So...what do we have here?

Japanese Game Box Front

Marin Aoki, A 17 Year Old
School Girl Who Can Fight!

If you read my Space-Net: Cosmo Blue (Game Boy Color) review, you may know that I didn't think all that much of this game. Seifuku Densetsu: Pretty Fighter is a game that had a bit of success in Japan due to the theme of the game...all girl fighting. Don't misunderstand me, many all-girl fighters tend to be nothing more than crap filled with panty shots and cheap thrills...ugh...*Vyse thinks about Strip Fighter II* There are some good ones though, like the Asuka series and Gal Fighters for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. SD:PF also has a sequel known as Pretty Fighter X for the Sega Saturn. It is a "yellow" label game for ages 18 and older. Being on the SNES, the game doesn't possess hardly any hentai elements and the ones that do exist are mild and tame. Therefore, it isn't really even a hentai game, but rather, just a typical fighter that services fans that like to see various girls dressed in popular anime outfits.

Many people will tell you that this game is just flat out awful...so I decided to beat this game a few additional times to see if my opinion of it would change. Graphically speaking, SD:PF looks quite nice actually. Characters are big and somewhat arcade-like and they animate relatively good in most respects. It's HOW they attack that's the generic thing. Typical fireballs look decent, but a few of the attacks look ridiculous. One of Marin's (girl in the school girl uniform) fierce button attacks make her twirl around and attack with her hair. Kurisu (the nurse...aka Kris) has a number of generic attacks. Ryoko (aka Oryou as she likes to be called. Has black hair with a yellow robe) just runs into her foe with no emphasis on power or anything. Some attacks also lack animation as well. As you can probably tell, the game has nice graphics and they waste it with characters that do a fair deal of uninspired attacks. On the other hand, the backgrounds are quite nice and worth looking at.

Still, I suppose Imagineer has proven that they can produce good graphics, which is satisfying to know. The sound is mostly decent. Some of the tunes are goofy and the others work for this game. The game talks about having two "songs": "Song Of Rock O" and "Song Of Ore". While they are both decent tunes, they don't even classify as "songs" since there are no lyrics or anything that I can make out in either of them, but they sound decent nonetheless. I find it strange that they don't mention who did Yawara's (girl in karate robe) voice.

SD:PF is very typical of other fighters. You have eight fighters and you fight across eight stages featuring areas such as Nagoya, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. One thing (and one alone) that's a bit odd about Seifuku Densetsu is that while you can throw opponents, you can't throw them while they are blocking...at least ordinarily. The game does have some broken hit detection. I have had fireballs go straight through me a number of times while I was preparing to fire my own fireball. You can get the CPU in a corner and literally whack em' to death with certain attacks since you don't slide away from the enemy despite the fact that you are endlessly clobbering them. A roster of eight characters isn't all that impressive either. It could of at least had ten or twelve. There is no air guard or advanced fighting game mechanics like that and I find this game too easy even on the hardest difficulty. The story mode is also lame and there is no real plot behind this game. How does Seifuku Densetsu: Pretty Fighter stack up? The gameplay is average, but the other parts of the game are decent, though the uninspired nature of several attacks leave much to be desired. I wish these gals fought more like SNK brand gals rather than just fighting like girly girls. The game had a bit of potential, but it is lost in the vast sea of greater fighters. Worth a test play, but anything more is entirely up to you. I can tell you one thing though; It ain't the worst SNES fighter.

- Written by Vyse the determined -