JINGI STORM
DEVELOPER: ATRATIVA YEAR: 2006 GENRE: FIGHTING
Every so often you can come across a weird little slice of arcade history, and Jingi Storm is definitely one of them. Originally announced as Force Five and developed by Anchor Inc, the game was set to release on Sammy’s Dreamcast-based Atomiswave arcade board in 2004. However, this never came to pass and the assets were sold on to the virtually unknown company Atrativa, which revamped and renamed the game and switched it to Sega’s Naomi board. All the women were removed from the main roster of characters and turned into mid-bosses, and all of the fighters gained female companions who would appear in various states of undress based on the player’s margin of victory. However, this aspect of the game was scrapped after the original location test and the companions eventually existed solely to deliver post-match quotes, fully clothed.
All of that attempted focus on titillation was likely an attempt to disguise the fact that Jingi Storm is only an average fighting game. The game uses the same three-button control system as Virtua Fighter, and you can dodge from side to side. However, the fast action and easy move strings can’t cover up the fact that there’s a distinct lack of depth to the fighting, with the game really offering no unique ideas or twists on the genre. The only thing of note is that you can choose the first mid-boss you face, before going on to predictably overpowered final enemies. The sound is nothing to write home about, and the visuals look a little on the plain side next to Dreamcast fighting games like Soulcalibur and Dead Or Alive 2. Bear in mind that those games were both over five years old at the time – Jingi Storm would have been in arcades next to the likes of Tekken 5 and Virtua Fighter 5.
Jingi Storm never made it out of Japan, and would probably have struggled to find an audience on home consoles. The game was just much too far behind the competition, and unlike the companion characters in the game, that couldn’t be covered up.