Kenka Bancho

"Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble puts players in the role of a high school student on a class trip to a historic Japanese city, and includes no shortage of fist-to-face and knee-to-gut action all in the name of pride and bragging rights. You've got seven days to make a name for yourself. How you choose to spend your time and how you manage to rise to the top is up to you!"

What's the game like?
Hmmm... You might compare it to a melting pot between River City Ransom's freedom, setting, and themes, God Hand's combat elements, and Seiken Densetsu 3's Level Ups, along with a simpler "light-dark" mechanic. It's not as great as all 3 combined, but it's at least as good as one of them. As mentioned before, you're on a school trip where you can do damn near whatever you please. Nearly every day on the trip, your class heads off to "some boring shrine or another". The game very rarely forces you to do anything, outside of a very few unskippable cutscene-started fights (roughly 3 at most, IIRC). You can just roam around town, picking fights, finding UMAs, or pretty much whatever you want. "Or just stay in your room all week; see if I care." (Yes, you can seriously do this.). While the game itself has only a very minor amount of Japanese slang, loading screens give you the 101 on some basic things bancho typically knows about, both in the game and in real life.

Can you give me some tips, /v/?
I guess, you shabazo. (Note: this is not a great thing to be.) But note that it's quite a bit of readin'.

+Gameplay Factors+ (skip to the next main section if you're curious about other stuff, know how to play, or went through the tutorial/instruction manual)

-Basics-

Your goal is to be top bancho in Japan. You do this by fighting other banchos (known in other games as "bosses"). You recover HP by eating stuff, Stamina (doubles as your Max HP) from drinking stuff, and Kiai (or SP as it were) from drinking certain drinks or squatting to charge up your manly aura. Most of the stats are self explanitory.Your Hotel Room is your base of operations to change your current items, fighting moves, and purchased/found clothes, accessories, and/or wigs/hairstyles. Take a nap to max out and kill time, or sleep until morning to advance to the next day.

-Fighting-

Your combo is your main attack chain. It's basically 3 weak attacks. Finisher is the icing on the cake. Throw it in after a chain for extra damage, or charge it up seperately for more damage and likely a knock down. Super Attack is another alternate charge attack. It's best to differentiate the two for more variety and situations (being surrounded vs. one-on-one). Running makes you walk faster, but limits you to a running attack. You can also jump attack while moving or still, but it won't change when running. Grab foes from the front to beat them down more, then knock them away or throw them to the ground. Grabbing foes from the back limits you to throwing, but it's good after dodging an attack that leaves their rear open. You can strike a ground-bound foe while standing, but unless they only have one hit or so left, you're best off pinning them. Pinning lets you hit foes more after they're ground-bound, but leaves you open for assaults by others, so it's best for one-on-one fights. When there's nobody else around, or your foes are pre-occupied, take a Kiai squat to regain some precious SP and HP. Penultimately, you have Lock-On, which is best for one-on-one fights. It lets you dodge attacks by shifting forward, back, or to either side, but it restricts you from running. Last, but far from least, is the "Local Specialty", which lets you use some SP for a kickass attack or effect (raise defense, guard break, unlimited running for a while, etc.). Sadly, you're limited to a sole local specialty until you change it at the hotel or when riding a vehicle, but since SP is technically unlimited, it evens out.

+Badassitude+

Essentially, your dark-light karma influence meter of sorts. Raise it by fighting fair and kicking lots of ass, lower it by generally being an asshole/shabazo and fighting dirty.

-Things that make you a badass/a 'Shibui 'Bancho-

1. Fighting fair. HANDS AND FEET ONLY. FINAL DESTINATION. (you actually have alot more options when fighting barehanded)

2. Kicking lots of ass. Keep beating down shabazos and watch it skyrocket. Just don't get your ass kicked.

3. Winning "Smash Talk" sessions. Essentially pick the insult the game tells you to. You can also choose "hidden" insults to boost it a bit more.

4. Reading. Seriously. There's a series of books known as The Bancho Way that boost your badassitude in varying degrees.

-Things that make you an asshole/a Shabai Shabazo-

1. '''Don't hurt innocents. '''Why waste a good fist on someone who can't fight back? Leave those normal-chumps alone, you scumbag bully.

2. '''Don't destroy property. '''YOU SURE SHOWED THAT MAILBOX WHO'S BOSS. Pathetic.

3. '''Never back down from a fight. '''Gettin' your jollies, chickenshit?

4. Watch your mouth. Picking goofy choices in Smash Talks is funny, but that backhand across your face isn't.

5. '''Don't use weapons. '''See below.

+The Dark/Shabai Side+

The more shabai you get, the less badass you are. But you can be an asshole all you want. If you want to join the dark side, then be my guest. However, beware the consequences.

-Why being Shabai sucks-

1. Enemies swarm you far more often. You'll get challenged alot more often. And alot more often other enemies, usually offscreen or faraway tend to join the fight more than usual.

2. Being an asshole makes you weaker. Untested entirely, but I noticed my shabai bancho running out of breath far more often than his usual shibui self. Your stats won't reflect it, but you can tell.

3. You can never go back (until New Game+). Get to Shabazo or Shabazo/Shabai King ranks of badassitude and no matter how badass your acts might be or how much you read, you can never get above them. Again, untested entirely, but considering how much cash you'd have to spend or how many asses you'd have to kick to theoretically get back... Is it really worth it? (Nope.)

4. DA FIVE-O. Cops usually can help you out if you're getting swarmed by scaring away shabazos. If you're going around punching everyone and everything though? Expect to be arrested.

5. Smash Talk additions. If you want to get some goofy responses, then this isn't too bad. If you actually want the first hit, then this just sucks.

-Why being Shabai rocks-

1. Breakable objects usually hide goodies. Although they are usually minor, why waste the cash for them otherwise? Rarely, a few hide a decent chunk of change or better items.

2. Run away and/or sneak attack before fights. While he's giving you the stink eye, you can be charging up for a local special to get some easy cash or items from his soon to be beat down ass.

3. "Move, bitch. Get out the way." Streets can get pretty crowded in Japan. So why not force your way through to get somewhere faster? If you give them a glare, you can get some money out of them, but it's usually not worth it because they usually give so little.

4. WEAPONS. Your attacks are much more limited when using weapons, However, they tend to knock down and knock away enemies much more often and some weapons have great range. All weapons are of the "sword"-esque variety, so don't expect to go chaining someone in the face. Laundry poles, brooms, bats, and so forth? Perfectly acceptable.

5. Get some damn funny smash talk lines. This game's as humorous as it is badass. Some of the weird lines you give out even get a few specialized responses.

It mostly evens out in the end, and since your badassitude resets each new game+, you might consider giving one of your trips a Shabazo run, just for the heck of it. If you don't like it, then just sleep day-in, day-out until the train leaves for home.

Will edit more later