As a reviewer, I like to pride myself on the fact that I have an extensive history with videogames and I can generally see the appeal in any title or genre and relate important qualities to the intended audience. Which is precisely why I am so baffled by Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty, a PSOne import now available on the PlayStation Network. Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty is a fifteen year old PlayStation 1 game that was only released in Japan in 1995, which is a port of an arcade fighting game from that same year, so even if you have heard of it, chances are that you never got to actually play it (not that you'd want to play a derivative fighter from the mid-90's fifteen years later.)

Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty looks pretty good considering the time frame. The art style is an appropriate mix of King of Fighters meets Samurai Showdown. There is a bit of cheating with the visuals, as you will notice at least three characters are color palette swaps, as well as plenty of animations being recycled, but that is to be expected from a game conceived in the height of the Street Fighter rip-off days of gaming history. Literally EVERY fighting game from 1992-1995 was trying to capitalize on the success of Street Fighter II and Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty definitely falls into that camp.

Once again, for a game that is over a decade old, the sound design isn't that bad. It sounds a bit muffled at times and the background stage music is catchy enough to stick with you for a while after playing. I should comment on the crude voice acting, but since every aspect of Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty is in Japanese, both written and spoken, I really don't have a gauge for the talent that is used. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the voice work is decent, but I never noticed any disruptive lines of dialogue that would seem odd. That's one of the faults of not being a native Japanese-speaker.

If there is a setup to a story in Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty, I would not be able to tell you what it was from my time with the game. All of the text is in Japanese, and the few cutscenes available are terribly generic to the point of confusion because many characters are repeated. According to the Wikipedia entry about Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty, it is based on a Chinese legend where an enigmatic emperor openly challenged anyone who thought they were fit to be the true ruler in a series of fatal duels where the lone victor would gain ultimate power and become the rightful ruler of China.

So what we are given is about a dozen or so fighters competing to be the one who challenges the emperor. From what I understand (again, all in Japanese) the character list includes a typically noble warrior, a sorcerer, three brothers, a blacksmith, and a few others that are too vague to really stand out. Each fighter has their own weapon of choice, whether that weapon is swords, whips, nunchuks, or fish (seriously) is up to the fighter. There are special moves to perform in much the same way EVERY other fighting game during the early 90's had special moves like fireballs or crazy kicks. The only real difference or innovation I could find in Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty is the ability to abandon the character's weapon mid-fight. By pressing both strong-attack buttons, your character throws their weapon for moderate amount of damage in exchange for the mobility offered by fighting only with your fists.

To be very blunt about Outlaws, if you have ever played a one-on-one fighting game, you could mash buttons like the rest of them and get results. It is THAT derivative.

There are a few different options for difficulty. Seven, to be exact. Ranging from total beginner all the way to seasoned expert, the A.I. can be downright vicious at times and simply not allow you to score a single hit in a round. That is, of course, if you are playing on the "Arcade" Mode. If you switch over to "Special" Mode, each character has a few more moves and the A.I. has been tweaked to be a little more forgiving.

Although I couldn't read Japanese, I could still understand the universal language of fighting games, and the old fighting game adage still holds true: "It ain't cheap if you keep falling for it." I nearly beat the entire game on an average difficulty setting by simply leaping over the opponents' head and leg-sweeping them as soon as I land, (commonly referred to as a "cross-up" in the fighting game community.)

I couldn't find much depth to the fighting system in Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty. Since the cheesy tactics that I described above worked so well, so often, I never bothered to learn strategies for many of the characters since each character has at least one move that can be spammed to great effect. There is some depth if you look for it, but mostly, abusing the ridiculous juggle system works the best.

This is about as bare bones as it gets when it comes to arcade fighting games. Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty only offers Arcade play and 1 vs. 1. That's it. No practice mode, no challenge modes, no bonus content like artwork or movies. Nothing, nada, zilch, zip. PSOne games are a hard thing to go back to most of the time. Crude graphics, cruder sound, and a notable "growing pains" stage of many franchises puts a damper on any nostalgia for these retro titles.

Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty would have been a great addition to the PlayStation Network Store had it actually been available in the U.S. anytime before now. With such derivative gameplay and the barest of presentations, don't gamble your money away on this import. Wait and see if any of the Tobal games make it over here first.