Japan's Western Fantasy Fighter - Chaos Breaker/Dark Awake

[@strippinheat]

I don't remember how I found out about it, but I got this game on JP PS3 PSN years ago. A couple extra things to note: -Every character has a physical and magical defense rating so some character take more damage from physical attacks and others from magical attacks. Troll, for example, takes the least damage from physical, but extra damage from magical. -There are super to super cancels on top of the usual special to super cancels. -The single player mode has a ratio system. After you beat an opponent, you take their item, and you can choose to have two items in battle with two characters, or even three items with one character.

[@atimewastersaccount5243]

Was this game digital only?

[@StanNotSoSaint]

Oh, hey, that's KoF2k1

[@nate567987]

yes@@atimewastersaccount5243

[@ThatOneGuy-22]

Wow man I just have so many questions like how do you find these. I like that you introduce people like me to these games it helps keep things interesting.

[@nickromano3087]

The SRK wiki is a dark and magical place

[@Gamersgoinblind]

I have a list of over 400 fighting games and sometimes i just come across some random game through the internet or through the people who show off niche fighting games

[@StellaEFZ]

@@nickromano3087 Sometimes going to offlines help too, that's how I found Million Knights Vermillion, and oh my god that game SUCKS

[@minganmorissette]

I like how arcade Ramda is litteraly just high-fantasy Guts

[@emperormegaman3856]

That's what i thought. He was Guts in the arcade, and became Conan for the console release.

[@GELTONZ]

So a little bit about this game's history: If I remember correctly, Dark Awake was in development by Eolith before they started work on KOF2001. This was basically their passion project and may well be the most Korean fighting game ever when you consider it's literally Warcraft meets KOF. In fact the pre-rendered sprites remind me of old Blizzard games specifically. Dark Awake was actually the original name and those were the original designs of Sandra and Ramda, but Taito suggested changing the title and the two main character designs to better appeal to a Japanese audience. It IS weird they changed all of that back for the home release though but I love that both design types are available. Oh also you can sacrifice character slots to equip more items. But...I'm...not sure how USEFUL that is. Could anyone really equip the right items to make a single character strong enough to fight a whole team?! Yeah if this gets ported to anything I'd gladly buy it again. There aren't enough good fantasy themed fighters out there. I mean there are SOME, but not a lot.

[@nate567987]

the home verison was published by Yuki enterprises so yea

[@oonkymppa5923]

This is why I watch you dude. Never heard of this game and half way into the video I'm searching for a way to play it.

[@CPUjunkie]

This game is available on steam

[@oonkymppa5923]

@@CPUjunkie I can't find it.

[@CPUjunkie]

@@oonkymppa5923 I was thinking of Battle Fantasia, too many games stuck on the ps3

[@kogazor]

Are you kidding me, how did I ENTIRELY miss this gem?

[@thetrueyuiop]

I can’t believe you didn’t mention how Troll is a charge character who self-heals when he returns his stick to neutral. (I love this mechanic)

[@moltengarnet]

This looks super cool. I think I’ve seen the goblin lizard on Saltybet once but I didn’t know what he was from

[@GuileWinQuote]

Finding the game where a random Salty Bet character came from is a euphoric feeling 🙏

[@miasuke]

I must say: When I bought my PS3, the first game I got to my system was Dark Awake, just after creating my japanese account, and buy a ¥1.000 pre-paid card to buy just this game (after that, the game increased in price to about ¥1.024, turning impossible to buy the game with an pre-paid card with exact ¥1.000). And it's a game I recomend any fighting game lover to pick this gem to your japanese PSN account, together with some Japan-only PS4 fighting games, like Blade Arcus, Blade Arcus Rebellion, Million Arthur: Arcana Blood, and Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax Ignition, and also some PS1 Japan-only titles, like RBS: Dominated Mind, Advanced VG 1 and 2, and the Asuka 120% games. It's a real shame this game never had an official western release... The single player campain is like a treasure hunting based in how many items you can get/find/unlock during matches, and to face "The King Has No Name" dragon boss, you must obtain a certain number of items until the final boss, or get a bad ending. There's some rare items, who you can't pick at the start, being selectable only after finding them during the Arcade Mode. In the Traning Mode, you can pick these rare items by selecting some specific items while holding Select. Anyway... Another amazing video. A trophy for you!! 🏆 And by the way, if there's someone who have this game legally on the PS3, and want to try some online casual matches (including to hunt some online trophies for this game), I'm up to it!! 😃🤜🤛😃

[@Aztyph]

My first thought upon you mentioning about it resembling a late Nineties _Conan the Barbarian_ fighting game was, "No, that's _Weaponlord."_ Great video. Love watching match videos of this game.

[@H250V]

Honestmy surprised we never got this game over here, because it feels like it could have wowed a large crowd, especially now that it seems to be that a lot of people are into DnD these days. (Also, I could see the OG skins being changed upon release, either as a bonus, or because of the likeness...like Ramda looking like Guts from Berserk, only to be changed to Conan)

[@nathadniel5790]

Big fan of the dude that's literally just Western Guts(TM).

[@Pixygon]

Wouldn’t Guts already be “Western Guts”?

[@docheckfire3979]

I love your videos and your "all fighting games are great" vibe, man! :) Keep up the good work!

[@TheBlackshear]

HELL YEAH, been waiting for someone to talk about this game. Thought I was the only one that plays it lol

[@MuhammadAli-xw4yc]

Nah my guy. I have japanese account on ps3. I love fighting games especially 2D.

[@RetroVisage]

0:30 Guile speaks the truth. This games seems really interesting, great stuff from you too as always! I was unsure about the art style was worried it'd be too ragnagard like but its pretty good and well animated i bet some scanlines would really make them pop.

[@GELTONZ]

So funny thing is that Dark Awake is actually the original name and those are the original Ramda and Sandra designs, but when Taito picked it up they suggested changing the title and character designs to better appeal to a Japanese audience...so weird that they changed it back for the home release. If I recall correctly, Dark Awake began development BEFORE KOF2001 and was Eolith's pet project. Heck it may well be the most Korean fighter EVER since it's almost literally a combination of Warcraft and KOF. Heck even the pre-rendered sprites specifically remind me of old Blizzard games! Yeah I grabbed this on PS3 back in the day and would gleefully purchase a re-release on anything. There really aren't enough good fantasy themed fighters out there. They EXIST, but there aren't a lot of them.

[@sohaibnk]

Getting this gem on steam with rollback would be best xD Hell I'd get it even without the rollback netcode!

[@blackcat7k]

Wow, this game looks great. About hidden gems, I feel the same way when I find a manga that no has talked about. This is a cool channel, I hope the algo picks you up and sends you far.

[@lyteedge]

I used to live in Japan and had a version of this on my cell phone in 2005 or 2006. It was a pretty decent port given the platform and constraints. Jumped on it when it got a PS3 port and completely forgot all about it until your video popped up!

[@jodyposey9558]

So there was another port of Chaos Breaker/Dark Awake on mobile devices! Is it still available?

[@RawrX32009]

​@@jodyposey9558It's probably lost media by now

[@Freefork]

Fantastic video! Dark Awake/Chaos Breaker and Top Ranked Fighter(along with Dan-ku-ga/Kaiser Knuckle, but more people know about that game) are some of the best fighting games that no one heard of.

[@tekkenjournalist1268]

I'm glad you covered this. this was one of the first fighting games I actually tried to get good at. I had imported a digital code for the game on PS3. I got my ass handed to me by Japanese players while I was trying to learn how exactly the menu worked. And how the troll worked. But this is a really unique game and I would love to see a fantasy fighter borrow some elements from it.

[@burntsiennaleigh]

been waiting to see a video on this the clash mechanics are similar to asuka, including dash clash frames, which is a very unique feature of the mad stalker derived games - i know SARU TYPE XYZ, a top JP asuka player, worked on 02UM so i wonder if he could've influenced this game

[@GuileWinQuote]

Asuka is definitely gonna be talked about at some point, I love that game...but I did NOT know about a top player working on 02!! You might be onto something with your theory then!!!... Wow

[@amr-OH]

@@GuileWinQuote oh sick the clash stuff definitely reminded me of the clashes and ridiculous guard cancels in Asuka, did not know there was a possibility of a direct connection, hah

[@miasuke]

@@GuileWinQuote I'll try to give some information about Asuka 120% to increase your sources of knowledge, if you want. Specially because I just LOVE Fill-in-Café's Asuka 120% (Success's Asuka 120% Final and Return... not so much).

[@mixoops2212]

I love I found this game by seeing some of these characters ported to Mugen of all things.

[@MoonlitSlime]

It's only a matter of time before I wake up to see you covering Daemon Bride. I can't wait

[@wilburcobb8990]

thankyou for showing me this game, it looks brilliant

[@MJRLHobbyStuff]

This looks hype as hell!

[@laserdiscphan]

I actually got to play this in an arcade. The Round 1 arcade in South Jersey has some Nesica consoles and it does indeed have both Chaos Breaker and Dark Awake! Unfortunately, they have the difficulty cranked up to 11, so the furthest I got was the 2nd encounter with the Manticore.

[@SirJack3]

"Every fighting game should have a dumb mouthful nonsense subtitle" I agree, but I want it to happen to games of every genre.

[@Kuikkamies]

Dunno if making the most panned KOF entries in the series really gives Eolith much credit.

[@GuileWinQuote]

Disrespecting KOF 2002 is unforgivable in some parts of the world...but 2001 is a little goofy for sure 😅 That's why I was singular when mentioning beloved fighting games in that part!

[@oof5992]

Latin America just wants to "talk" with you.

[@MuhammadAli-xw4yc]

Thanks Guilewinquote for covering this little gem of a game. I downloaded it when I was binge buying obscure japanese fighting game from my japanese psn 3 account.

[@jjh01harmon38]

Just saw a japanese tournament for this game what a coincidence.

[@alexpardo1515]

I'm so happy I found this because I've been wanting to lab this game out for so long. A Round 1 opened up near me with both the Dark Awake and Chaos Breaker versions of the game on a Nesica cab and this video definitely explained the mechanics in depth for me

[@2Eliishere]

Elion is very clearly a Tyrion from warhammer stand in. Honestly quite a few of these characters look like warhammer figures from 3rd or 4th edition.

[@paulw4565]

An arcade in Japan named Nagano TRF used to stream tournaments of this game weekly over 10 years ago. You can still find the videos on NicoNico douga. It was very fun to watch.

[@SleepmodeKNB]

dude this game is so good, thank you for covering it!

[@Chaobreaker]

Much respect with what you're doing in this channel.

[@emperormegaman3856]

2:47 this character popped up in the screen i just say "oooh, we have our freak. we have a big grace- A freak right there".

[@DoomsayerStudios]

Now I need to see if the Daigo parry can be replicated in some form within this game.

[@DontHaveToTakeMyWord]

I remember seeing this game streamed a lot on the TRF arcade livestream, and they had a lot of tournaments of this game. There was a lot of different metagame team setups that the game's cult following had come up with, it was cool to watch. Glad to see someone cover this game.

[@2hurt2healmedia]

Excellent find! Thank for video. 😳🔥✨🙏🏼

[@Scaevola9449]

Ramda looks like a weird cross between Conan and Kevin Sorbo Hercules.

[@ivansotelo4622]

This should get a port with rollback! Looks amazing!

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

It's funny we got quite a bit of niche fighting games on the PS3 brought over from Japan but this one never did and I do kind of get the feeling they just won't ever, not officially anyway.

[@Emanuelmartins69]

Woah, it looks really like Warhammer Fantasy miniatures (looking at the ork and dwarf here 👀), more so than D&D.

[@TonyTheTGR]

This is super underrated. I got to play in ONCE at a Round1 arcade before it got traded/vanished. :( It's super fun, and I'm sad that despite having two names, it was never ported stateside.

[@splnter648]

Now that I think about it, in that iceberg I wonder where Touhou Hisoutensoku, also known as Touhou 12.3 or even Soku is? I mean it's pretty good and am currently learning it. My current main is Youmu.

[@AzureSymbiote]

Thanks for letting us know!

[@mickmook1317]

Just submitted to your channel. Really enjoyed these videos.

[@yuseifudo3352]

Your analysis on lesser known games is always really cool to listen to. Have you ever thought about talking about street fighter 1 or it's fanmade remake?

[@GuileWinQuote]

I have considered it! And the SF 1 boss hack too.. Maybe one day!

[@rogueyoshi]

There is a way to select more items than characters on your teams (3 items + 1 character for instance)

[@fogblades6811]

sucks that Fightcade doesn't have this yet...

[@CCuppy29]

I need this on Fightcade now this looks so sick

[@vmarcelo49]

If this game came to pc with rollback i would buy it for sure

[@Slayerthecrow]

Making a tier list of the character considering all the items must be a nightmare, but still, looks awesome.

[@linkdude777]

Me and stone randomly played this many years ago and it was really fun! We were so surprised it has so many mechanics to play around with. I completely forgot about it and eolith being the dev is such a surprise but looking at it being a 3v3 fighter with tons of mechanics and assists, it makes so much sense.

[@Jacky_Raider]

Wow I didn’t think Karnovs would be in the popular tier on that iceberg, proud moment.

[@Eggroll3s]

Babe wake up, new GWQ banger 😳

[@nebwachamp]

Dude. This is made for me. Thank u.

[@Len-rx78]

I saw this game once and loved it and immediately became obsessed with the idea of a fighting game fantasy RPG

[@drunkredninja]

Fishing with dashes you say? Sounds alot like Fighterz

[@wudly9195]

I see what you mean about the art style I really like this a lot. They do look like toys/ figurines but in a good way. The faces also have this look that reminds me of early Rareware games like Banjo and Donkey Kong Country

[@royshaheer]

Same feeling as you have with this one.

[@thomaschristensen2941]

"the king has no name" has to be the best bit of engrish i have ever seen

[@spiralgodking9877]

It does make sense as a proper sentence, but I get what you mean.

[@rogeras5966]

Yeah this game's mechanics and gameplay look very cool, thanks for showing it.

[@ShadG]

This game is so so so awesome! Being able to clash projectiles with normals and cancel that into a special is so damn rad. That and (most of) the characters are super super rad! It's a top 5 fighting games for me, definitely. #BONELOOPS

[@fedupN]

Dude, alot of those fighters look ALOT like Warhammer Fantasy models. Right out the gate I see old Orc, Mannfred, Necromancer, and High Elf. Though that mallet wielding dude (Curse Head?) seems like Golden Axe Deat Adder meets demon head guy from Weapon Lord...with a HeroQuest Chaos Warrior helmet.

[@HellecticMojo]

Normally I hate color schemes like these, but these really do capture that late 80s, early 90s miniature feel where everything is super bright and saturated

[@blackwind677]

rpcs3 is magical where one game goes from unplayable to playable in one update on your potato

[@fountgarde]

I played this thanks to emulation years back. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it, and it didn’t really tickle my fancy enough to research it any further. Thanks for doing all the research so that I didn’t have to. Seems like it’s way deeper than I could have ever given it credit for.

[@agudgorl]

I don't know if I haven't been looking hard enough at that iceberg or not, but I didn't see Def Jam FFNY on there. It definitely deserves more credit for the stacked roster and amazing soundtrack, as well as the absolutely brutal finishers you can pull off.

[@GuileWinQuote]

For sure, it's super hype that the Def Jam community has established itself as something legit and not just a meme as of late. It's got a lot of cool ideas!

[@third-ratedude4234]

Def Jam FFNY is in the Fringe section of the iceberg

[@agudgorl]

@@third-ratedude4234 ah, guess it was because i was watching the video on my phone

[@agudgorl]

@@GuileWinQuote I know! It's a shame we aren't seeing many games taking inspiration from it.

[@cordellriemer5177]

Dark Awake does seem interesting, Maybe I'll play this game when it gets ported to the Nintendo switch

[@etrotm12thebluewolf15]

I actually played this yesterday (the Arcade Dump by the way) and honestly this game is a gem. It feels good, and the music may be Midi files, but still pleasant to listen to. Discovering this video and playing this game I would consider a great birthday present, cuz it was birthday before I was able to comment this here.

[@jrandomyo1077]

Used to watch tournament videos of this from Japan years ago.

[@peterfairchild258]

🤯 WOW this is amazing work 🔥 I love pixel art games,it's my childhood ♥️

[@faidou9954]

I legit thought this game was a fucking fever dream, same with the Umineko fighting game

[@chrisbullock6477]

I remember playing this at our local Adventure Landing Mini Golf Arcade back in 1999/2000

[@strato991]

the "orc" character looks a lot like a certain warboss

[@radiofreedom947]

There was this arcade game I played at a pizza place as a kid, I guess you would call it 2.5 D because you could freely move in any direction, there was a minotaur and a werewolf and a wizard that would constantly say "Magic" when he attacked, I've tried to find it but unfortunately I can't remember the name of the game, I do remember having a lot of fun playing the game but I've only seen it at that one pizza place and haven't been able to find it anywhere else.

[@GuileWinQuote]

Was it Mutant Fighter?

[@radiofreedom947]

@@GuileWinQuote Yeah that's it! Thank you 😊👍

[@RawrX32009]

​@@GuileWinQuoteBro really knows EVERY single fighting game XD

[@Nhan6241]

Will you make a video about Buriki One someday?

[@GuileWinQuote]

YES I will, I got a board not too long ago and brought it to Texas Showdown!! Just need to find the time for it.

[@dr_ubo]

This looks mighty impressive. Incredible. Now I want to play it. Would have loved a beat em up game with the assets made for this game. It would've worked wonders, perhaps we can get something rolling with OpenBOR.

[@CommanderNemo1]

This is not dungeons and dragons. THIS IS WARHAMMER FANTASY D:

[@NonRandomUser]

According to the wiki in the description, Fina's community nickname is just Boobs(乳).

[@dominicjannazo7144]

Can I get a link to that fighting game iceberg image from the start of the video? There's a lot of quality on it

[@Ramsey276one]

Will soon get Fight’N Jokes on Switch Hope more obscure games make it there!

[@AlexanderShinigami]

Wow! Thx alot! Its rly great! So fantasy. I rly want to play it now

[@notheotheralex6213]

I would really like to know what the images for the esoteric and oblivion tiers of the iceberg are from... ok I'd like to know all of the images, but those two in particular.

[@drjcup3228]

I’m choosing “Cursehead” as the name of my band.

[@Baron_of_Wastes]

I was supposed to email the publisher about a modern release, but I forgot.

[@otaking3582]

This certainly looks better than the _actual_ DnD fighting game that came out on the PS1

[@pipeyohoe1088]

og ramda looks like guts

[@peregrinecovington4138]

Mara is one of my favorite fighting game characters ever. I hope this game gets a resurgence!!

[@doofmoney3954]

Now this is my favorite flavour of fantasy

[@deafmelonex6983]

I’ve always thought this game looked really cool when I was younger, hopefully I can play it on consoles someday.

[@arthurgrmg2850]

never heard of it before, looks really cool

[@condescending28]

I just bought it yesterday. It's just over $10. I would have paid $30 for this. It's that damn good & fun. I can't wait to explore it more some more. Wish this would get a PS4 & Switch release at least.

[@slamtown1903]

Holy shit i need to play as that warhammer orc now or i will die

[@joaojahnke9684]

This could really do well with a global release

[@10du16]

I found this at round 1 on a machine with like 40 games and spent like a literal hour trying to find this

[@diyanski3022]

such a cool game, sad it's slept on

[@rageofsweets]

it's all fun and games until christmas colored nsidor hits you with the sickest looking infinite