Battle Arena Toshinden 2

Gameplay

The core gameplay remains unchanged from the Battle Arena Toshinden but the game includes a simple combo system. The 3D movement was also altered to create slightly better balance in battle; differentiating from the first game, dodge rolling will no longer make the character temporarily immune to the opponent's attack (in the first game, it was possible for a character to dodge straight through even the most deadly attacks). As in the first game, a player falling out of the ring will result in a ring out, only this time, if both players fall out of the ring at the same time, the one who falls out last will be declared the winner.

Toshinden 2

When the Secret Society discovered that one of their executives, Gaia, had organized the Toshinden tournament behind their backs in order to start a rebellion, he was branded a traitor. Hence a new tournament is organized to lure him to his doom. Meanwhile, one of Gaia's former co-workers, named Uranus, has put the next stage of the organization's plan into action and hopes to not only eliminate Gaia from existence, but also the other nine fighters who participated in the last battle.

Toshinden URA

Sometime after the events of the first Toshinden game, a police scientist named Ronron creates an android fighter intended for law enforcement, its name being the Replicant. To make the android as strong as possible, its fighting abilities are patterned off the world’s greatest fighter, Sho Shinjo. However, the prototype is stolen just before it can be fully completed. Within time, someone begins murdering famous fighters around the world in a surprising yet shocking manner. With no evidence as to who is behind these murders, the Toshinden fighters grow suspicious of each other. Meanwhile, a mysterious man, known only as Ripper, is seeking Sho Shinjo as his sister (believed to have been Cupido) has disappeared without a trace and Ripper himself believes that Sho may have killed her from within the past. However, every lead Ripper finds takes him to the scene of one of these mysterious murders, leading to him becoming the prime suspect in a shrouded conspiracy that seems to be surrounding him and the rest of the Toshinden fighters.

Characters

Returning characters:

New characters:

Unlockable characters:

Release

Though based on the original version of Battle Arena Toshinden 2, Battle Arena Toshinden URA has altered gameplay, making it feel notably different. It also has all new arenas, a new story, a different CG intro and four exclusive new characters (Ripper, Ronron, Replicant and Wolf) that replace four of the original version's characters (Gaia, Chaos, Uranus and Master).

A special edition of Toshinden 2 was later released only in Japan for the PlayStation on The Best range (equivalent to the Greatest Hits and Platinum ranges in North America and Europe). It features notably enhanced graphics, improved control and tweaked CPU AI. It also makes some balancing tweaks to the characters' attacks. An option to save results, option settings and unlocked characters to a memory card was also added.

Toshinden 2 was ported to the PC. It is a Windows port of the PlayStation version with arcade graphical fidelity, the ability to play the game in higher resolutions and some additional options, such as the ability to remap all the controls (the PlayStation version only allowed the remapping of the shoulder buttons). Unlike the original PlayStation port, it also saves unlocked characters, settings and results. However, the introductionary movie was removed for unknown reasons

Reception

Reviews for Battle Arena Toshinden 2 were mediocre, with critics generally commenting that the game is good but shows little improvement over its predecessor and fails to measure up to marketplace competitors like Virtua Fighter 2 and Tekken 2. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly had a more positive reaction than most, praising the graphics and the new character Vermillion, though they did remark that the game was not as good as Virtua Fighter 2. Maximum's Rich Leadbetter argued that the changes from the original game, particularly the new characters Chaos and Vermillion, made the game better, but also felt that they were insufficient, particularly in light of the graphical advances PlayStation games had made since the original Toshinden was released. He concluded by advising PlayStation owners to wait for Tekken 2 instead. Major Mike of GamePro similarly described the game as "more of the same." While he stated the graphics are better than the first game, he derided the game's lack of intelligent fighting technique, particularly that combos are very limited and the fights essentially boil down to trading special attacks. IGN stated that the game's animations were not very smooth and the camera made gameplay challenging. Final comments on the game stated that although the game wasn't necessarily bad, it wasn't exactly outstanding either.