that's when Shion notices the Gnosis and panics. Reiji doesn't get what they are so worried about nor the technobabble they are saying and just tells them they need to evacuate the area while Shion.exe is desperately trying to reboot to reconcile with her current state of reality.

And that's when KOS-MOS realizes the Gnosis aren't going to just sit there forever and says she's gonna activate the Hilbert Effect.

Brief pause here for the non-Xenosaga people in the audience. Basically, the Gnosis can't be hit without the Hilbert Effect, which renders them into a physical form that can be destroyed, more or less.

Shion finally realizes that whatever is going on is less important than not dying, so she gives KOS-MOS the green light. One blast of light and KOS-MOS temporarily lowering her visor later, and the Gnosis are tangible. The Gnosis freak upon realizing they are now mortal, and Reiji's brain nearly blows a fuse trying to get all the technobabble, until Shion notices and tells him he can now kill the Gnosis.

And we get on to the second part of the battle.

The Gnosis aren't that tough, and it's best you let Shion and Momo soften them up with their ranged attack and detail KOS-MOS to finish the first one off, as you'll be getting company soon.

Cammy, Juni, and Juli show up from the other end of the street the Scythe Weasels did as Cammy tells the latter two to capture Reiji and Xiaomu and kill the rest while she heads off to do other things. This immediately puts Reiji on guard as Cammy's goons head for him, and that's when Chun-li shows up from behind, prompting Juni and Juli to realize letting themselves be ambushed would be stupid and stand their ground.

The rest of battle is pretty simple. Let KOS-MOS take out the Gnosis while Reiji and Xiaomu take on Juni or Juli (you only need take out one or the other) while Shion and Momo support attack from a distance whoever needs hit the most. Meanwhile, Chun-li should help Reiji and Xiaomu take out your preferred Shadowloo goon.

Keep in mind Juni and Juli will prioritize beating Chun-li up, so use Chun-li's healing skill and have her fall back if she's getting too beat up.

During the fight, you'll get some commentary if Reiji and Xiaomu fight a Gnosis where Xiaomu wonders if the thing is from space, Reiji wonders if she's retarded, and Shion realizes Xiaomu is sharper than she looks.

After beating up either Juni or Juli, they both retreat. Reiji tries to keep Chun-li from running off after them in vain, and KOS-MOS acts as a dictionary for Reiji, ironically enough, as his use of the word felicitous (to describe KOS-MOS's abilities to scan for enemies) leaves Momo confused. It's this that clues him and Xiaomu in that KOS-MOS is an android.

It's after this introductions occur, and Reiji offers to have a more indepth discussion over what's going on at Shinra HQ with Shion and company.

As the stage ends, Reiji realizes that history indeed is repeating.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

It occurs to me that Allen Marks has one of the most normal names in all of Namco's works ever. I don't know why I focused on that, but, next to all the Japanese and Android naming conventions it stands out.

And I bet he's not even playable.

 

[GethN7]

It occurs to me that Allen Marks has one of the most normal names in all of Namco's works ever. I don't know why I focused on that, but, next to all the Japanese and Android naming conventions it stands out.

And I bet he's not even playable.

He isn't. He disappears after the intro stage.

 

[Jaimas]

Because I was horribly, horribly bored and remembered I had this beaten awhile back, and since @Jaimas and @AngeloTheWizard inspired me with their Let's Sperging, I decided I'd take a crack at an old game that, for those who have played the Project X Zone games, this is the prequel America never got and was only playable if you imported the Japanese version and/or added a translation patch to give it a wooden yet servicable English translation, which you could either play on a modded PS2 or the PCSX2 emulator, and for ease of screenshots, I'll be using the latter.

As the game title implies, this throws a bunch of obscure and not so obscure characters from both the Namco and Capcom franchises into a blender and has guys like Jin Kazama from Tekken and Ken Masters from Street Fighter joining forces to kick butt. And yes, that guy from Dig Dug shows up, only he's a LOT more badass, but we'll get to him later.

A decent writeup can be found here:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/namcoxcapcom/namcoxcapcom.htm

Given the sheer length of the game and given how due to clunky battle controls this game is really slow (due to the fact you have to input battle commands fighting game style most of the time, this is going to be more a "now you know the backstory of Project X Zone" kind of thing than some detailed strategy guide, but I'll toss in advice for those who want to sperg with me.


Anyway, let's begin.


Prologue 1 - Yuragi Street's Arisu

The prologue starts with a bunch of still images of the Shibuya district of, you guessed it, Tokyo. The backstory is that two organizations were wailing on each other 10 years back over some project involving dimensional quakes, with one wanting to open them, and the latter trying to stop them.

When the battle ended, Shinra (the good guy organization who wanted to close the dimensional holes) was victorious, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, since it resulted in Shibuya Ward becoming a danger zone of dimensional instability, and that instability caused dimensional quakes to keep occurring long afterwards to present day.

Needless to say, that means history is gonna repeat......


Anyway, game starts in 20xx, Roppongi Ward of Tokyo, where our main hero Reiji Arisu gets a call from his bosses to go head to Shibuya to check out the latest weirdness, and this is when his partner in crime Xiaomu shows up.

Here's a pic of the two of them from the Stage 1 titlecard (Xiaomu on the left, Reiji on the right):

View attachment 251778


Brief background on these two: They are actually official ripoffs of the characters Kyosuke Nanbu and Excellen Browning from the Super Robot Wars series, with Reiji ripping off Kyosuke's two-tone hair and being the "straight man" to Xiaomu, who rips off Excellen's hair color and perverted comedic relief. Also, if it wasn't obvious, Xiaomu isn't human, being a 765 year old fox woman who knew Reiji since he was a kid and has not so hidden feelings for him (but obviously decided to wait till he grew up, she ain't that perverted) despite the age difference.

Anyway, just know Reiji likes to slice things a lot with one of three different swords and shoot stuff with two gold plated pistols and a shotgun, while Xiaomu uses a blade cane/magic staff and occasionally breaks out her own pair of pistols.

Now, onto the plot:

Reiji and Xiaomu spend most of the opening cutscene of their intro going over the backstory, Reiji mentioning the brass of Shinra want them to meet with an American organization to compare notes after a meet near Shibuya, and Xiamou alternating between bitching about this and threatening to go on strike, which fizzles out in a hurry after Reiji tells her he was aware of that stash of cash under her bed and if she wants it back, she'll quit whining.

Cue the 765 year old fox woman-child throwing a brief hissy fit, then she gets over it and they head to Shibuya as the cutscene fades out.

We then cut to Freighter Elza in the distance future, and for those lost on the reference, that means the ship from Xenosaga I.

View attachment 251793

The conversation is basically Shion Uzuki (far right) asking KOS-MOS (far left) about some abnormalities in her systems, KOS-MOS telling her it's no big deal, her assistant Allen Marks (next to KOS-MOS) basically wondering why it's such a big deal, and Momo (next to Shion) getting worried over it.

Marks thinks Shion is being paranoid, but Shion ain't listening and wants to basically dive inside KOS-MOS' mind via Xenosaga's version of VR and figure out what the deal is and tells KOS-MOS to get inside the Encephalon (that thing in the background of the image above) so she can do the VR jump.

We cut back to present day Shibuya, and we find Street Fighter Alpha 3 era Chun-li (with the ICPO/Interpol) trying to keep Cammy White from entering Shibuya since it's cordoned off, saying she knows full well Cammy is with Shadowloo, which was supposed to be destroyed but is apparently making a comeback, and Chun-li demands to know where Bison (called Vega in the JP/fan translated script, and I'll be using the American name to avoid confusion) is.

This prompts her subordinates Juni and Juli to show up:

View attachment 251800 Juni and Juli wants to take Chun-li out right there, but Cammy tells them they have a more important mission to keep in mind. With that they disappear as Chun-li gives chase wondering if Shadowloo and the dimensional incidents are connected, as well as a mention of "monster sightings".

We then cut to the battle map of the Shibuya streets, which are deserted, and as Xiaomu tries to joke about how the empty streets mean the clothing stores won't have any lines, Reiji's more concerned with the obvious signs of magic in the air that means weird shit is gonna happen.

Sure enough, some "scythe-weasels" show up, meaning it's time to rumble:

View attachment 251805
As shown, the battles take place on an isometric, 2.5d square gridded map, so anyone who has played Disgaea should feel right at home.

The game has a brief tutorial you can skip, and whether you go for it or not, the first couple of foes are really easy to kill, since you can just plop Reiji and Xiaomu (who act as a paired up single unit) in middle of the enemies and use their Multiple Assault attack, which is them going back to back and shooting everything like a cheesy nineties action movie. Or, you could just try to have them fight these things one by one, but since that's exceptional, we'll pick the first option.

Once the enemies are dead, Xiaomu hasn't forgotten Reiji is holding her cash stash, but cuts short her begging for it as she notices something weird, namely, a bunch of semi-transparent Gnosis from Xenosaga:

View attachment 251807
Reiji immediately assumes it's more enemies and decides to not waste any time and just shoot them, but the bullet passes right through the Gnosis. Xiaomu assumes Reiji decided to be a cheap-ass and use cheap ammo, but Reiji confirms he used rounds meant for killing ghosts, which means they are unable to be hit by tangible attacks, and just as they start to worry, that's when KOS-MOS, Shion, and Momo show up behind them.

Shion thinks this is part of the whole VR dive experience, until she realizes Momo is with her, which shouldn't be possible, while Reiji and Xiaomu wonder who the newcomers are. Cue a lot of confusion on both sides as Shion tries to wrap her mind around the idea they aren't in VR anymore, while Reiji wonders how they got to Shibuya. Meanwhile, KOS-MOS seems to be figuring out things a lot faster.

And that's when Shion notices the Gnosis and panics. Reiji doesn't get what they are so worried about nor the technobabble they are saying and just tells them they need to evacuate the area while Shion.exe is desperately trying to reboot to reconcile with her current state of reality.

And that's when KOS-MOS realizes the Gnosis aren't going to just sit there forever and says she's gonna activate the Hilbert Effect.

Brief pause here for the non-Xenosaga people in the audience. Basically, the Gnosis can't be hit without the Hilbert Effect, which renders them into a physical form that can be destroyed, more or less.

Shion finally realizes that whatever is going on is less important than not dying, so she gives KOS-MOS the green light. One blast of light and KOS-MOS temporarily lowering her visor later, and the Gnosis are tangible. The Gnosis freak upon realizing they are now mortal, and Reiji's brain nearly blows a fuse trying to get all the technobabble, until Shion notices and tells him he can now kill the Gnosis.

And we get on to the second part of the battle.

View attachment 251813

The Gnosis aren't that tough, and it's best you let Shion and Momo soften them up with their ranged attack and detail KOS-MOS to finish the first one off, as you'll be getting company soon.

Cammy, Juni, and Juli show up from the other end of the street the Scythe Weasels did as Cammy tells the latter two to capture Reiji and Xiaomu and kill the rest while she heads off to do other things. This immediately puts Reiji on guard as Cammy's goons head for him, and that's when Chun-li shows up from behind, prompting Juni and Juli to realize letting themselves be ambushed would be stupid and stand their ground.

The rest of battle is pretty simple. Let KOS-MOS take out the Gnosis while Reiji and Xiaomu take on Juni or Juli (you only need take out one or the other) while Shion and Momo support attack from a distance whoever needs hit the most. Meanwhile, Chun-li should help Reiji and Xiaomu take out your preferred Shadowloo goon.

Keep in mind Juni and Juli will prioritize beating Chun-li up, so use Chun-li's healing skill and have her fall back if she's getting too beat up.

During the fight, you'll get some commentary if Reiji and Xiaomu fight a Gnosis where Reiji wonders if the thing is from space, Xiaomu wonders if he's exceptional, and Shion realizes Reiji is sharper than he looks.

After beating up either Juni or Juli, they both retreat. Reiji tries to keep Chun-li from running off after them in vain, and KOS-MOS acts as a dictionary for Reiji, ironically enough, as his use of the word felicitous (to describe KOS-MOS's abilities to scan for enemies) leaves Momo confused. It's this that clues him and Xiaomu in that KOS-MOS is an android.

It's after this introductions occur, and Reiji offers to have a more indepth discussion over what's going on at Shinra HQ with Shion and company.

As the stage ends, Reiji realizes that history indeed is repeating.

Xiaomu is 100% hilarious cheese.

She's a meme-spouting fox who loves wrestling, fried tofu, and is the perfect counter to her partner's dry wit.

 

[GethN7]

Prologue 2 - Tales of Destiny

After the first prolouge stage,. we'll be switching gears, this time to Tales of Destiny characters, and some thing I need to clear up. First off, it's based off the first game, not the second one, so if you ever played the first ToD, you'll get the plot. Second, the main character is called "Stan" instead of "Stahn" in the translation, but I'll refer to him as Stahn.

Anyway, we start with a scene that will be VERY familiar to ToD veterans, with Stahn and Rutee (Stahn's thief friend/love interest) getting betrayed by their friend Leon, and when they try to stop him, you can guess the cliche:

Some discussion about how Leon is doing the bidding of some guy named Hugo, Rutee and Stahn (the blonde) calling Leon retarded, and a brief fadeout later, and Leon still wants to be a dumbass.

Stahn tells him he doesn't care whatever Leon has in mind, he got ahold of something called the 'Eye of God" and messing with it is a very bad idea given how jacked up the world already is, Leon ain't listening and eats a sword from Stahn for his trouble.

Of course, as Leon's dying, he says doomsday has begun, and as the sounds of flooding can be heard Stahn's blade Dimlos (it talks) tells Stahn they need to leave. Stahn doesn't want to leave Leon to die there, but Rutee is the sensible one:

We fade out as Leon croaks and cut to the forest outside, where we find Klonoa and Gantz from the Klonoa series:

Before we go on, just want to mention Klonoa is a kinda goofy platformer series that sticks out like a bit of sore thumb in this crossover, having a tenuous as hell connection to the other series, but Namco did their best to make it make sense anyway.

Anyway, Klonoa and Gantz are talking about the world is all screwed up and the Golden Knight, which is reference to the main character of the Tower of Druaga series, and not only does Gantz sensibly point out the world must be messed up if that guy has reappeared after a long absence, we also find that Gantz has a hilariously foul mouth for such a cutesy looking character.

The upshot is that Gantz senses a lot of Phantom Beast monsters are around as a result and he's gonna go cashing in a reward for killing them and asks Klonoa if he wants in on the action. Klonoa is like "Is water wet?"

We then cut to the Streets of Sandland, where a cutesy frog knight in gold armor named Kurino is approached by a little girl in a purple hoodie named Sabine and mentions the goddess Ishtar forbid the Sandra (Kurino's tribe, alternately called the Xandra) from getting involved.

Kurino obviously does not care and mentions he gonna check stuff out anyway because he's only loyal to the Lady Valkyrie (of "The Legend of Valkyrie" series), and since Sabine owes Kurino for saving her awhile back, she basically wants to tag along, and despite Kurino telling Sabine that will make her an outcast to their village like him, Sabine doesn't care.

And so they head off to the tower Kurino mentioned.

We then cut to the Tower of Druaga ruins.

Stahn and Rutee are there, with Stahn being all mopey over leaving Leon, and Rutee telling him he needs to live to make sure no one else starts messing with the Eye of God. Stahn goes all "humble hero" at this sort of talk, and Rutee tells him not to think or worry about it too much, she's in the same boat.

As their discussion ends, turns out they are supposed to meet the guy who left it in ruins, though why the latter wanted a meet they aren't entirely sure.

We then cut to the battle map.

Rutee's annoyed at being made to wait ten extra minutes, Stahn tells her to calm down, and just as Rutee's about to go nova, Stahn notices the Golden Knight (their contact) , which prompts Rutee to act all embarrassed at losing her temper....

....or not, as Stahn was just trolling her.

However, before she rips a stripe off his ass for doing that, some Slimes show up.

They are pretty simple, and killing the first one is beyond effortless. Of course, this only prompts a few more to show up, and as Rutee is all for killing them, Stahn notices they are black in color, but before he can elaborate why that concerns him, Gantz and Klonoa show up, to Stahn and Rutee's confusion.

Gantz is a total dick as he tells the ToD crew to have a date elsewhere, and just as Rutee goes all tsundere at that comment, that's when Gantz and Klonoa notice the slimes and decide to join in the asskicking, and both the ToD and Klonoa casts realize they want to meet the same guy.

As the battle resumes, Stahn realizes the black slimes mean trouble, but he's not sure exactly how bad.

The battle still is like before, only it's best to let the slimes come to you as your teams beat them up, and thanks to Gantz's sweet gunbike he and Klonoa have a good range of movement so you can have them keep the slimes from ganging up on Stahn and Rutee, whom the black slimes will prioritize otherwise. Gantz can also do ranged combat if you don;t want to get in close with Klonoa.

It doesn't really matter, as the black slimes aren't much stronger than the green ones, and as you kill one of them, Gantz grudgingly compliments Rutee as Dimlos warns Stahn more trouble is incoming.

It's then Atwight (Rutee's talking sword) pipes up that reality seems to be pear shaped in their vicinity:

(Atwight on the left, Dimlos on the right)

Gantz and Klonoa don't realize the swords can talk (its like psychic communication, so they can't hear it) and think Stahn and Rutee have lost it, and before Rutee can explain things, that when some dark blue knights show up from the Druaga series.

After another turn, Kurino and Sabine show up, and Kurino immediately figures out what's going on, while Kurino's gold armor makes the ToD guys mistake him for the Golden Knight, and as Sabine is ready to start attacking everyone, Kurino tells her to chill as he tells the ToD guys the knights are servants of the demon Druaga, confirming an earlier offhand comment Dimlos makes to Stahn.

Gantz is like "WTF are you?", and then Klonoa goes all fanboy as he recognizes Kurino as the Lady Valkyrie's right hand man (he was the Player 2 character in the original games). Kurino goes all humble and just decides to help the other good guys kick some ass.

As the battle resumes, we find out via a comment from Kurino the blue knights are the weakest of Druaga's servants, and they really aren't much harder than the black slimes.

After taking out a few more baddies, that's when actual Phantom Beasts (baddies from Klonoa) show up, led by THIS goofy looking weirdo:

Rutee wonders who the walking domino mask is, and he introduces himself as Joka (referred to at times as Joker in the translation, will use Joka for accuracy from now on). Kurino asks if he's controlling Druaga's servants, and Joka recognizes him and confirms he's serving Druaga, and Gantz immediately deduces, as Joka confirms, Druaga isn't dead anymore, and as Joka tries to compliment Gantz's intuition, Gantz has this reply:

Joka is amused and says that they are all in the way of a project about to start, to which Rutee calls his bluff by saying he's just invoking Druaga's name to sound like a badass.

And turns out she was right, but as Joka tries to runs like a bitch, the REAL Golden Knight shows up.

Joka doesn't see who it is and thinks it's one of the other good guys, and by the time he realizes someone has just crashed his party (and confirms Druaga's kinda sorta alive but not quite at the moment), that's when the Golden Knight makes his formal entrance with his priestess girlfriend Kai/Ki (going with the former from now on).

The good guys practically pee themselves in glee as they realize the Golden Knight, Gilgamesh, has just arrived. Joka's a bit peeved Gilgamesh is there, and swears (as threateningly as a weird walking mask can, anyway) to beat the crap out of the golden knight, who ignores this laughable threat and throws in his lot with your team instead.

As the battle resumes, you can just have the other good guys polish off the other goons while letting Gligamesh and Kai (they are a paired single unit) beat up Joka. Kurino and Sabine can help him out while everyone else wails on the other goons.

Joka will run with his tail between his legs once 75% of his health is gone, and once all the enemies are dead, you win.

Afterwards, Gil asks if Kurino is 'The Hero", to which he denies the title and runs away with Sabine in tow. Stahn then goes all formal, but Gil tells Stahn he can be informal, then gives them a heads up on the "Eye of God" situation. Kai tells Gil she's got to check in with the high priestess of the local temple, so he should tell them on the way out of there, while Gantz realizes the situation he's in is a bit more than he planned to get involved in, and as the stage ends, Klonoa tries to convince him it'll be more fun for them to get involved.

 

[GethN7]

Prologue 3 - Bodyguard Of The Belligerent Country

Next stage we go for something completely different.

The dice pits of hell.

Seriously.

For those who have no clue who these characters are, the frog on the left has a little dice minigame you can actually play in Namco x Capcom, but I'm not getting to that at this time. The kid on the left is Tarosuke, hero of an obscure arcade game called 'Shadow Land', which got a PC Engine port.

Also, Tarosuke does show up again Project X Zone 2, but got the shaft on actually getting to fight, which blows, as he's a pretty decent fighter in this game.

Anyway, once Tarosuke schools his eyepatched amphibian boss in a dice game, Boss Bull (the frog) tells Tarosuke Emperor Enma wants to speak with him.

FYI, Enma is known as the lord of the underworld in some parts of Asia.

We then cut to some distant ruins on a remote planet in the future.

For those not up on your ancient Namco game lore, the girl on the left is Hiromi Tengenji from "Burning Force", a stupid hard arcade shooter game where Hiromi shoots stuff on a flying hoverbike while trying not to die.

On the right is Toby Masuyo, also known as "Kissy" from the shooter game "Baraduke/ Alien Sector ", which was released a year before Metroid.

This is significant because Masuyo is a girl, which you also found out only at the end of the game, so Samus wasn't the first gender reveal in gaming. Also, if anyone here has ever played any of the later Dig Dug games featuring the original hero's son, this is his mother, who, according to the official lore, is divorced from Mr. Dig Dug Sr.

Again, not making this up, it'll be important later.

Anyway, Masuyo and Hiromi are investigating the ruins, which Masuyo immediately recognizes as have been recently worked on and tells Hiromi to patch them through to HQ. Hiromi doesn't understand why, but Masuyo is downright scared as she tells Hiromi that HQ needs to evacuate anyone in the nearby vicinity ASAP due to have a ton of Dig Outers (Dig Dug enemies).

Hiromi tells Masuyo if she does that it'll tip off Tron Bonne and her pirate crew (from Megaman Legends), and Masuyo doesn't really care about that.

And that's when reality warps them out of there as Masuyo utters the name Taizou (Mr. Dig Dug's actual name in the JP canon is Taizou Horii)

We then cut to the Spirit World, where a samurai looking guy is investigating a nearby castle, when a kunoichi chick surprises him, and he's none too pleased to see her.

The guy on the left is Mitsurugi, and on the right is Taki, both from Soul Calibur.

For those not in the know, Soul Calibur is series where a bunch of people beat the crap out of each other to get ahold of a cursed sword called Soul Edge for various reasons, and both Taki and Mitsurugi want it for diametrically opposed reasons, which why they don't like each other.

And in case you didn't recognize Taki at first, that's because she actually DOESN'T have basketball sized boobs, they actually are of a realistic size (although true to the series tradition, they do have some boob jiggle in the opening anime cinematic for the game, but even this is surprisingly tame compared to the original source)

Anyway, these two engage in a little bitching contest over the Soul Edge, with Taki eventually leaving when Mitsurugi tells her to shove her opinion up her ass.

We then cut to the River Styx.

Here's a redheaded samurai looking guy in goth makeup is waking up as some wizened skeletal granny figure named Andaba calls him Taira Kagekiyo.

Brief aside, he's from a game called "The Genji and Heike Clans", and he's basically an undead samurai raised from the underworld to kick some ass in a side scroller.

Anyway, Andaba explains to Taira he's been brought to life because the Taira clan has an axe to grind, and when Kagekiyo thinks this is bullshit, since he died knowing his foes were vanquished, Andaba points out if he was revived from the dead, then guess who else came back?

Kagekiyo immediately realizes his old foes need another ass beating, but before he can leave, Andaba tells him he's gonna need a guide since it's been 400 years and things have changed quite a bit.

Cue Tarosuke showing up:

Short version is that Lord Enma granted Andaba special dispensation to revive Kagekiyo from the dead to go put his foes back in the grave, and Tarosuke was summoned to be his guide in the world of the living.

Before we go on, this is a logical crossover, since both games had very similar themes and underworld settings.

Anyway, Kagekiyo isn't too thrilled with this, but Andaba tells him the Lord of the Underworld set this up and he doesn't have the option of refusal. Tarosuke is about to nope on out of there anyway, but Andaba tells him he's stuck with Kagekiyo, who is already leaving. As they depart, Granny Andaba leaves them with the hints that to win, they need the Twisted Jewel, the Sword, and the Mirror, as well as pure hearts.

We then cut to the castle where Mitsurugi and Taki were heading, and some other creepy undead samurai dude in goth makeup is staring in awe at the Soul Edge jammed in the castle roof, recognizing it has great power, and he wants to hand it over to their Lord Kamakura.

Mitsurugi shows up at this point and tells him to forget it, accidentally dropping the name of the sword in the process, which makes the undead samurai pleased, and as he shit talks Mitsurugi a bit, Mitsurugi wants to him to shut the fuck up.

At the same time, Mitsurugi realizes the samurai armor his enemy is wearing is not from the same century as his own, not to mention notices the undead guards he has.

And that's when undead samurai guy introduces himself as Yoshitsune.

With that, the fight begins.

Just want to point out Mitsurugi hits like a truck, but his combo skills kinda blow, and since the battle system is somewhat fighting game combo based, that's bad, but his raw strength evens this out somewhat.

Once one of the skeleton soldiers is defeated. Yotshitsune is somewhat impressed, and that's when another warrior shows up to see how badass Mitsurugi really is. We find out Yoshitsune's known to the other guy as Lord Ushikawa, and the other guy as Uniwara.

As Mitsurugi doesn't give a shit who they are, Taki shows up and spills the beans about who they really are.

For you history nerds, the undead samurai guys are based off real people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamoto_no_Yoshitsune

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benkei

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Kagekiyo

Taki then shows herself, making Mitsurugi even more annoyed. Her plan was to wait for the undead guys to kill Mitsurugi, but since that didn't happen, she gonna kick their ass, then seal away the Soul Edge.

Mitsurugi just wants to kill everyone present, but Taki convinces him a temporary alliance is more prudent.

With that, the fight starts again. The skeletons are pathetic, but Benkei and Yoshitsune aren't a joke, and Benkei will immediately home in on Mitsurugi, and has impressive ranged attack too.

It bears mentioning Mitsurugi drops a ton of F-Bombs in his battle chatter with Benkei, to the point Gantz looks like a prude by comparison.

This triggers a mini bitching contest over who gets Soul Edge, with Benkei wanting to add it to his collection, Yoshitsune wanting to give it to Lord Kamakura, Mitsurugi just wanting it period, and Taki annoyed at all the competition.

And that's when her blade Mekkimaru starts resonating with the Soul Edge.

This causes reality to go pear shaped again, and a dimensional quake drops a Gilly Octy (from Baraduke) onto the battlefield. Mitsurugi and Taki are all like 'WTF?", but Yoshitsune takes in stride, mentioning it must mean another like them is coming from the Golden Pond (aka brought back to life), which immediately has Taki quite nervous as she realizes the undead guys are really the dead members of the historical Heike clan like she suspected all along.

And that's when the battlefield warps in more people, specifically Masuyo, who is riding shotgun on Hiromi's bike, and next to them is Tron Bonne from Megaman Legends in her mini mobile armor with her Servbot servants.

Tron is confused, Mitsurugi is confused, the Servbot nearly shits itself over how scary Mitsurugi is, and the map reveals a few Reaverbots enemies from Megaman Legends are on the battlefield alongside the Gilly Octy. Meanwhile, Masuyo and Hiromi apparently landed kinda hard when they warped, and Tron's Servbots come to conclusion Masuyo and Hiromi (who are part of the future world's police force) were after them.

Tron assumes Masuyo's a dude when this is announced, which makes Masuyo a little pissed off. Meanwhile, the Heike clan guys are kinda amused, with Benkei musing it'll be fun to smash the new ladies into a bloody pulp. Mitsurugi just want to cut people and isn't too choosy, while Taki tries to convince Mitsurugi to rein in his bloodlust and not look potential gift allies in the mouth.

He sees the logic in this and bluntly tells the new arrivals to fight or they're gonna die, and while Taki face palms at his lack of tact, it actually works, and so Tron, Masuyo, and Hiromi join Taki and Mitsurugi in opposing the Reaverbots, Gilly Octy, and Genji clan.

This leads to some amusing bitching as Masuyo snarks at Tron, Tron gets pissed, and Mitsurugi drops this line in utter frustration with the comedy:

As the battle starts with your new allies, send the Masuyo/Hiromi duo and Tron to deal with the Reaverbots and Gilly Octy. The former is a great ranged team, so take advantage of this, as is Tron. Meanwhile, have Taki back up Mitsurugi.

Note, Taki is good at air juggling foes (you can get bonus items to drop by doing these), so abuse this with her. Also, once you get a chance, free up the ranged teams to back up Taki and Mitsurugi, as Benkei will make a point of wailing on Mitsurugi and Taki's defense isn't all that great.

After a turn or two and a few goons are killed, Benkei and Yoshitsune jerk off about how awesome killing people is, and that's when Kagekiyo shows up to turn their smiles upside down. Both Genji clan members piss themselves as Taira Kagekiyo shows up (might I add he's got a pretty catchy samurai theme?).

Taki immediately figures he's the from the same era as their current enemies, and Tarosuke hits on Taki (the little kid's a perv into chicks with skintight ninja oufits that show jiggling boobs, go figure), and Taki is aware he's basically a middleman between the worlds of the living and dead (a reference to his source game canon). Tron is confused, but Masuyo is getting the hint what's going on, and Taki deduces Kagekiyo's on their side, and while Kagekiyo really doesn't want the help, Tarosuke convinces him it wouldn't be a bad idea with a bit of groveling.

With that, Kagekiyo and Tarosuke join the battle as a paired single unit. Both are pretty powerful, and Kagekiyo even comes with a powerful but expensive skill that can cut enemy power and defense by half, which will be useful for killing the Genji clan guys. In fact, you might as well have Kagekiyo make a beeline for Yoshitsune and make him your bitch.

The timing for Kagekiyo/Tarosuke is a bit tricky, but they can do good damage if you can chain their attacks correctly, and Yoshitsune should be an easy kill.

Benkei, on the other hand, he's a tank, and you should prioritize beating the crap out of him as much as possible. In fact, make sure you successfully chain as many combos as possible with each team, it will raise the red 'Stun" meter', which, if you max it out, will leave him defenseless and unable to attack for a turn or two. And again, bear in mind Benkei is hellbent on killing Mitsurugi, so keep his HP up. Another useful thing to keep in mind is that if the yellow gauge of a character hits max, they can do a super attack that can chew through a lot of Benkei's HP.

As an interesting aside, Tron has a skill that can be spammed that will net her a random amount of zenny (money). If don't need her healing skill, it's not a bad idea to spam the crap out of this, you can spend it much later at a store.

Once you killed everyone on the map, the battle ends.

Mitsurugi wants to get back to claiming the Soul Edge once the trash is taken out, but then he gets trolled as the Soul Edge up and vanishes. Tron realizes it traveled through another dimension, something Masuyo has already deduced as well as the stage ends.

 

[StoneKnightMan]

Oh hey I know this game! I also own it's sequels, Project X Xone

 

[GethN7]

Oh hey I know this game! I also own it's sequels, Project X Xone

Fun fact for ya, the actual canonical timeline goes like this:

Namco x Capcom -> Endless Frontier -> Endless Frontier EXCEED (not translated) -> Project X Zone -> Project X Zone 2

I'll explain in brief:

1. NxC = Duh. Introduced Reiji/Xiaomu
2. EF = Their next canonical appearance. Follows up on the N x C ending.
3. EFE = Followup to the last time they appeared.
4. Project X Zone = Events from the EF games are referenced. Sanger Zonvolt's backstory partially demands knowledge of EFE especially to understand what he means with some of his backstory comments. Short version is a character (two really) from his universe wound up in EFE, later made it back to the SRW OG world, told Sanger about the Endless Frontier, and Sanger later runs into the canon heroes of EF, who are based off Kyosuke Nanbu and Excellen Browning like Reiji and Xiaomu, to such an extent Sanger explicitly wonders if it's more than a coincidence. In fact, Haken Browning and Aschen Brodel from the EF series briefly visit his own world later in SRW OG: The Moon Dwellers, bringing things full circle, which would be set after PXZ 2 canonically.
5. Project X Zone 2

 

[GethN7]

Prologue 4 - Ghouls & Ghosts

This stage again cuts to something different, the Temple of Ishtar in the Divine World.

The one on the right is Valkyrie, main character of The Lady of Valkyrie series. The one on the left is Ishtar from The Tower of Druaga, who serves as the "Big Good" of the good guy cast (or is at least the most powerful benevolent figure on the protagonist side).

Both are discussing Valkyrie wanting to investigate why reality is going weird, and Ishtar wondering why Valkyrie didn't take Kurino along for the ride, with the latter citing, ironically, she didn't want him or his family to get hurt. She also namedrops the Phantom Medicine, the Key of Time, and The Golden Seed, from her source canon and cites she wants to 'reward' him for all the hard work by keeping him out of harm's way.

Ishtar sensibly points out she can't solve everything without some help, but Valkyrie has made up her mind. Ishtar confirms she was the one who put the "if Kurino heads off on his own, he's an outcast to his tribe" order to help Valkyrie out with making him stay put, but while Valkyrie is grateful, it's obvious Ishtar knows it wasn't worth a damn.

Ishtar then asks if Valkyrie is going to ask the aid of the Golden Knight (Gilgamesh) and/or the "Silver Knight". Valkyrie says she doesn't want to disturb them either, which Ishtar clearly believe retarded but is too nice to say out loud as Valkyrie leaves.

We then cut to the Infernal world, the castle of Demitri Maximoff from Darkstalkers series (called "Vampire" in JP, will use the US name to avoid confusion)

Demitri is bored out of his mind sitting on his ass in his castle with nothing to do.

And when a very familiar succubus (Morrigan Aensland, the face of the series more or less) shows up as if to break the tedium, to which he gets all pissy, prompting this reply:

For those not familiar with the Darkstalkers series, Morrigan is one of three people who could claim the title of absolute ruler of Makai (the demon realm), but she's usually too lazy to give a shit, which annoys Demitri to no end, since he DOES give a shit (and would love to challenge her for the title), and her showing up to troll him just annoys the shit out of him, and while her comment would make the dick of the most bitter incel hard most of the time, it just makes Demitri pissy.

And so he ignores the fact she's coming onto him and asks if she's gonna fight him or not.

She just dances around the subject, which annoys him some more.

His music fires up as he's clearly anticipating a royal rumble.

And that's when the music dies as she cockblocks his urge to beat the shit out of each other.

He's now mad as fuck, and Morrigan asks, rather astutely, why he doesn't just try to straight up murder her and ask Enma to hand over any right to the title (this game is set before Darkstalkers 3, FYI), to which Demitri replies there wouldn't be any point to it.

Short version, for people who don't know, is that Demitri has a code of honor, and that doesn't include earning stuff like a crown by shanking people like a little bitch when they aren't looking, he wants to win it the hard but honest way.

He then is like "piss off, you're wasting my time", but then she changes the subject to the demon lord Druaga. He's like "humanity kicked his ass and chucked him into Time's Asshole, why should I care?"

Morrigan: Also, how about the demon lords Zouna, Astaroth, and the Soul Edge?

Demitri; They were also chucked into the Time Abyss. Why should I give a shit.....wait, you mean-

Morrigan: Opened. Bingo.

Demetri is legit interested as his theme song starts back up, and he mentions "that village" will reappear and laughs his ass off as the scene fades out.

We then cut a bridge in the Infernal Realm, where Valkyrie is facing down a ton of grim reaper looking ghosts, and when you get control of her, her HP is at about half, and it's obvious her retarded insistence that "she didn't need any help" has come back to bite her on the ass hard.

She has a healing skill you might want to use to keep alive a bit longer, and once you kill the first grim reaper, she hauls ass for the gateway on the other side......

.....only to find herself back where she started because it was the gateway to the Infernal Village, which acts like a sadistic dimensional revolving door.

As the battle starts again, kill the nearest grim reaper dude, and Valkyrie mentions she's gonna try to find a crack in the dimensional gate she could slip through.....

....or that's the plan, until monsters from the The Tower of Druaga show up, and she realizes whatever is causing the dimensional screwery, it's connected to the Tower, which must be linked to the village somehow.

Anyway, kill yet another Grim Reaper, and she finally start to realize she's wearing herself out.

Enter Demitri and Morrigan, with the latter snarking about the need for some gardening, and when they notice Valkyrie, Demitri is surprised, and Morrigan makes a not so subtle remark that sounds like a half come on, half rape threat.

Valkyrie panics and assumes they are enemies, to which Demitri is offended by, and Morrigan has to basically say "Lol, calm down." Cue some added bantering where Morrigan gives both weird nicknames and both Valkyrie and Demitri get annoyed, and then Morrigan quits with the trolling and makes it clear they want to help out.

As the battle resumes, Morrigan and Demitri become playable, and Morrigan is a good all around attacker who can murder grim reapers with ease, as is Demitri. However, do note Morrigan has a skill that randomizes some of her stats that can both help and hurt, but generally shouldn't be too much of a concern given how much stronger she is than most of the enemies.

In fact, the goons really shouldn't give your team any troubles, so keep kicking their ass.

As the field is nearly clear, Demitri and Morrigan are bored, and just as they are about to bitch about it, a red gargoyle shows up with the main force of minions:

The game assigns him the name "Red Arremar Joker", presumably to help him stand out from the other gargoyles, who are also called "Red Arremar" (as Project X Zone fans should be well aware), and it's at this point I need to stop and explain a few things.

The theme that plays when he shows up is from the Ghosts and Goblins series, which these creatures were from, but technically, Capcom cheated, as RAJ is actually the hero of a subseries within the same franchise localized in the US as "Gargoyle's Quest", and I'll stop there as it would reveal who RAJ is if I went further, and to avoid confusion, I'll call the others generic gargoyles, and him Red Arremar until the "reveal" later in the game.

Anyway, Red Arremar is bit surprised to find Valkyrie and two of the lords of the Infernal Realm at his doorstep. He's surprised Valkyrie came without Kurino, and he both appreciates her compassion for why she didn't bring him and considers it a bit dumb of her.

He actually offers to let your team withdraw without further incident should you elect to, and Valkyrie not only thanks him, she drops another hint as to his real name (Red Demon Who Follows the Crest, a longer version of one of the games localized in the US with a shorter title).

Red Arremar is bit surprised to be called that, and notes he's called 'Red Arremar Joker' now, of the "Demon's Blazon", and at that, Valkyrie takes him up on his offer to retreat without bloodshed.

Hilariously, when she asks Demetri and Morrigan to do likewise, Demetri is pissed about showing the enemy his back, but see below to see the irony in that statement:

The hilarity aside, Valkyrie points out they can't win as they are at present, citing the need for someone who isn't there at the moment, which is yet ANOTHER clue who Red Arremar really is for Ghost and Goblins fans.

With that, Valkyrie leaves, Demetri leaves in annoyance, and Morrigan says bye, but not before mentioning the "Silver Knight", who Red Arremar clearly wants to meet up with in battle as the stage ends.

(If you have the slightest knowledge of the Ghost and Goblins series and don't know who this is, I'll be blunt, you're retarded. If not, you'll find out.)

P.S. - Should point out this crossover of Darkstalkers and Ghosts and Goblins is actually quite logical and one of the excellent ideas they had for this series.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Goddamnit, I have to say this: It's not Joker, it's Joka! I played the shit out of Klonoa, like, some of my earliest memories are watching my dad play through it with a bunch of buddies, kinda how Let's Plays were before the internet. Didn't play it myself til years later, but I rocked through that shit, and I will be damned if I'm letting that slide.

 

[GethN7]

Goddamnit, I have to say this: It's not Joker, it's Joka! I played the shit out of Klonoa, like, some of my earliest memories are watching my dad play through it with a bunch of buddies, kinda how Let's Plays were before the internet. Didn't play it myself til years later, but I rocked through that shit, and I will be damned if I'm letting that slide.

The fan translation actually uses both at times, with the "turn list" using "Joka" and the dialogue boxes using "Joker".

For the sake of consistency, I'm going to use "Joka" from now on, have fixed all earlier instances to use the correct name.

For similar reasons, I've going with the Namco Museum romanizations for "The Legend of Valkyrie characters.

American translations will only be explicitly used to line up with characters that showed up in later American releases, like with the Street Fighter characters.

 

[GethN7]

Prologue 5 - Gun Shot!

The next level again switch gears, to a place that should look familiar to Street Fighter fans.

For non-Street Fighter fans, this is the background of Ken's stage from Street Fighter 2, with the Metro City part a reference to Final Fight, which shares a universe with Street Fighter.

This level actually has multiple shoutouts layered together in a rather clever fashion, but for starters, Metro City did have a bay/marina area, the boat from Ken's Stage has shown up in various forms as background decor in games like Final Fight, and you actually had to fight on a boat stage in Final Fight 3, so just from those two series alone the crossover is quite logical.

We start with Ken Masters bitching at Ryu to quit being a luddite and get a cell phone already. He then asks Ryu since he was in Japan if he paid a visit to their master's grave (this game is set in SFA3 canon, before they knew their master wasn't as dead as thought by SFIV), but Ryu cuts him off with this simply heart stopping news.

For the non Street Fighter nerds, Akuma (called Gouki in Japan, but the fan translation goes with the American version, as will I) is the third student of the same school martial arts as Ryu and Ken, and his morality is left somewhat ambiguous, as he did kill Ryu and Ken's master in pursuit of power (or so it was believed until SFIV kinda retconned this later), but his motivations for doing it were left somewhat vague in most incarnations of his character, and this game continues the tradition as Ryu explains Akuma was waiting, mentioning "The time had come" to Ryu.

Ken doesn't get it, but does wonder if it has something to do with Shadowloo's recent revival. Ryu is in disbelief, as he canonically offed Bison (the N x C canon for SFA3 follows up on the plot line for how Bison wanted to use Ryu's body as a soul jar for his own spirit). Ken points out Chun-li is taking this pretty seriously, so it's not BS if she's worked up about it, and mentions she also headed to Japan to look in things (remember the first prologue stage?) , and so they board a boat for Japan.

We then cut to here:

For Resident Evil fans, the Spencer Lane was the name of the ship from Resident Evil: Dead Aim, a spinoff game from the Resident Evil Gun Survivor subseries (the 4th game in this subseries), which was basically an arcade-like RE game set on a boat and actually one of the better spinoffs. Wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't shit either.

The Spencer Lane does kinda resemble the boat from Ken's stage in SF2, in another bit of clever canon welding.

We then cut to an American and a Chinese woman:

The guy on the left is Bruce McGivern, a member of the US STRATCOM (mentioned by Reiji in the first prologue, stands for United States Strategic Command, predecessor to the BSAA unit Project X Zone fans should be familiar with from later games in the series). The woman is Fong Ling, of the Chinese MSS (Ministry for State Security, their KGB), and in Dead Aim, they were both sent to investigate the Spencer Lane (also transliterated as Spencer Rain, going with the former since it makes more linguistic sense in English) in Dead Aim to look into Umbrella's BS, and while their missions were the same, their governments were obviously opposed and so were they until circumstances forced them to work together to survive, and so N x C is set afterwards.

Should be noted they had a low key romance in Dead Aim, which should explain why the two of then have a lot of romantic tension, which N x C tends to not dwell on.

Both Bruce and Fong Ling catch up on the past and while Fong Ling mentions the ship they are on is not the Spencer Lane, merely the same class of ship, Bruce points out they both know that's a weak BS story, and while Bruce wants to get all friendly with Fong Ling again (if you know what I mean), she keeps him at arm's length, citing that "spies have no allies".

They then discuss the "contaminee" girl, and then Bruce admits he doesn't want to wind up enemies most of the time like in Dead Aim again. Fong Ling refocuses on the "contaminee" and says that while she has no trace of the virus (the zombie creating T-Virus from RE), she's also not clinically alive either, then points out there is a difference in not being alive while not being dead either, and Bruce concedes the point, mentioning it's a functional kind of immortality, then worries Spencer Lane is gonna go to shit like last time.

The game then kinda flubs the next line somewhat, with Fong Ling asking why an AUSF member like Bruce is there (a somewhat butchered acronym for "Anti-Umbrella Pursuit Investigation Team", which was the prequel to the BSAA unit from later RE games). Bruce tries a lame pick up line, but Fong Ling ain't buying it. He then cuts the crap and mentions Shadowloo, and Fong Ling confirms she heard the ICPO is looking into them, confirming she's an acquaintance of Chun-li. (makes sense)

They then switch gears slightly and Bruce confirms he's aware the ship is carrying some secret data on something called "The Third Energy Source", and Fong Ling is in disbelief, mentioning the lab on Ibis Island (from the Dino Crisis series, basically RE with dinosaurs) should be destroyed. Bruce just says he was supposed to recover the data anyway, and then they speculate where the info was hidden, and they lapse into a cute little mythology gag about Dead Aim with their speculation.

Bruce then says he's not gonna ask for her help, but doesn't want her enmity, and she's got her own objective, so she's cool with that, and as she leave, Bruce is really worried things are gonna go south again.

We then switch gears to the Tower of Druaga, 59th floor, in the Infernal World.

Before we go on, we need to clarify something from the second prologue. The Tower is "destroyed" in one reality, while very much intact in another, yet another aspect of the whole "the worlds are going pear shaped" theme of the game, and some creepy shadowy demon is getting a report from Joka on Valkyrie's movements as well as one from Red Arremar, and Joka then asks if Red Arremar Joker would like to chill with the other "Joker" for a tea break.

(This explains the somewhat inconsistent use of Joka/Joker in the translation, they did it for the sake of this gag and a play on Red Arremar's alias)

Red Arremar ignores this and wonders why Lord Astaroth puts up with Joka's attitude, but Joka's shadowy boss appreciates Red Arremar's business like attitude, then heavily implies he's actually Druaga himself but still without his full powers yet, and Joka confirms he opened the door to the "Material World" as part of the sacrifices his boss wanted, and his boss tells Joka to do it ASAP.

Joka then says he already found an interesting prospect, a man with a "Devil Factor" (Tekken fans should get this reference), then his boss switches gears and asks why Joka is helping him.

Joka's repose is basically "For shits and giggles", then confirms his boss actually is Lord Druaga.

We then find that Lord Druaga, now in full profile, is not all that happy he needs to rely on guys like Joka for now:

He then swears he's gonna make Gilgamesh his bitch sooner or later, and the scene changes back to the Spencer Lane.

Fong Ling wakes up Bruce, as shit has indeed gone south, specifically, a monster is on deck, then Bruce realizes people near Japan have been seeing a lot of freaky shit lately, but Fong Ling confirms they still are a ways from there yet, then Bruce asks about the contaminated girl. Fong Ling kinda lost track of her, Bruce face palms, then tells her to get to the deck while he hunts the girl down and asks if Fong Ling is packing heat.

Cue her holding up a silenced Chinese knockoff of a .45 caliber pistol, and Bruce confirms he brought his too. They then split up, with Bruce heading for the Spencer Lane rec room, figuring he'll find his quarry there like he found important stuff in Dead Aim.

Sure enough, he finds a female, but not the one he expected, and he realizes she's with S.O.R.T, and for you Dino Crisis fans, he identifies her as Regina from the Dino Crisis games, and after she confirms it, she holds up the data he was looking for, and after she mocks his being tardy, he points out it's a moot point if the monsters kill them.

She then echoes Fong Ling and slightly screws up his last name:

Bruce's canonical last name is McGivern, but the translation is inconsistent in the game, with his ingame bio calling it "McGavvern", and Regina mangles it here, but I'm sticking with canon on this one.

We then shift to the deck of the Spencer Lane, and any fan of Darkstalker's would recognize the theme song playing right off.

And in case you aren't a Darkstalkers nerd, the "contaminee" Bruce and Fong Ling were babysitting is actually Hsien-ko/Lei-lei (the game alternates between the two, using the former for consistency) from Darkstalkers.

Fong Ling wants to get her out of harm's way, but Hsien-Ko refuses to leave even as Ghosts and Goblins goons pop up all over the place, then basically saying there isn't time for (insert cliche Chinese version of "bye/farewell")

Fong Ling is basically giving up on convincing Hsien-ko to split, especially after she confirms she can fight too:

Hisen-ko then confirms if Fong Ling runs out of ammo, she can literally pull more out of nowhere if Fong Ling needs it, and while Fong Ling doesn't get the anime concept of 'hammerspace', she just rolls with it as the battle starts.

Before we go on, this is the game that started the amusing tradition of pairing up people who fight zombies with an actual zombie (Hsien-ko is a jiang shi, a Chinese form of zombie), with this game pairing her up with Fong Ling, while Project X Zone would pair her up with Frank West from Dead Rising.

Anyway, we start with just these two as a paired unit versus some slimes and Ghosts and Goblins goons.

They can attack at range and melee, pick whatever is most appropriate to kill the nearest Slime.

Once it's dead, Bruce and Regina show up as a paired unit to help out, and since Dead Aim's music score was pretty forgettable, Bruce and Regina use the "Regina's Challenge" theme from Dino Crisis 2 as their battle music.

After some quick intros, Regina (voiced by Atsuko Tanaka, who voices badass anime women like Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost In The Shell, and who also shares a VA role doing Chun-li in this game) scoffs at the monsters, claiming they are downright cute compared to dinosaurs. She then tosses Bruce a shotgun and assault rifle, and when he asks what she'll use, she's got her pistol, a stun gun, and her rocket launcher.

This prompts Bruce to comment she's a walking armory, then Fong Ling calls him a "Donngua" (actually transliterated more properly as Don-Gua, or "idiot") and tells him to concentrate as we get a nice brief title card shot of Bruce and Fong Ling and the battle resumes.

Bruce and Regina can attack at short or long range and are quite good at both, but both them and Fong Ling/Hsien-ko aren't very durable, so ranged combat is actually a good idea.

After another goon or so dies, that when Lord Raptor/Zabel Zarock (the translation goes with the American name, will use that for consistency with official releases) shows up.

For those not aware, he's a zombie Australian rock star with pretensions of becoming an undead emperor who has a massive boner for Hsien-ko (who does not reciprocate). In fact, as soon as he sees her, he gets literal hearts in his eyes and hits on her.

She's not amused and basically begs Bruce and Regina to pop a cap in him, and Hsien-ko doesn't care how they do it so long as he's truly dead once they are done.

Meanwhile, Raptor isn't really listening as he tells them his goons are spread through the whole boat, which pisses everyone off, and when Bruce tells him to go back to Hell, he snarks he just got here (from there) as the battle resumes.

A brief cutscene happens at the end of the enemy turn where any retreat is cut off by Raptor, and that's when Jin Kazama from Tekken (circa Tekken 3) shows up, confirming most of Raptor's goons on one side of the ship were whittled down, and Ryu and Ken show up on the other side, where a few Druaga goons are, confirming they worked on them too.

Raptor is a bit pissed by this, but also sense Jin Kazama's power and is concerned as well. Meanwhile, Bruce recognizes Ken and razzes Ryu a bit by calling him a student of his, but Ryu ignores this. Regina asks Jin who he is, and Jin just gives his name and says he's there to help.

Fong Ling recognizes his connection to Mishima Conglomerate (still run at this time by Heihachi Mishima). Meanwhile, Raptor is just annoyed at the interruption, then points out Jin is one of his targets.

Jin doesn't know or give a damn about this, but Raptor isn't listening as the battle resumes.

Ryu and Ken are both good at short and long range, either works in taking down the weakened Druaga goons in front of them. Meanwhile, Jin, who is good at melee, can go to work on the Green Roper (Druaga goon).

Bear in mind it's a bit tricky to get Jin's combos to chain well, but he gets better as he levels up. Fong Ling/Hsien-ko and Regina/Bruce are also hard to time right with some of their ranged combos, but mastering this will make them deadly.

Finally, Raptor will home in on Hsien-ko/Fong Ling above all else, keep that in mind, and he can deal some decent damage.

Interesting note, when Raptor and Jin fight, Raptor will allude to Jin's power (the Devil Gene from Tekken), which will immediately put Jin on edge for reasons Tekken fans will understand immediately.

Also, if you get a chance, use the Multiple Assault attack Bruce, Regina, Hsien-ko, and Fonn Ling have, it's funny as hell:

Also, for Project X Zone fans, they maintained the hilarity, only this time Frank West gets to be on the receiving end of the comedy.

After Raptor is beaten, he still tries to hit on Hsien-ko, makes a horribly bad pun about how he's not all that keen on having his heart literally taken (as in, ripped out of his zombified chest), gets even more turned on by Hsien-ko telling him to piss off (he's into hard to get chicks), then he leaves, but not before calling Jin "hair-gel karate man", which is apt, since Jin's hair has to be held up by SOMETHING.

(Funny fact, it's actually Demitri who is canonically so obsessed with his hair staying in shape he keeps a can of hair gel on his person at all times)

As Raptor leaves, Jin wonders how the zombie knows about his Devil Gene. Regina then comments the fight seems to be over. Ken asks what the hell the monsters were, but Fong Ling tells him it's not his concern, prompting him to compare her standoffish attitude to another woman (the translation leaves it vague as to whether he's referring to Regina or Chun-li, which may be intentional, as they share the same VA and have similar no nonsense attitudes), though Ryu guesses it's Chun-li and tells Ken to cool it.

Meanwhile, Bruce is dreading the report he's gonna have to write his bosses, prompting Fong Ling to call him a moron in Chinese again, and when Regina asks for a translation, Bruce, the lovably smug bastard, says it means "a helluva guy".

She doesn't look convinced as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Now that the prologue stages are out of the way, going to add this because it will be important and it helps to keep track of everything.

There are five planes of reality in this game.

1. The Material World: AKA, the contemporary present.

2. The Future World: Where stuff like Megaman Legends and Xenosaga hail from.

3. The Divine World: AKA, the "heavenly realm". Ishtar from The Tower of Druaga serves as the resident "God" figure for this game.

4. The Infernal/Spirit World: AKA Hell, a mishmash of the Makai of Darkstalkers, the Ghost and Goblins underworld, and the stuff from Tarosuke and Kagekiyo's games.

5. The Fantasy World: Where stuff like Tales of Destiny, The Tower of Druaga, Soul Calibur and Klonoa all hail from.

The cast will bounce around all five through most of the game, so keep this in mind to keep things straight.

For Project X Zone fans: The same basically applies, just remember PXZ takes place a few years after the events of N x C, so the worlds mentioned above were updated to match the series in those games.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 1 - Suddent Storm, At The Casual Street Corner

We start with the game giving a recap of some still images of what I mentioned in my last post.

We then cut back to Shibuya Ward, where Reiji tries to call HQ and find his phone service to them is cut. KOS-MOS can't detect any interference, and Xiaomu think the Shadowloo guys have messed with communications, and mentions something about "sleeping sickness" to herself. Momo is concerned to hear this, and Reiji explains it's basically a permanent coma, and the running theory is that is has something to do with soul theft. Shion asks KOS-MOS if she's got an idea what's going on, but KOS-MOS comes up blank.

We then have a non sequitur moment from Xiaomu where she tells Momo she's worried she might get a cold from having a short skirt, confusing Shion until Reiji tells Shion to just tune out Xiaomu's random autism.

That over, Reiji wants to head over to the Mishima Conglomerate HQ, citing it was his next stop and Shion is cool with that. Xiaomu's autism flares up again as she tries to spook Shion about Reiji's intentions but he tells her to cut it out. Xiaomu decides to be helpful instead mentions the fastest way to get there is to go past the Namco Theater (subtle, aren't they?).

We then cut to the Namco Theater inside, where Momo is done giving a performance onstage:

Now, little background before we continue. Wonder Momo is a semi-obscure Namco arcade side scroller that was kinda shit at the time due to bad controls, but got somewhat better port to other systems later, and we need to emphasize something: She's not really a magical girl, it's just a costume, or least that's the original canon. In this game, she has actually no shit powers for a reason even they can't really explain (and Momo gives up fast trying to rationalize it), and any game she subsequently appeared in just went with that as if it was always canon.

She even showed up in a Queen's Blade themed SRPG crossover spinoff on the PSP with this in mind (funny fact, they actually wanted Kasumi from Dead or Alive in that game, but they couldn't get the license, so they asked Namco to let them use Wonder Momo instead. Kasumi did have some Queens Blade related light novels, though, but they never got license to use her in the actual games.)

Anyway, Momo is saying farewell to fans of her performance, and Sakura Kasugano from Street Fighter Alpha is in the audience, a bit miffed the performance is over, and her kinda friendly rival from the same series, Karin Kanzuuki, tells her to get over it.

(Karin is on the left, Sakura is on the right)

A little background. Karin Kanzuuki is a rich girl who is the rival to Sakura in the Alpha series, and is known for a slightly unusual fighting style that is in direct contrast to Sakura's. Sakura is a massive Ryu fangirl, to the point she learned how to do a version of all of Ryu's moves simply by watching him, so while her and Karin have a Ryu/Ken style rivalry, it's a somewhat different take on the idea.

It's also worth noting that the Tekken series later ripped this off with the characters of Lili and Asuka, which is basically Tekken's interpretation of this exact same concept.

Sakura then asks how Karin got tickets for the show in the first place, and Karin explains her family helped build the theater, which is amusing since Karin is a Capcom character, but in character, as Karin is known for dropping money for various things for convenient reasons in her various appearances.

This also triggers a smug rich girl moment as she mentions her family is loaded and dabbles in everything from weapons to entertainment and cites her family motto of "Be victorious in all things" as the rationale behind this.

Sakura regrets triggering Karin's little smug spiel and mopes it's sad Felicia couldn't debut onstage with Wonder Momo. This triggers ANOTHER mini lecture, so Sakura tries to redirect to something innocent like getting something to eat, which irks Karin, but she rolls with it.


1 Hour Later, Namco Theater.......

Momo is out of costume now and kinda mopey she didn't get to partner up with Felicia (we'll get to her later), and that's when Amazona shows up.

To save some time, sanity, and autism, I'm just gonna explain a few things even the game doesn't care to. Amazona is someone who was in Momo's theater troupe who was brainwashed by the bad guys, and the same reality warping weirdness that made her powers real made Amazona more than a girl in an outfit, she's now a legit threat.

Momo initially tries to make sense of this, but quickly gives up, and I suggest you guys just do the same and roll with it. In fact, Wonder Momo has to be the most shoehorned in inclusion in this entire crossover, even Klonoa makes more sense in hindsight, as damn near everything for Momo's inclusion was pulled out of the creator's asses, as they needed to pad out the roster and her source canon didn't leave them too many ideas.

For Project X Zone fans, it seems the creators realized just how weak this was so when they introduced Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey from Ace Attorney into the canon, they tried their damnedest to make it all make a little more sense than Momo's inclusion, as if to make up for this hideously ass pulled writing from Namco X Capcom.

Anyway, Amazona tells Momo she'll be either coming with her to Lord Druaga willingly, or in pieces, either way suits her fine, and Momo is scared and confused.

That's when THIS GUY shows up:

This is Bravoman, a Namco side scroller hero from a game that comes off like a loose parody of Megaman, right down to a hilarious parody of Dr. Wily. The game itself was okay but not anything too special, but credit where it's due, not only did they manage to work it into this crossover pretty well, they even greatly expanded the index card plot for this crossover and got a LOT of mileage out of it's inclusion, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Just know that Bravoman basically has stretchy superpowered limbs as his superpower.

Kanda Momo (her real name) recognizes him as an in universe superhero, and Amazona is bit peeved at his interruption, and Bravoman correctly assumes she's possessed. Amazona confirms it and claims Momo is one of the suitable vessels for Lord Druaga as a sacrifice.

And this is where Bravoman desperately tries to make Wonder Momo's inclusion make some sort of sense with an explanation she has latent power inside her that makes her prime bait for demons hungry for powerful souls, and that's why her Wonder Momo persona is actual, legit superpowers and she didn't even realize it.

(Have to admit, even if it's just a desperate attempt to make her superpowers make sense, it's pretty decent for a bullshit excuse, and the fact he says this is quite in character for him as well. This also means Amazona being a legit threat makes sense due to her demon possession tapping into her own latent power.)

Bravoman gets Momo out of there, saying he'll explain the details later.

We cut to the front of the Namco Theater, where King from Tekken and Felicia from Darkstalkers are talking:

First off, King is a guy in a luchador mask, for those who don't follow Tekken, and is in fact King II, being the successor to the original luchador. It's a running gag that Felicia keeps mistaking him for a weretiger instead of a human in a mask, and he keeps thinking she's just into skimpy cosplay and not a no kidding catgirl. Also, King has no voice actor in this game at all, so while he talks, he has no voiceovers at all in battle, which is a carryover from the source, where he only growled in battle, but for narrative purposes he speaks without voiceovers otherwise in this game.

Anyway, seems Felicia was late getting to the Theater since a monster attack delayed their plane, and while Felicia is all mopey over this, King takes the stoic religious approach, citing the Lord will give them an answer soon.

Before we continue, these two are partnered up for the entire game, which, despite he being from Namco and her Capcom, makes all sorts of sense. Both work for orphanages, both are religious (he's a pastor and she's canonically a part-time nun), and both work as entertainers to assist their charity work.

She concedes the point, and then he asks if she got mixed up in the recent weirdness. She didn't, but senses it's pretty close to them, and the running gag I mentioned starts about here. King rightly assumes the weirdness has hit critical mass of late and Felicia admits that was why she actually tried to make it to the Namco Theater early. They both gripe about their bad luck, Felicia assumes he's baring his fangs in frustration, and he's like 'THIS IS A MASK."

We then cut to battle map of the area, where, if you pay attention, you'll see statues of Pac-Man on the theater grounds.

Anyway, Felicia wants to sneak in to surprise Momo, while King wants to be civilized and use the front door, and that's when Felicia shucks her dress, to his shock (she does look kinda naked without it, after all, even though she has fur covering the essentials).

And that's when both sense the weirdness meter has gone TILT as some monsters show up.

King thinks it's some goofy cosplayers (oh, the irony......), but Felicia corrects that mis-impression as they pair up as the fight begins.

King and Felicia are heavily melee based, and not only are they good at stringing combos together, they can be pretty strong if you level them up. As for the enemies, they are actually dudes in costumes from Wonder Momo, only, y'know, brainwashed soldiers of Druaga now.

If you want to kill the first grasshopper monster cosplayer fast, just spam King's Left + O attack over and over again, it also works nice for string together chained hits.

Once the first is down, they realize this shit is even more real they they expected, and that's when Bravoman and Momo show up. The translation lapses into his literal JP translation of "Berabou" Man here, but for consistency he'll be referred to as Bravoman. Anyway, Momo and Felicia recognize each other, then the latter asks Bravoman if he saved Momo.

He confirms he's escorting her, with the saving a WIP, adding that latter part is on her.

Before he can elaborate, more goons show up, led by Amazona, who is peeved.

Bravoman then asks Momo to transform into Wonder Momo. Momo is confused, and even King and Felicia have trouble wrapping their minds around that thought, but then Bravoman lapses into a cliche speech about Wonder Momo is actually her hidden power and not just the character Momo plays despite her protests otherwise.

She then references the Shinda Incident (Bravoman canon event in which he became Bravoman), and he says "yeah, now your turn to be a superhero is at hand".

As Amazona demands Momo surrender, Momo is like "what's there to lose?" and yells out "HENSHIN!" (TRANSFORM!)

And it actually works as the Wonder Momo theme plays, leaving King and Felicia utterly gobsmacked, but Felicia recovers, rolls with it, and tells Momo they can have their Battle Musical right there.

And with that, we get this fanservicey title card as the fight begins anew.

Momo has become a paired unit with Bravoman, and they are a pretty good melee team, with Bravoman's attacks being good for air juggling, and Momo's the same, and a good mix of the two properly timed can make sure you foe never touches the ground till they die.

Anyway, have them join King and Felicia and whittling away at the goon squad of grasshopper cosplayers and slimes. None of the enemies are that much of a challenge, and both teams are fairly durable, so as long as you don't act retarded dying is pretty hard to do against the regular mooks.

After punching out a few more goons, Sakura and Karin show up as a paired team, and Sakura fangirls over Wonder Momo, and Karin snarks about it being fanservice bait BS, and that's when Sakura squees some more as she recognizes Felicia, which prompts Karin to make sure Sakura's screaming isn't rendering her deaf.

Bravoman tells them it's dangerous and they need to leave, and that's when Karin recognizes Bravoman as the hero of the Shinda Fourth Ward, and that's when more enemies show up.

Bravoman recognizes them as androids from his own series, Benjamin Okubo Hizokuaemon models to be exact, of the Bakuda Army. Karin reaches the same conclusion, and suggests they try to fall back, but Sakura won't hear of it and Karin quickly realizes she isn't winning this argument, so they pair up and join the fight.

Since the Benjamins are quite long ranged, send Sakura and Karin to beat the crap out of them. Both are melee oriented, and you can abuse Sakura's spin kicks for juggle combos. Be warned, Karin has a skill that randomizes some stats per turn like Morrigan.

After another turn passes, Joka shows up on the end of the map opposite the Benjamins with some Phantom Beasts, and his commentary is basically he's there to back up Amazona, and he comments Raptor screwed up his mission as well.

King and Momo are quite confused at what the hell Joka is, and when Momo points out he's kinda cute looking, he both preens over the compliment and confirms Druaga wants to capture her, and then he says hi.

Bravoman tells Joka to piss off, and Joka admits he's basically there to do an utterly cliche "capture pure hearted maidens" kinda deal, then turns on the creepy as he bluntly states those not important will simply die, in response to Sakura's confusion, then thinks better of it and decides to add Sakura to his list.

Bravoman is like all Will Smith "OH HAIL NAW!" to that, King is even more confused, and the fight resumes.

As an aside, here's a shot of one of the Pac Man statues:

Anyway, back to the fight.

Joka and his goons are to the west, while the Benjamins are to the East, while the main body of goons and Amazona are in the center.

My advice is to have Sakura and Karin work on the Benjamins then reinforce Bravoman/Momo and King/Felicia.

Momo and Bravo have Multiple Assault you can use that will help take down two foes at once, so use it if you can. It's also a great way to level her up quick.

Be warned, Amazona is quite strong, but if you can position King and Felicia in her path, you can use the "Dragon Screw" Counterattack if your yellow meter is built up some to make this backfire on her, but since she also has high defense, she can take a bit of a beating. And, if you need to, King has a "Guard Ally" skill you can use as well.

After a few more goons die, Reiji/Xiaomu and the Xenosaga cavalry arrive. Joka is amused as this just made things more interesting, Xiaomu senses Joka is stronger than he looks, and since they are technically a secret organization, Reiji claims to be with the police and orders the others to clear the area.

Karin immediately smells the bullshit, and blows Reiji's cover as a Shinra member, and when he's like "How'd you know?!", she responds smugly being loaded and connected is why she knows, and reveals she knows quite a bit about them, to Reiji's consternation.

Everyone else not in the know worries they are actually enemies, but Reiji admits she's actually mostly telling the truth, then reveals he's no dummy by immediately identifying Karin and Bravoman, while Xiaomu namechecks King and Felicia, and in the process alludes to a wrestling match King had once with Mike Haggar from Final Fight.

Joka then gets bored tapping his foot in suspense, so Reiji tells him not to worry, they'll get back to kicking each other's ass, and the fight resumes.

Once Joka loses 3/4 of his HP, he tries to run again, but not before dissing King by calling him a heel while calling himself a babyface (wrestler speak for bad guy and good guy), then lets slip he's been behind the "sleeping sickness" incidents, and he also doesn't give a shit who gets hurt by it.

Sakura gets pissed at this news and mentions Professor Shimazu asked them to look into that information as Joka flees, and they follow, but not before confirming it's Shimazu of the Justice Academy (of the Rival Schools games, which semi-share a universe with Street Fighter), and thus leave the field as well.

Reiji and Xiaomu decided pursuit would be useless (and decline KOS-MOS's offer of assistance), and the fight resumes.

I'd send Reiji and the Xenosaga crew after Joka and his goons since you have them available. Also, Reiji and Xiaomu should have a counterattack skill by now, so make good use of it if you can.

If Joka fights Reiji, he'll mention Reiji's aura and says his scar (he has one on his head) must be why, which is a touchy subject for Reiji that pisses him off (more on that later).

If Reiji and Xiaomu fight a Benjamin, they'll have some banter where Xiaomu confirms yet again how lazy she is and Reiji confirms he's aware of the Bakuda army.

As the fight wears on, be aware Amazona will home in HARD on Bravoman and Momo, who don't have the best defense, so keep their health up.

If KOS-MOS fights Amazona, KOS-MOS will confirm her will is being controlled by a remote force.

Amazona will flee when defeated, to Momo and Bravoman's sadness.

Once the fight ends, Reiji mentions they'll head to the Mishima Conglomerate building and get orders from HQ there....and then he remembers communications are down.

At this time, a salaryman looking guy named Nakamura concurs with Reiji's disappointment.

(That's what Bravoman's civilian identity, Nakamura Hitoshi, looks like)

Shion doesn't recognize him, and that's when he hands Reiji his business card, and Momo is the first to guess correctly Clark Kent there is actually Superman. Felicia's kinda disappointed at how ordinary he looks, and gets chided by King for saying this out loud. Meanwhile, Momo (the Xenosaga one, and I'll capitalize her name as MOMO to tell them apart from now on) takes a shine to him, and Nakamura gets all bashful.

Nakamura then gets serious and confirms Momo is a target of the goons he's been looking into on his own hook. Reiji then asks Bravoman and Momo to come with them, and Felicia and King offer to help. Xiaomu asks if they know it's dangerous, but Reiji's already accepted the merry band has gotten bigger as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 2 - Meet The Excellent Ethics

Our next stage begins at Mishima HQ, where Bruce and Fong Ling are having a discussion about whether the T-Virus shipment they suspected was stolen was nabbed by Mishima agents. Fong Ling is somewhat skeptical, but it wouldn't be out of character. Regina chimes in that they had a hand in the Ibis Island Third Energy Lab (again, not out of character), so she considers it within plausibility, but then adds Shadowloo is a very possible alternative, but points out she has the Third Energy data, so that's not an issue.

Bruce then derails things by pointing out Regina's combat gear and how it stands out on the street, and she's like "so, when did I have time to change when I was so concerned with making sure shit wouldn't explode again?"

Bruce is suitably chastised as Hsien-Ko agrees he's a dumbass. Fong Ling makes it clear thanks to Bruce, Regina is stuck with them, but Bruce sensibly points out they agreed to the suggestion to team up, and Hsien-ko concedes the point.

Regina then wonders where Ryu/Ken/Jin headed off to, and Bruce changes the subject to how they were supposed to liaise with the Shinra agents. Fong Ling hasn't heard of them (odd, given the Chinese MSS is pretty good IRL), and Bruce tells her they are good at being low profile and are basically a "they put down anybody or anything that might dick around with reality' squad, and that's when Regina decides to pass the time by pumping Hsien-ko for some information.

We then cut to inside the Mishima building.

Inside, an old guy named Heihachi is asking some weird mad scientist named Bakuda why he sent his goons to the Namco Theater.

(Bakuda to the left, Heihachi to the right)

Again, pause for background. Heihachi Mishima is the recurring villain of the Tekken series, or at least one of them, though he has his somewhat decent moments, and his morality ping pongs in non-Tekken games quite a bit, as it will in this game. He's Jin Kazama's grandfather, and they don't really like each other because Heihachi is a total jackass. Of course, Jin doesn't like his father Kazuya and neither does Kazuya like either of them, for reasons I'll get into later, and since this is set around Tekken 3, Heihachi still runs the Mishima Conglomerate.

The weirdo with the broccoli shaped, purple colored hair is Dr. Bakuda, translated as Dr. Bomb in the western releases since his hair does look like a mushroom cloud, and he's basically a parody of Dr. Wily from Mega Man.

Just want to add it's perfectly in character for Heihachi to hire a guy like Bakuda (using that name for consistency), another bit of genius in this crossover.

Anyway, Bakuda is like "I have my reasons' and gets all defensive, but Heihachi is like "lol, calm down", but get interrupted as Bakuda mentions "Project WAYA" is almost complete, which is basically an android daughter he plans to make with kunoichi (female ninja) skills.

Heihachi all like "nice, hope Bravoman doesn't ruin your shit again", and as Bakuda gets all huffy, Heihachi reminds Bakuda he was the one who gave him room and board after Bravoman kicked his ass in the Shinda Ward, then tells Bakuda some pests are nearby and need swatting, then soft-soaps a little and tells Bakuda that success means Heihachi will ease off on being such a dick.

Bakuda would like to know more but doesn't dare cross Heihachi, and as he leave, Heihachi admits to himself he knows the RE Dead Aim cast aren't wrong that he wanted the T-Virus, but someone else got to it first.

We cut to Shibuya next.

Jin seems to have ditched everyone else and heads off to do his own objective.

We then cut to some mysterious shadowy void where some also shadowy figures are talking, one a woman, the other can't be determined, and the woman says things won't be like 10 years ago to the other, who is pissed because things aren't ideal yet, and as the other figure leaves, the woman confirms she's been out of action for ten years, and mentions Shougo Arisu (Reiji's dad), thinking he was the last Arisu.

We then cut to the outside of the Mishima building.

Regina is getting the backstory of Hsien-ko becoming a jiang-shi, and thus the T-Virus has nothing to do with her condition, and unlike T-Virus zombies, Hsien-ko isn't evil nor mindless. She then asks why Raptor was on the Spencer Lane, and Hsien-ko confirms he was seeking power, and that Japan has a huge hole with a lot of it, specifically one leading between dimensions.'

Regina puts together the pieces and realizes all the monster sightings are because the dimensional barriers are breaking down, and just as Regina is frustrated by this knowledge, that's when they realize it's gotten way too quiet.

And that's when some Benjamins and some Pistol Daimyo (dolls with guns in their heads from Bravoman) show up.

The goons aren't that hard, and after two of them die, a little commentary about how the enemies seem very humanoid ensues, as well as some self depreciating humor about how only in Japan could they make such goofy robots, then some more show up, along with this asshat:

This is Black Bravoman, rival to Bravoman, who I'll call Black Bravo to keep it concise.

After a little shit talk about how Americans suck, he confirms he was ordered to kill them.

But before he can get to that, Jin Kazama show up and tells Black Bravo he wants the head of his employer. Black Bravo apparently didn't get the memo about Jin from Heihachi, which confuses Jin, and that's when Black Bravo shrugs this off as Fong Ling realizes Jin is Heihachi's grandson. Jin confirms he's there to kick some ass, and the fight resumes.

I suggest having Jin help whittle down the goons first, they are prone to taking potshots.

After a few more goons die, the rest of the good guys show up.

The translation fucks up Bruce's last name AGAIN, and Reiji confirms Bruce is who he needed to meet. Bruce thinks Shinra's crew are weird, and while Reiji doesn't argue the point, he razzes Xiaomu a bit by calling her a pipsqueak and says he'll fill in the blanks on the other non Shinra people later.

Felicia recognizes Hsien-ko, and that's when everyone notices Bravo and Black Bravo giving each other death glares.

Black Bravo then sarcastically says hi to Bravo/Nakamura, who snaps back Black Bravo/Tajima is just making the same mistake all over again, then demands to know where Bakuda is. Black Bravo won't say, and Bravo plans to beat the answer out of him.

The fight resumes at this point.

With all the reinforcements, beating the goons down should be pretty easy. Black Bravo hits kinda hard, but he's not that much of a pain in the ass with all the support you have now.

Once you beat Black Bravo like a drum, Jin tries to get him to talk, but he nopes on out of there before that can happen, and Jin heads off to find Heihachi.

As he leave, KOS-MOS picks up a distortion, and that's when some more Scythe Weasels warp in from the southwest. Bravoman recognizes them from Japanese mythology, and KOS-MOS can't figure out anything except they are different from the Gnosis.

And then Xiaomu cracks a hideously bad joke about "what they haunt", prompting even KOS-MOS to cringe a little. Reiji tries to get everyone back to kicking ass, and that's when the scar on his head starts to ache. Bruce worries, but Reiji shrugs it off as the fight resumes again.

The weasels are actually pretty pathetic, with the red hardly stronger than the blue, so just go to town on them.

If Reiji fights one, his scar is still hurting, but he just tries to ignore it.

By this point, Shion has a Multiple Assualt with KOS-MOS, so try to use it to thin out the herd.

As the field is nearly clear, Reiji's scar starts throbbing like crazy, and that's when two goons, one red and one blue show up. One is a horse man, and one is minotaur, respectively.

Reiji is in shock, and that's when a fox chick with grey-white hair and a fanservicey as hell outfit shows up.

She orders the remaining enemies off the field, and Xiaomu immediately recognizes her, and the woman snarks about her being a little one, in every regime (clearly referring to her chest). Xiaomu blows this off, but Reiji is now in massive agony from that scar of his, and she figures out Reiji is Xiaomu's new partner (in case context doesn't spell it out, Xiaomu once partnered with Reiji's dad, who wore the same jacket Reiji does), and then she hits on Reiji a little.

She then says she has to leave, to Xiaomu's annoyance, then tell everyone they'll understand what's going on soon, but Reiji tells her to stop, having regained his composure and asks her if her objective is Shinra's HQ.

She confirms it, in such a way it sounds like a pick up line, then confirms a guy named Bison from Shadowloo will be there, and that's when her and her groupies leave.

As everyone asks if Reiji knows here, he bluntly states she killed his father, then says they need to follow her. Regina sensibly points out she was leading him on to a likely trap, but Reiji knows and tells Bruce he's got to go. Bruce accepts this, to Hsien-ko's confusion he's not gonna help Reiji out, but then they think better of it with the Shadowloo connection and decide to stick with Reiji anyway, as does everyone else, and as Reiji is like 'Okay, let's go then".

Xiaomu is all quiet as she thinks to herself about she wanted to avoid this day ever happening and how she might have to tell him the truth.

MOMO notices her seriousness and asks if anything is wrong, prompting Xiaomu to plaster on some faked cheer as the stage ends, with KOS-MOS getting everyone back to the business at hand.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 3 - Burn! Justice School

We cut back to Shibuya, and in the background plays a kick-ass remix of the Bay Area theme from the first Final Fight (one of the best soundtracks in the series, and I'll fite anyone who claims otherwise), and two ninjas are talking about Shibuya is an 'Isolation City' due to the weird shit that happens there.

The one one the left is Sho, one of the four playable character from a Capcom beat'em up called CAPtain COMmando. (Yeah, subtle title, huh?) The one on the right is Guy, from Final Fight, who eventually cross pollinated into Street Fighter proper.

I'll get into Captain Commando later, but for now, bit of background on Guy. He one of the three good guys of the first Final Fight arcade game, and due to cartridge limitations, he got cut out of some versions of the first game SNES ports. He later showed up in Final Fight 3, then Street Fighter Alpha, and eventually was in SFIV onwards.

Also want to add he and Sho are a paired team in this game, and when it comes to chaining combos, these guys ARE GAME BREAKERY AS FUCK!

No kidding, both are loaded down with all sorts of air juggle and combo chaining moves right out the gate and only get better as the game goes on.

Anyway, Guy chalks up the recent weirdness to sorcery. Sho's a bit ???? on that, being from a futuristic setting where that isn't as common, and once Guy spills what he knows, Sho is like "alright, as you know, I somehow fell through a time portal to this world", which Guy calls bullshit on due a few semantic errors on Sho's part, but Sho tells him he's of the same school of martial arts as Guy (Bushin Ryu, basically Sho is heavily implied to be Guy's future descendant, which makes a lot of sense and ties Cap. Commando and Final Fight together very nicely). They also met in Metro City when Sho fell ass backwards through time, which only clinches it, as the first level of Cap. Commando starts in a futuristic version of the same.

Guy concedes the point, but still would like to have more info as he puts the pieces of what he already knows together in his mind. Sho then says his buddies made it to the past too, and are investigating Ibis Island (setting of Dino Crisis), and guy explains what he knows of the Third Energy incident, then explains he knows somewhere they can check out in the meantime, the home of the Giwano-Ryu, a ninja clan contemporary to present day that might be able to give them some info, and Guy explains it's in Kiin Village, at the Justice Academy (setting of Capcom series Rival Schools)

We then cut back to Druaga's Tower.

Joka is getting dressed down for fucking up by Druaga, and the latter is like "get back there and don't fuck up again, I really want to kill the shit out of Gilgamesh soon", and as Druaga storms off, Joka notes how impatient he is and how Druaga seems to be worried about something called the "Abyss of Time' opening before he can achieve his own plans, figuring the opening of said Abyss seems to scare his boss and that something nasty must be in it.

And that's when some seedy motherfucker in a spiffy hat and purple overcoat razzes Joka about his difficulties and how he came to help to help. Joka mentions how he'd like his friend to go to the Material World, where he can find an adorable catgirl there, which triggers the overcoat guy's furry fetish boner, or rather, his guro furry fetish boner, as he wants to slice her to ribbons. While he does that, Joka says he has some other business in the Divine World.

Overcoat guy thinks Joka would be retarded to try to take on Ishtar, and Joka confirms, no, he's not that retarded, as his mission is more recon than elimination, while overcoat guy is a flank attack in that plan.

Overcoat ain't happy about doing stealthy shit, mentioning he'd like to carve a story into some brat (yeah, overcoat guy is a creepy SOB with a murder fetish). Joka doesn't give a shit, but tells him NOT to harm the catgirl, but everyone else he can use the blood of to paint a mural on the walls if he wants.

Overcoat eases off on the creepy and says he was just screwing around on going all psycho, and as he leave, Joka concedes this was a bit harder to set up then he thought, but thinks the challenge makes it more fun.

We cut to the front gate of Justice Academy.

Sakura and Karin are here, and before I go on with the story, more back ground.

Sakura was a guest character in the first Rival Schools game for PS1, hence her connection to the place.

Anyway, Karin is bitching they had to get there by a train then a charted chopper. Sakura tells her that would have taken too long, and Little Miss Snooty is still huffy, then asks why someone would build a school in what amounts to the damned boonies.

Sakura tries to look on the bright side about how Joka didn't chase them, and Karin marvels how cheerful Sakura is considering Joka put a hit out on her. Sakura says she has to contact the Professor (Shimazu), and Karin concedes the point, since they were looking into the sleeping sickness incidents anyway.

Karin then asks if Sakura has an appointment set up so they don't raise a ton of fuss at the gates, and when Sakura says no, Karin facepalms.

We then cut to the battle map in front of the gates.

Karin says Sakura always prefers the direct approach, and Sakura totally misses the fact it's not a compliment. Karin then points (A) she can just make a phone call to the teachers to smooth things over and (B) it's Sunday, so the school is closed, so knocking on the front gates would be retarded.

Karin then realizes her phone has no reception like Reiji earlier noted. She tries another number, still gets nothing.

And that when a creepy red haired dude is watching from the shadows.

Sakura senses this, but before they can investigate, some Phantom Beasts show up. Sakura totally misses sarcasm again when Karin notes they might be after Sakura, who thinks she's super popular and Karin is like 'that's not a good thing" as the fight starts.

The enemies are Moos from the Klonoa series, nothing too tough really, and if they fight one, Sakura shows she's not totally sarcasm blind when she tells Karin the monsters are so scary (when they look like giant puffballs) as Karin is more just wanting to kick their ass.

After one dies, Karin and Sakura realize the enemy force is too small, and that's when creepy overcoat guy shows up (he even sounds like a seedy motherfucker)

Klonoa fans will recognize this guy off the bat, and he confirms the hit is still out on Sakura. He also confirms he's more a mercenary than friend of Joka named Janga, and Sakura turns down his vaguely pedo style invitation to come along with him.

And that's when a middle aged dude with impressive perma stubble tells Janga he's a sick fuck for trying to do that. A MILFy chick appears with him and tells Janga to get less creepy pick up lines.

He's confused, and so is Karin, and that's when they appear on the battlefield as a paired unit.

The one on the far right is Hideo Shimazu, who is basically Capcom's version of Ryu as a middle aged schoolteacher, albeit one more badass than most. The hot chick next to him is the school nurse (c'mon, are you really surprised by that?). Her name is Kyoko Minazuki, and she's kinda sorta the Ken to Shimazu's Ryu.

A few more things, they have a thing for each other but have a small problem with actually spitting it out. Also, in the first game, there was some fucking weird and creepy backrub minigame with Kyoko. It wasn't as cringey as say, the Leblanc backrub game in Final Fantasy X-2, but it was still one of those "WTF Japan?" moments in gaming.

Hideo recognizes Sakura, who is ready to fill in the blanks on what she found out about the sleeping sickness, and Karin says they at least know who is doing it. AKA Joka, Janga's (who is a cat) business associate.

Janga is getting bored with the banter, and Kyoko mentions they need to beat Janga senseless. Hideo concurs, and Janga is a bit peeved they don't know to piss off.

Cue this titlecard as the fight commences anew.

Before I go on, just want to mention Hideo and Kyoko are very logical crossover characters, as they were the most proactive characters in their own game in trying to figure out why the villains of their series were doing their bullshit to begin with, so their trying to figure out the bullshit happening in N x C and doing something about it makes perfect sense.

The Moo monsters are easy pickings, and Hideo and Kyoko are pretty decent combo chainers if you get the timing of their moves down.

Janga, on the other hand, he's legit dangerous. On top of hitting fairly hard, he also can inflict Poison, which is DEADLY if you can't heal from it and are at low health, so make keeping your HP up and beating his ass red your main objective in this fight.

Also, he WILL try to kill Sakura and Karin, and they don't have great defense or HP. There is good news, as Hideo and Kyoko have an ally healing skill you can use to keep them alive. Also, Sakura and Karin have one too, and if you were wise and stocked up on items for them in between stages, they should have some stuff on hand for healing. And, as an additional blessing, Janga's HP isn't that high.

If Hideo and Kyoko fight Janga, Janga thinks Hideo's a tryhard when it comes to being a badass, Hideo takes offense to that, Kyoko actually likes how impudent Janga is (it'll make punishing him that more satisfying), an implication that seems to fly over Hideo's head.

After Janga takes some damage, he concedes his foes aren't that bad, and he decides to screw his orders to take Sakura alive and go all out, and show his foes why he's called the "Poison Claw".

And that's when some Druaga goons show up on the other side of the field.

Janga correctly notes Joka had some goons in reserve just in case and decides to take advantage of them, then notes the Wizard enemies are good with curse attacks. and says out loud how fun it would be if they got into the school, just to piss off his enemies.

Hideo is NOT happy at that little threat, and Janga says he'll call off the goons if Sakura just comes quietly, but honestly, he just doesn't give a shit if Sakura is dead or alive.

And that's when Sho shows up and tells Janga he's an asshole. Both Guy and Sho appear on the other side of the map, both pretty steamed Janga is such a bloodthirsty piece of shit, and offer to help.

Karin recognizes Guy, and Guy confirms he was there to see Raizou (the headmaster of the academy, who doesn't make an appearance, but it would've been sweet if he did). Good news is that Raizou tipped Hideo off that the Bushin-Ryu ninjas were a "if crap hits the fan, break glass" option for Justice Academy, and Sho confirms he's also there to beat the crap out of the psychotic werecat and his friends.

Janga's not happy to have more to deal with as the fight resumes.

I recommend they make a beeline for the Wizard enemy, their attacks do a shitload of damage to it anyway. The other goons are pretty pathetic, and the only real threat is Janga, whom Hideo/Kyoko and Sakura/Karin can tag team on.

Once Janga gets his ass beat, he starts begging for mercy like a pussy (no pun intended), and when Sakura is actually naive enough to grant, Sho sensibly just wants to kill the bastard, but Kyoko wants to pump him for info first.

While they are talking, Janga decides to be a little bitch and gets in a sneaky slash attack on Sakura, but just as he tries to go for the finishing blow, that's when scary red haired guy blocks the blow and and uppercuts Janga for his trouble.

Red haired guy, as seen here, thinks Janga's a cowardly little shithead:

For those who don;t know your Street Fighter, that is Akuma. While he's seen as an 'enemy" most of the time in SF canon, he has a very weird sense of honor at times and is prone to saving people from bitchmade assholes who like to sneak attack people throughout the series. He was so well known for this he even became part of Tekken's own canon due to getting the greenlight to have him show up in Tekken 7 and do this for a backstory character, but I'll not spoil the details.

Anyway, Janga is still trying to pop his jaw back in place as Akuma continues to shit talk him, and Janga mutters he'll remember his face as he runs away.

Sho recognizes Akuma's power and is justifiably concerned (Akuma is canonically one of the strongest SF characters, to the point he's even a bonus boss in some games just to make players weep and gnash their teeth), and Guy namechecks him and asks what his motives are.

Karin is all 0_0 when she realizes who he is, while Sakura is amazingly calm (to Kyoko's astonisment) and thanks Akuma for saving her life.

In return, he just advises her to "go to Roppongi", saying someone she needs to meet is there, then he leaves as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 4 - Girl Of 10 Years Ago

We cut back to Roppongi Ward with Reiji and crew.

Felciia is saying the ever so cliche "are we there yet?", and Regina tells her this is peanuts compared to traipsing through a jungle. Bruce then asks Felicia for her autograph and mistake King for her manager.

Meanwhile Reiji and Xiaomu still can't contact HQ, and that when Bravoman and the Xenosaga cast don their shipping goggles and assume the fox chick who Reiji met earlier was a former girlfriend and they had a bad breakup.

Reiji does not find this speculation amusing. Fong Ling decides to just make sure that said girl is for sure their "enemy", which Reiji does confirm without doubt.

Of course, this does nothing to stop everyone else from assuming it was a bad breakup again as we cut to Ibis Island.

Fox chick is meeting with, for those who don't know your Street Fighter, M. Bison, though she's not happy he changed his mind on their meet point to Ibis Island.

Bison is the guy on the right, circa Street Fighter Alpha 3, and before we continue, a bit of trivia.

In Japan, one of the SF characters is a Spainard called Balrog, an evil Boxer is called Bison, and Bison is called Vega in Japan. The US version tries to make a little more sense by naming the Spanish guy Vega, which is a proper Spanish name, calls the boxer Balrog, and Bison is the guy in red above. I'm going with the US version for consistency.

Anyway, Bison is giddy because the Third Energy stuff could help improve his Psychodriver powers, and when fox girl gives him a recap of the dimensional quakes, he remarks he already knows about them and that's she responsible for some of that craziness.

Bison then changes the subject asks about her goal to destroy Shinra, and when she mentions that wasn't exactly in the cards, he remarks he deployed his forces where she wanted and now he wants her to do her part.

She sarcastically salutes and says she'll be off to do her end of their deal, and Bison remarks to himself he's keeping his Psychodriver powers to himself......

We then cut back to Japan, Roppongi Ward, where Chun-li is chasing down Cammy, Juni, and Juli, and the latter three are getting fed up and want to take her out.

Chun-li is a bit nervous about 3 on 1 odds, but that's when Ken and Ryu show up to help out. Ken and Ryu also notice the Shadowloo people and wonder what kids so young are doing helping out Shadowloo.

Before we continue, they are correct, as all the Shadowloo people are in their teens at this point, even though Juli could probably pass a jail bait test at least.

Anyway, we then cut to the battle map, where Ryu adds he met him (Akuma), and the Shadowloo cast is champing at the bit to kick ass.

As the fight begins, it's a 3 on 3, with Chun-li, Ryu, and Ken versus Cammy, Juni, and Juli.

Due to the map placement, Ken will fight Juli first, and when he tries to turn on the charm to get them to stand down, they aren't listening.

Chun-li will likely fight Juni first, and when she tries to get them to talk, they refuse.

When Ryu fights any of them, he sense their ki (spirit) is disturbed.

After a turn or so passes, Ken admits they are pretty tough, and Chun-li realizes they aren't really putting forth that much effort regardless, and the ladies confirm their real goal is to stall them as Sakura, Karin, Hideo, and Kyoko show up.

Ryu and Ken recognizes the first two, and Sakura fangirls over Ryu and recognizes Chun-li as well. Karin wonders why so many familiar faces have gathered. Hideo wonders why they are fighting what appear to be teenagers, but Chun-li corrects him and points out they are actually trained killers.

This, far from frightening them off, instead prompts them to join the current SF cast members in kicking some ass. Hideo would really like to talk the Shadowloo agents down, but the SF cast disabuses that notion is gonna work.

And that's when some sickle weasels show up to make the fight more interesting.

As the fight resumes, a pan around the battlefield will reveal some suitcase like things, these are items boxes, and grabbing them is not a bad idea if you can.

The weasels aren't all that strong by themselves, but thy will reinforce the Shadowloo types, so be careful. In fact, I highly recommend trying to whittle down the reinforcements, then taking out the Shadowloo agents one by one as your strategy here.

If Hideo fights a Scythe-Weasel, he'll do a little sperging about their mythological origins.

After another turn or so, the rest of the good guys with Reiji and Xiaomu show up as reinforcements. This prompts a few hellos between Bruce and Ken and Fong Ling and Chun-li, and in case the map didn't look familiar, Xiaomu confirms the fight is taking place in front of their Roppongi branch HQ, and Xiaomu wonders where the other Shinra people are.

KOS-MOS then warns them there is time distortion field in the vicinity, only this one is a one way warp version, and Regina and Felicia confirm it can be done through various means, with the latter namedropping fellow Darkstalker Ankaris (who was a mummy fighter), then Reiji outright spills the name of the rivals to Shinra, the "Ouma", and that's when his scar hurts, prompting Reiji to tell the fox chick to show herself already.

She and her red and blue goons show up, and fox girl confirms she's working with Shadowloo, and both Nakamura and Hideo let their male sides out a little as they remark on how fetching the fox chick looks, prompting Kyoko and Momo to chide them into cutting it out. Ryu then notices fox girl's power is strange and very different from ki, prompting fox girl to remark that they might as well get on with the fight.

Reiji then has a 'Eureka" moment and says everyone needs to kill the fox woman ASAP.

Cue this ominous and fanservicey title card as the fight begins anew.

I recommend healing anyone who needs it with any of your reinforcements healing skills, then joining the fight and winnowing out the other goons, as fox girl and her goons will join the fight soon enough.

Once you wear down the Cammy enough, she withdraws, with a message to Chun-li she's never going to find Bison.

After taking down some more goons, that when fox chick says it's time to step up things, and Reiji curses about how time is up, and KOS-MOS confirms space-time distortions have gotten much bigger. The fox chick then tells the remaining Shadowloo members to withdraw, and the fight resumes again, with Reiji again insisting the fox chick needs to die NOW.

Be warned, fox chick and her cow and horse man groupies are legit dangerous, with fox chick having pretty good range as well. The saving grace though, is that her goons are pretty slow, so you can wait for them to come to you if you want, then gang up on them.

I also recommend you bear in mind the weasels and fox chick can attack from the higher parts of the map, and only ranged capable characters can fight them from the lower parts.

Eventually, it'll be your guys against fox girl, and I recommend pinning her down and beating the crap out of her, but only on the same height level to cancel out some of her advantages if possible, though ranged characters can snipe at her if you want.

If Reiji fights fox girl, she hits on him, and he just wants to kill her, and then she alludes to the death of Reiji's dad (who died fighting her if you haven't guessed).

Once you finally take her down, everyone wants her to spill some info for them, and that's when she trolls them by saying they are too late as time distorts on a massive scale all around them, forcing everyone into place as the distortions get stronger and team members start vanishing one by one.

Once it's down to Reiji, Xiaomu and fox girl, the latter says she wins this time, but Xiaomu manages to make her spill a little more than she intended with her retort she remembers this was Ouma's plan last time.

And fox girl goes all 0_0 as she realizes Xiaomu is like her and that Reiji really is the son of the guy she killed.

And that's when Reiji fights off the distortion effect, and they have THIS kind of conversation:

She remarks they were in this situation before, and she wonders if he has the balls to pull the trigger, knowing it could cause the distortions to explode and kill everyone, but he Does. Not. Give. A . Shit.

She then taunts him with the death of his father, and THAT makes him lower his gun, to Xiaomu's shock, but Reiji explains this just means a stay of her execution for now, and she finally tells him her name is Saya in response.

They then exchange promises to finish their gun click helloes at another time, and that's when Reiji and Xiaomu disappear as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 5 - Devil's Gene

This time we cut to the Divine World, Ishtar's temple.

Reiji wakes up, still clutching his skull in plan. MOMO and Kyoko check on him, and it turns out the rest of the cast is in the same place as Reiji as he regains his composure. As that happens, everyone realizes they are in a place with no radio or phone signals, leaving Reiji and Xiaomu to explain they are now in another world. Regina concurs thanks to the Third Energy incident giving her prior experience with this.

And then Sakura notices Ryu is missing from the group. Ken and Chun-li are also not accounted for, and while half the team is all business and wants to look for them, the shipping goggles are donned once more as Reiji is again razzed about his apparent bad breakup with Saya, to his annoyance.

We then cut to the Infernal World, where Joka is reporting to Lord Astaroth:

Astaroth is one of the leaders of the villain faction of Ghosts and Goblins, which I'll cover in more detail later.

Anyway, he's pleased the dimension barriers are now down between the other 4 worlds. Red Arremar confirms Joka's report about various strong beings in the Material World, including those with the Devil Factor, and Astaroth is like "....go on....."

We also find out a member of the Mishima clan with the Devil Factor was abducted and brought to the underworld, where it turns out his Devil Factor has awakened, albeit not before going off on a rampage of destruction, owning Druaga's forces in the process.

Red Arremar then astutely notes Joka is supposed to be serving Druaga and is apparently moonlighting for more than one master, and Joka dares him to tattle. Astaroth doesn't care and wants to add Mishima to his forces while Joka plays kiss-ass, and as Joka leaves, it's clear Astaroth plans to usurp Druaga and co-opt his forces into his own sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Red Arremar wants to keep track of "that man", but Astaroth tells him not to worry about that guy and instead details him to the Mishima situation, and while Arremar heads off to do his duty, Astaroth wonders why "that man" has Arremar so obsessed.

We then cut to the outside of Ishtar's temple.

Xiaomu states the obvious, they aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto, and Xiaomu detects approaching life-forms. Fortunately, it's most of the other team members, and Reiji gets annoyed they are still dwelling on his apparent love life, and thankfully, the other half of the team shows up and confirms they couldn't find the MIA cast members, and that's when not so friendly enemy forces show up.

The enemies are a bunch of Kaox mask like goons from The Legend of Valkyrie and nothing too special.

After a few of them die, KOS-MOS detects more incoming, well, one guy.

It's Jin, and he's confused like everyone else where he's at, and he hasn't run into the missing SF cast members.

And it seems some Phantom Beasts were tailing him.

Bravoman then asks if Jin saw Black Bravo. Jin lost him around Shibuya Ward, which is where Jin blacked out and later woke up in this world, then Jin joins up and decides to help you fight off his tails, while Reiji wonders why the Shibuya Ward's dimensional instability seems to have affected such a wide area, since everyone else vanished in Roppongi Ward.

As the fight resumes, the good news is that none of the goons on the map really being anything new to the table, so just focus on beating the crap out of them, though be advised the Glibz enemies have long range.

After a couple more goons die, this guy shows up.

For those who don't know their Tekken, that is Kazuya Mishima, Jin's dad, Heihachi's son, and he doesn't like either. He hates Heihachi because his dad, upon realizing his son could turn into Satan, tossed his ass over a cliff in horror as a kid. Kazuya survived, and was obviously pissed. Jin hates his father because while daddy embraced his Devil Gene power, Jin wants nothing to do with them and wants to make sure to keep his under wraps and stop his father.

tl;dr: their family is pretty screwed up.

Everyone freaks upon seeing Kazuya, and Jin goes all 0_0. Everyone else tries to figure out what Kazuya is, and KOS-MOS confirms he's at least 78% human. Some Druaga goons show up, but Kazuya tells them to piss off, he wants to fight, especially Jin.

As the fight resumes, Devil Kazuya will waste no time in making a beeline for Jin. Be careful, he's MUCH tougher than everything else up to this point, has a mountain of HP, and has excellent range.

After a turn or so, Jin asks why Kazuya is here in Devil form, and that's when everyone else pieces together that this is Jin's daddy. Kazuya just wants to see if anyone can kick his ass, and Jin is like "Bring it!", as the fight resumes.

Aside from Kazuya being the biggest threat, none of the other goons aren't that much of a problem, so my advice is to gang up on Kazuya and hopefully try to get him in Stun mode to keep him from beating the crap out of anyone too hard for a turn or two.

After taking down about 60-65% of Kazuya's HP, he's all like "okay, maybe I'm not as strong as I need to be", and Jin says he'll kill the bastard if he's trying to run, and Kazuya decides to troll Jin by calling him his son. Jin is, of course, pissed, and that's when more gargoyles show up.

Everyone thinks they need to haul ass due to the reinforcements, but Kazuya takes the chance to retire the field, with the new forces in pursuit, so all you guys have to do is kill any remaining goons.

Once all the goons die, Xiaomu mangles the phrase "let's blow this popsicle stand", to MOMO's confusion. Thankfully, just as the team is split on what to do, that's when Ishtar herself appears and offers to give them info as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 6 - Klonoa Heroes

We begin in the local temple, where Gilgamesh's girlfriend Kai is getting the news that some people showed up from another world and were attacked at Ishtar's.

Kai has a problem believing it, but the priestess confirms the walls between worlds are cracked, and brings up how the Soul Edge and Abyss of Time are now making things worse.

That's when Klonoa shows up, and his girlfriend Lolo wonders what the commotion is all about.

Before we continue, Lolo was supposed to be priestess in training, and having her be one as depicted here lends some slight plausibility to Klonoa's inclusion.

Anyway, both Gantz and Klonoa have brought news a horde of Phantom Beasts and some other thugs are about to attack. The priestess then tells Kai to evacuate with Lolo, even if it means the temple falls, citing the danger of the Soul Edge and newcomers who have intruded from the Material World.

Klonoa and Gantz both offer to provide cover for the retreat since they realize the gravity of the situation is just that FUBAR, and as they leave to cover the retreat, Lolo refuses to leave the high priestess. Kai quickly realizes dissuading her would be pointless, so she withdraws. We get a brief nod to Druaga's original story where Kai was turned to stone, and Kai prays things will turn out for the better as the scene fades out.

Meanwhile, back at Ishtar's temple, Reiji and the others got the multiple worlds explained to them. She also explains that ordinarily, travel between the worlds, the Material World especially, is very tightly regulated, but the dimensional screwery has now flung open the space-time gates.

We then get the shocking news that unlike the others, Jin Kazama managed to make it across the dimensional barrier on his own, and Jin quickly gets the hint why that might be, then Nakamura brings up the point of the missing SF cast members, whom Ishtar pegs for likely having gone to the Infernal World.

She then points out the nexus point of the dimensional gateways in the Divine World is the Temple of the Heavens (i.e. - where Kai and Lolo were), but she's lost contact with them. Reiji then says they'll head there, and just as he about to go all "cool loner" and say it's his job to repait theis mess, everyone else says they are involved now too, so it's all their business.

We also get an amusing aside as Bruce and Fong Ling note the sheer weirdness of the makeup of the current team, then Ishtar wishes them well as they leave.

We then cut to the Temple of the Heavens front gates, where a ton of Phantom Beasts are. Gantz sensibly advises they fight a covering retreat, running when they run out of room to fall back to. Klonoa wonders why Gantz is being so cowardly, but Gantz points out they don't have the manpower to stand their ground and fight all the assembled goons by themselves. He also brings up how they have to alive to get anything done and brings up his dead dad as his reason, then hurriedly changes the subject as the fight starts.

Due the enemy placement, it's unlikely a turn will go by with anyone hitting the other team. And that's good, as reinforcements lead by Janga will show up.

Gantz starts to panic, and Janga mocks him and Klonoa. This suddenly makes Gantz go really quiet, and as Janga mutters his spiel about wanting to slice things with his claws, Gantz gets even more quiet.

And he looks at Janga a little harder and realization who he is sets in, and then it's on as he's angry as hell and the fight resumes.

Janga's still a high damage dealing asshat, but Gantz and Klonoa only have to survive a turn before Reiji and crew show up as reinforcements. Gantz could care less, he just wants to make a rug from Janga's pelt, and that's when Wonder Momo has this reaction to how cute Klonoa and Gantz look:

Bravoman quickly explains the situation, and Janga gets all pissed as he recognizes your team, whom exchanges a few insults with. Kyoko and Hideo invoke stern teacher mode to get that to cease, then tell Janga he's gonna tell them what he knows this time.

Gantz is very amused by this, then calls Janga a traitor, then Janga notices Gantz's gun as the light goes off in his head.

Short version, Gantz's father was murdered by Janga, who once worked with Janga and got backstabbed literally one day.

This leads to the Klonoa guys allying with Reiji's crew, and that's when the fight resumes.

The goal here is pretty simple, don't let Reiji or Klonoa's teams die. To do this, cut a swath through the goons between the two teams and make sure the Klonoa team isn't ganged up on by Janga and the other mooks.

Some strategies include using skills to your advantage, like KOS-MOS's S-Chain to slow down and weaken the defense of foes. Healing skills and items used when appropriate are also good ideas.

When you wear down most of Janga's HP, everyone is about to kick his ass and make him talk, but then Janga reveals he was trying to stall everyone.

Cue a bunch of mask enemies and a giant plant like monster. Janga's outwardly pleased to see you guys are panicking, but he inwardly curses the reinforcements are slightly less than he was promised as the fight resumes.

You should be able to take Janga down around this time, and that's when he decides to haul ass for the temple, prompting Gantz and Klonoa to leave the field to pursue him.

As for the other goons, they are nothing special, so take them down as you please. Also, to make it easier, all your foes have reduced HP, which Jin will comment on if he fights one.

Once they're all gone, the stage ends as everyone decides to reinforce the Klonoa heroes.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 7 - Man Called As The Traitor

Next level cuts to the Infernal World, where Ken and Ryu are inbetween fighting a bunch of monsters, which Ryu identifies as Ogres, monsters from Hell, and he says this like he's talking about the weather.

Ken asks him if he thinks this Dante's Inferno, then plays the Scully to Ryu's Mulder, which prompts Ryu to then asks Ken to come up with a better explanation, and Ken is logically forced to give up on that.

And that's when Ryu senses Akuma.

Both guys are concerned, both by the fact Akuma seems to be stalking Ryu and the fact he somehow is in the Infernal World since was in the Material World earlier.

We then cut back to the Temple of The Heavens

The high priestess and Lolo worred about Klonoa and crew, and that's when Joka shows up. The high priestess immediately sees through his BS and demands his intentions, and they are simple: level the temple and abduct it's priestess, though their being alive or dead is fine either way.

The priestess stands her ground and tells Joka he shouldn't discount those in the shadows.

And that's when Kurino steps into the light and asks a merchant named Zuhl to cover the retreat of the ladies while he and Sabine proceed to wreck Joka's shit. In the process, Joka realizes Valkyrie won't be expected as reinforcements, so Joka is like "this is gonna be easy", and Kurino and Sabie are like "keep dreaming, asshole".

We then cut to the temple inside battle map, where Joka is doing his best to demoralize Kurino with a BS version of the Infernal Village battle, claiming Valkyrie was overwhelmed, and as he summons goons, Joka confirms he borrowed them from Lord Zouna, whom Valkyrie once took down.

Kurino is like all "screw it, bring'em on" as the fight begins.

The fight begins at a slight disadvantage for Kurino, as the enemies will get in a chance to strike first and there are several of them, many of them with pretty good range. I'd use their defense buff skill for starters, then proceed to fight defensively, making sure to not allow Kurino to get overwhelmed.

After surviving a turn or two, Janga shows up, and ignores Kurino and Sabine to run up to Joka and give him a piece of his mind over how his own mission went FUBAR thanks to Reiji and crew.

Gantz and Klonoa show up around this time to pound Janga's face in.

The fight begins again, and all you have to do is survive one more turn before Reiji and crew show up. Joka then sensibly calls for help of his own, like reapers and gargoyles.

The fight begins again, and for the sake of keeping Kurino's and the Klonoa teams alive, make beating down the goons closest to them a priority.

Joka and Janga will hang back and the other goons won't attack until you approach, so advance slowly and draw them out. There is some treasure, grab it if you get a chance as well.

As for Joka and Janga, they're a bit stronger, but not much has changed, so deal with them as before. Janga will run once defeated as will Joka.

Once the fight is over, everyone will bemoan Joka and Janga running off, and they then decide to go check on the priestess and Lolo after a little more comedic banter.

Reiji fills the priestess in on things, and she informs him it's not possible to make it back to the Material World, prompting King to get upset, but she elaborates, saying the path to the Matyerial World has been severed due to the dimensional instability, but then amends going through the Infernal Realm would be another way of making it back, pointing out they should speak with Emperor Enma while they are there.

Kyoko's a bit shocked to hear that name (after all, he is lord of the underworld depending on where you are in Asia), but Reiji tells them to chill. The priestess then offers to lead them to a portal to the Infernal World, and Klonoa, Gantz, Kurino and Sabine all join the crew.

And that's when it turns out Xiaomu and some of the other ladies stepped out to settle a little bitching contest started by some earlier combat banter, prompting Reiji to facepalm at Xiaomu for starting at.

We then cut to Boss Bull's dice hall, where he is concerned because a lot of his friends were brainwashed, feels lucky cause he rolled a snake eyes, and prays it rubs off on Tarosuke.

We then cut to the outside Aensland Castle in the Infernal Realm, where Reiji and crew teleported to. Half the team wants to check it out, but the Darkstalkers members are a bit hesitant because Morrigan might be in there. We get the Darkstalkers backstory about Demitri's desire to be top dog of the place and how Morrigan is an annoying millstone in the way of that, and while Felicia REALLY doesn't want to go inside, everyone else ain't listening.

That's when Zuhl shows up as they contemplate splitting up to cover more ground, offering them his wares for the journey ahead as the stage ends.

This means the store option is open now, which I'll get into later.