| Project Justice | |
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Cover of the North American Dreamcast version |
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| Developer(s) | Capcom |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Designer(s) | Hideaki Itsuno |
| Composer(s) | Yuki Iwai Etsuko Yoneda Setsuo Yamamoto |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Dreamcast |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Fighting game |
| Mode(s) | Single player and multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: T (Teen) |
| Arcade system | Sega NAOMI |
Project Justice (Japanese: 燃えろ!ジャスティス学園 Hepburn: Moero! Justice Gakuen, "Burn! Justice Academy", also known as Project Justice: Rival Schools 2 in Europe, Australia, and Latin America) is a 3D competitive fighting game produced by Capcom. It is the sequel to Rival Schools: United By Fate and was first released as an arcade game in 2000 and ported to the Dreamcast during the following year.
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Project Justice's fighting system is lifted from the original Rival Schools, with some notable changes. The game continues to be a team fighter, but has teams of three characters instead of two. This allows another Team-Up attack to be used in a fight, but also adds a new type of attack, the Party-Up, initiated by pressing any three attack buttons. The Party-Up is a three-person attack that varies based on what school the character initiating the attack is from.
The additional partner also allows players to cancel an opponent's Team-Up Special by inputting a Team-Up command of their own. This initiates a short fighting sequence between one character from each team. If the person initiating the sequence gets the first successful hit in during the sequence before time runs out, the Team-Up they are caught in will be canceled, and the game switches back to the main fight; if the opposing player gets the first hit or time runs out, the Team-Up continues as usual.
Additionally, the 'vigor' meter in Project Justice is limited to 5 levels (down from 9 in Rival Schools), with Party-Ups requiring all 5 levels, Team-Ups continuing to cost two levels, and any attempts (successful or not) to cancel a Team-Up costing one level.
Also carrying over from the first game, the Dreamcast port of Project Justice in Japan includes a character creation mode that allows a player to create their own fighters who can be used in all modes except for single-player. However, the character creation in Project Justice is packaged as a board game, taking place during an inter-school festival, rather than a date sim game like in Rival Schools. As with School Life Mode in the original Rival Schools, though, this boardgame is not included in non-Japanese ports of Project Justice due to the amount of time it would take to translate the mode. Instead, several unlockable sub-characters were included in these ports, built from the character creation parts in the Japanese version.
As in the original game, the combat in Project Justice is very tongue-in-cheek. Many of the characters use their chosen field of academic or sporting excellence as a fighting style (e.g. Soccer by Roberto, Swimming by Nagare, Music by Yurika, Physiotherapy by Kyoko, and so on) and as a result, special moves - in particular the Two-Person team up moves - tend to have a surreal edge, with methods to injure your opponent ranging from: forcing them to take part in an impromptu bout of synchronised swimming (on dry land) (if Nagare is in your team); confusing them by taking photographs of them in rapid succession during an interview for the school newspaper (if Ran is in your team), or even berating them so severely that they fall unconscious out of shame.
Project Justice's single player mode was structured differently from its predecessor. While Rival Schools only plays a story if characters from the same school were selected, the game instead has separate Story and Free modes.
One year has passed since the events of Rival Schools: United By Fate and that things have gone back to normal in Aoharu City. Batsu Ichimonji, Hinata Wakaba, Kyosuke Kagami, and the rest of the fighters had resumed their normal school lives and that all of them had enjoyed the calm peace that came after their last adventure, but the peace itself doesn't last for long and that the fighters would soon find themselves getting involved in a new struggle.
Kurow Kirishima: a cold-hearted and ruthless ninja assassin from a mysterious group known only as the "Reverse Society" has his sight set on the Imawano family and plans to eliminate them and their allies so that he can prepare for the advancement of his own ambition to rule Japan. To this end, he attacks Raizo Imawano: the principal of Justice High and father to Batsu, so that he can easily put him out of commission and not have any interference come from him. Secondly, he sends both his older sister Yurika Kirishima and his loyal subordinate Momo Karuizawa into the ranks of the fighters so that the two of them can cause tension and distrust to occur between the friends. His third plot involves brainwashing Gedo gang leader Daigo Kazama so that he can order him into forcing his gang to attack various schools in order to cause even more tension to occur. Lastly, Kurow himself plans to destroy Batsu's reputation by disguising himself as Batsu's doppelganger (named Vatsu) so that he can attack the fighters and make them believe that Batsu is behind it.
Batsu and his friends must fight back against the evil plot of Kurow and attempt to not let their friendship get destroyed by the conspiracy of a deadly ninja assassin.
Their school motto is "a liberated school tradition yields carefree students". While it is an albeit typical Japanese high school, Taiyo's rules follow tradition with relaxed emphasis, allowing a better atmosphere, and allows student individuality.
Their school motto is "a healthy mind, a strong body, and Olympian training". They are a sports based school, training students not only in academics, but with an emphasis on athletics. A majority of the students that go there usually are picked for national championships and teams.
Once an all males school that emphasized on studies and martial arts to better the students that enrolled there. Over time, it has become more of a juvenile delinquent "correctional" center, attracting young gangsters and misfits from all over Japan.
An American based high school whose motto is "circulate elite education through the world using culture and sports". There are many youth of upper class Americans, celebrities, ambassadors, and politicians that come to study abroad there.
An all girls boarding school whose motto is "raise women who display feminine virtues and the time-honored traditions of Japan within themselves". While they teach tradition along with general education, and attract many well behaved students, some of their regulations are considered overtly strict by today's standards.
Their school motto is "a sound mind and body build excellent abilities". Considered one of the most elite in Japan, Justice High is a rigid boarding school with a no nonsense policy, the faculty determining student's courses, demanding an orderly lifestyle and not allowing students to return home until graduation.