Last Bronx


is a 1996 fighting video game developed by Sega AM3 on the Sega Model 2 mainboard. It was released in Japanese and American arcades before home versions were produced for the Sega Saturn and Windows systems in 1997. Set in a crime-ridden Tokyo, the game follows rival street gangs who take part in a weapon fighting tournament. Last Bronx became a big hit in Japan, and it was soon novelized and serialized into comics and radio drama, and a year later Takashi Shimizu directed the direct-to-video live-action movie. On June 29, 2006, Sega released Last Bronx on PlayStation 2 as a tenth anniversary celebration.

Gameplay

Each match is a best out of two rounds fight with victory by knock out or remaining health at the end of the 30-second time limit. The stages are set in real Tokyo city closed areas without any ring outs. However, fighters can jump on the barriers.
Sega AM3 used the "PKG" 3-button system introduced by the AM2 in Virtua Fighter – "P" stands for "Punch", "K" for "Kick" and "G" for "Guard". The player uses the arcade joystick to move the character. Certain joystick and button combinations result in special attacks and combination attacks. The "G" button is used to block the opponent's attacks and to perform a feint attack called "Attack Cancel". Strong attacks, throws and rolling moves can be performed using different button combinations. Taunts can also be used – Last Bronx is part of the rare games in which the CPU uses this feature against the player or even another CPU controlled character.

Plot

Last Bronx is set in an alternate version of post-Japanese bubble Tokyo, where youth disenchantment and disillusion with Japan's explosive economic and societal progression lead into the culmination of the historic violent underground event known as the All Tokyo Street Wars, and into an era where crime and gang warfare is rampant.
Upon the peak of the All Tokyo Street Wars, a bōsōzoku gang known as Soul Crew made an explosive rise to power, uniting Tokyo's youth and gangs by their philosophy of Free Soul and enforcing their will by both negotiations and unstoppable and unmatched fighting prowess. This would lead into a brief lived ceasefire however, as soon shortly after, the leader of Soul Crew would be grisly murdered, leading into the Second All Tokyo Street Wars upon his death. Immediately, a message was made by a mysterious group known as Redrum, who demanded a tournament of fair dueling be engaged by the leaders of all of Tokyo's strongest gangs to know who would rule over all of Tokyo's streets. Dismissed by all who read it at first, this treatise would soon be exemplified by the discovery of missing gang members found dead in Tokyo Bay. Now with the Tokyo's street gang underworld's attention, the Second All Tokyo Street War Tournament, or The Last Bronx, would be able to begin.

Characters

The game has the following main characters:
  • Yusaku Kudo is the boss of the bosozoku street gang "Neo-Soul" from Haneda airport. Once the number three man of Soul Crew, Yusaku takes it upon his leader's death to finish what Soul Crew started. His preferred weapon is a metal sansetsukon; his in-game alternate weapon was a Shinkansen scale model.
  • Joe Inagaki is the boss of the western "chopper" styled bosozoku "Shinjuku Mad" gang from Shinjuku. Once the number two man of Soul Crew, Joe left the gang shortly after, seeking his own independence and leaving Soul Crew's leadership to Yusaku, and engages in The Last Bronx as a test of his skills and thrills. His preferred weapons are metal nunchaku; his in-game alternate weapons are corn ears. Though nunchaku and images of nunchaku were banned in the United Kingdom at the time, Sega convinced the British Board of Film Classification to allow Joe's nunchaku to appear uncensored in the PAL release of the Saturn version.
  • Saburo Zaimoku is the boss of the "Katsushika Dumpsters" gang from Katsushika. Once a member of Soul Crew, Zaimoku left upon the death of their leader, and reformed himself by working at his family's construction business. When Redrum threatens his workers in attempts to blackmail him to the Last Bronx, Zaimoku starts up the Katsushika Dumpsters for his co-worker's self defense and sets off to the tournament on his own. Zaimoku's preferred weapon is the hammer; his in-game alternate weapon is a frozen tuna.
  • Toru Kurosawa is the boss of the "Roppongi Hard Core Boys" gang from Roppongi. One of Soul Crew's more unrepentant and ruthless enemies, the yankii playboy tough finds the Last Bronx the best chance to wipe out his rivals as the true rule of Tokyo's streets and the gang underworld. Kurosawa's preferred weapon is the bokuto ; his in-game alternate weapon is a folding fan.
  • Nagi Hojo is the boss of the women-only "Dogma" gang from the Rainbow Bridge area of Tokyo, as well as a sadist. Nagi's preferred weapon is the sai; her in-game alternate weapon is a spoon and fork.
  • Yoko Kono is the boss of the "G-Troops" gang from the Tokyo subways. Originally an airsoft survival game group, the G-Troops then expanded into military martial arts training upon the bubble crash, but their renown eventually got them also caught up in the All Tokyo Street Wars. Yoko engages in the Last Bronx to end all of that, as well to find her missing brother, who was last seen dealing with Redrum. Yoko's preferred weapon is a pair of tonfa; her in-game alternate weapons are umbrellas.
  • Ken Kono was the co-founder and former boss of the "G-Troop" gang. After refusing the Redrum challenge, Redrum badly injured him in a fire, and his anger made him mad and evil. Eventually, he was turned into Red Eye and himself became an agent for the mysterious Redrum organization. In Yoko's ending, he is beaten by his sister Yoko at the tournament's final in the subway. Ken apologizes and tells his sister the truth, and then dies in her arms. Red Eye's preferred weapon is a metal tonfa; his in-game alternate weapons are chopsticks and broiled sauries.
  • Hiroshi "Tommy" Tomiie is the boss of the "Helter Skelter" skateboarder gang from Shibuya. Originally from Osaka, Tommy created Helter Skelter to make space in Tokyo and keep unruly gangs from getting in the way of his and his group's boarding. When Redrum declares the Last Bronx to be official, Tommy also engages for many reasons; for thrills, to end the unruly street gang wars, and to impress his crush, Lisa Kusanami. Tommy's preferred weapon is the Bō ; his in-game alternate weapon is a deck brush. Tommy's stage, "Cross Street", features a Sonic mascot which is Sega Shibuya Game Center's logo.
  • Lisa Kusanami is the Japanese-American leader of the "Orchids" music-band from the moonlight garden in Takeshiba Passenger Ship Terminal. The daughter of a woman who was supposed to have been the next successor to the Kusanami school of martial arts from her grandfather, her mother left with her surrogate father, an American lawyer, for a wealthy life in the United States. Originally founding the Orchids to creatively escape her somewhat troubled home life, the Orchids would soon face them and their fans fighting off the denizens of Japan's street gang underworld upon their extortion, and this would soon lead into Redrum also including the Orchids into the Last Bronx, making for a fight that Lisa never intended. Lisa's preferred weapon is a double metal stick ; her in-game alternate weapon is a ladle and spatula.

    Version differences

The "Saturn Mode", or "PC Mode" in the PC version, is a new story mode. The final fight between Yoko and her elder brother Red Eye is no longer the game's climax. The new plot was re-imagined as a complex network revolving around the Soul Crew duel of Yusaku versus Joe, around which all primary and secondary characters are linked to, for individual reasons. As a result, there is no more fixed fighting order with Red Eye as the last boss to beat. Instead the mode features a random route with Red Eye as a sub boss and a final match specific to each character.
Each final match is introduced by a real time cutscene with the two opponents, which differs from the Arcade Mode's unique dialogue between Yoko and Red Eye. The Arcade Mode's "Extra Stage", which is only available when beating Red Eye without using a continue, does not exist in the story mode. In this bonus stage, the ultimate opponent is a Dural-like metallic mute version of the player's own character. Depending on the version, this extra character is either a solid gray color or reflective. In the console versions, Red Eye is playable with his own story mode ending movie.
Winning the story mode's final stage unlocks a different ending anime sequence for each character, and each video is available for future viewing in the "Movie" mode. Prolific Japanese studio Telecom Animation Film produced all ten videos, including the opening music sequence.

Development

The arcade version was developed in Japan by the AM3 team that had developed Virtual On. According to director/project lead Akinobu Abe, "The game was designed to be quite realistic, with realistic style and people - Last Bronx characters wear clothes based on current Tokyo street fashions." While working on the game, the developers found that the weapons couldn't be seen during attacks because of how fast they were moving; this led to them programming the weapons to leave afterimages when in motion.
Environmental texture mapping, used to create the reflective effect of the "Metal" versions of the characters, is not a supported feature of the Model 2 hardware and had to be accomplished through programming trickery.
AM3 had a demo of the game ready in time for the AOU show in February 1996, but Sega would not allow them to show it because Sega AM2 was demonstrating several fighting games at the show and they feared another one would divide media and industry attention too much.
The Saturn version was developed by the same team which created the arcade original. They started work on the conversion on November 8, 1996, and first demonstrated it at the April 1997 Tokyo Game Show. Since they believed the fast weapons movement to be the key element to the game's appeal, they prioritized retaining all the animation data and the 60 frames per second frame rate of the arcade version. None of the development team had ever worked on a Saturn game before. According to Abe, who was also director of the port, the most difficult part was making the collision detection accurate, due to the greater amount of calculations attached to weapons than hand-to-hand combat. They found it impossible to recreate the environmental texture mapping on the "Metal" characters with the Saturn hardware.
Last Bronx includes advertising for real life brands such as Shott, Suzuki, Toyo Tires, AM Records, Java Tea, Axia, Wild Blue Yokohama and JAL. Most of these advertising bills were removed or exchanged with Sega or Saturn logos, sometimes replaced by "Now Printing" bills, in the oversea releases. An "AAA Act Against AIDS" bill, which is a Japanese nonprofit annual event concert, was introduced in the subway stage of the 1998 Windows version.