Archview #4: All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation

 That was fast....

 All Kamen Rider: Ridener Generation was a game I was pretty hyped for, and it didn't dissapoint, for the most part. KR:RG is a side-scrolling beat'em up game in which you take control of your Kamen Rider of choice and a CPU-controlled ally. It's a very simple, very short and quite solid affair.
 The controls are very simple, Y is a weak attack, that can be mashed into a 4-5 hit combo, X is a stronger attack that pushes back the enemy and can be comboed into with Y. Then you have A, that provides 3-4 special attacks,  B is your jump button, R is an special ability(Unique to each Rider), L is block and L+A unleashes the Hissatsu Attack. You can also carry Health Pills, which by touching the lower screen completely refills your HP. Very basic, yes, but it works and provides more options than your average Sidescrolling Beat-em up.

 There's a large amount of characters to choose from, 29 in all, and most of them have very unique moves. All the main Riders up to Fourze are in the game, and there's a couple of "sidekick" riders, like Birth and V2. One issue, is that certain characters are much more developed than others. Some characters have 3 A moves(Jumping, Neutral and Side), but some of them have Up+A specials. Each character has a "Special Ability", but some of them are quite useless, like gaining a power-up when low on health... while others get extra moves by pressing R. Speaking of extra moves, most of the latter Riders had many forms in the TV Show, and this forms are used for ther Special moves.... except OOO and W, by pressing R, gain access to those forms, meaning that OOO is basically 6 different characters(Even different Y combo between each form!) in 1 and W is 3 in 1. It's sad, because other Riders have enough moves in the source material to permit them form changes, but they only get to use them in their special attacks.

 The game is very short, 3-4 hours tops. It's divided in 5 worlds, each with 4 levels and 1 boss level. There are also 2 extra stages per world that get unlocked via passwords(16 digits passwords), it's annoying to type 10 different 16 digit passwords, and it was a dumb decision to make them password only. There's a couple of "obstacle" courses, they are not very fun, but they are short enough. Most levels are very easy(Normal difficulty), and quite short, which makes the game easy to play on the go. Surprisingly, the last boss is pretty hard, so you might want to level up a bit and clear some missions to raise the health pill limit before tackling him. Ah, yes!, missions, the game has replay value in the form of missions, they range from using a certain character on the level to not using Health pills..

 The presentation is top-notch, featuring big, well-animated sprites. The Riders themselves move like they did on their shows, which is a great plus, and most of the bosses are taken from the show themselves. It's a shame there's so few of them, 'cause they up the "Kamen Rider value". On the other hand, backgrounds are very plain and unexciting, you might as well play on a white void and you wouldn't notice. The music serves the game, and while I'm not sure if all the original voice actors are in(Kiva doesn't sound like Wataru...), the sound effects are legit. I never get tired of "Midnight Fever!" from Tatsulot!.
 All in all, it's a very solid game, it's a shame it's so damn short.
 It's a 7 out of 10.