DRAGON SISTERS
Original Release: D3 Publisher, 2006, PlayStation 2
A basic beat-em-up with some light grinding/RPG mechanics, as you improve the fortunes of two cyborg girls taking on a robo-army
Dragon Sisters (PS2, D3 Publisher, 2006)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
The "Simple Series" offered up a weird beat-em-up every once in a while, ranging in theme from "sexy bikini girls chop up zombies" to "Yakuzas in River City Ransom." This one almost seems like a riff on obscure-but-beloved Undercover Cops, in that it takes place in some future dystopia with cyborgs and robots running around. But this isn't nearly as gory, you fight it out with what appears to be an army of Iron Man 2 drones, it doesn't really even put them out when you kick their heads off in the middle of a fight.
I've also seen some people go so far as to call this an "action-RPG," but while it has grinding elements I feel that's going a little far. You've given management of two cyborg girls tasked with doing missions in the midst of some sort of automaton invasion of New Japan or something. The main meat of the game is going through a series of 10 levels, accompanied by a very rudimentary story (mostly played out with occasional dialogue boxes in-level). There's also a much larger set of "special missions" but you only get access to one of those until you beat the game.
The RPG element comes from beating the delicious loosh out of your Ultron clone foes in each level, which can then be put to assorted upgrades. The girls have five core stats you can boost up, like speed and strength. The most interesting bit is that you can gradually extend combos by buying new pieces, for example extending your standard three-punch combo with an added finishing blow that is vastly more powerful. And after you beat the game, you also use these points to unlock new special missions to play. You can replay each level as many times as you want, and you get to keep all the points you collected if you die.
It really isn't bad, but definitely "budget" and gets repetitive/tedious very quickly. It's one of those games where the fun is loaded more toward the back end as you're asked to do at least an initial couple of hours of grinding in which you're weak and have a limited move set. You also eventually unlock a couple of hidden characters, some kind of Ultraman robot and a sexy female Nazi, who are more fun to play as. And both the fun and efficient fighting are predicated on understanding your full range of moves, some of which are kind of obscure and not really documented or explained adequately in-game. Levels are also sparse, and there is an extremely limited set of enemies to fight (making it feel kinda like a musou game at times given how many clones are thrown at you), though as tended to be true with the Simple series the music and sound are surprisingly good at times.
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