Slap Happy Rhythm Busters PS1 Review

The PlayStation during the mid 90s and early 2000s became home to a multitude of experimental titles and one of the genres that dominated and exploited those elements was with the fighting genre. 

You had loads of different titles from the likes of the early Tekken games to Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters among many other popular games on the system but they were also quite a number of quirky and fun titles that kind of flew under the radar especially later on, on the PlayStation's library of games. 

One of these games that I thought I'd share with you that I found only recently is a game by the name of Slap Happy Rhythm Busters, now that sounds like a mouthful but it is a very unique and simplistic style fighting game that was released for the PlayStation in 2000 and was developed by polygon magic. 

This company would also be known for the developing the survival horror game Galerians that also appeared on the PlayStation in 1999 and Slap Happy Rhythm Busters is a unique fighting game but where it primarily draws its inspiration from, a lot of people usually compare it to the likes of Jet Set Radio that appeared on the Sega Dreamcast around the same time and it was considered to be a very influential game for its time period. 

So with Slap Happy Rhythm Busters it takes a very unique and inspired look into the graphics that uses cell shaded graphics that was also seen in Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast that creates a very unique comic book and cartoony style for its visuals and it was one of the very few games to utilize this graphical style. 

There were only a handful of games that utilize these type of graphics mainly with the likes of the Fear Effect series and even The Simpsons Wrestling. 

While this game does appeal to many and it does play very like a lot of other arcade style fighting games, it is very simplistic and it's more easier to pick up and play compared to other fighters on the system but where it really stands out it's down to it's quirky and unique nature of the game with the colorful graphics and very unique and robust lineup of characters. 

But the game also has a very cool arcade style soundtrack with a lot of dance type tunes that was very reminiscent of its time back in the early 2000s. 

This game really appealed to that nature of games back then which is pretty cool. So you have a variety of different characters to choose from all with their own unique abilities and move sets and they all have their own kind of like story arc as you're going through the game so as you progress you will unlock additional features and costumes and the like. 

The game is just a lot of fun to play and with the addition of moves you've also got the addition of a beat kind generator so you can go in to do special moves and you have to press buttons at a specific period on the control pad to initiate a combo or a move set that can do a lot of damage to your opponents. 

It kind of has like almost like a DJ kind of mixed beat style element as well so the moves depend on the button presses which also adds a different element to fighting games at that time It's just generally a really fun game to play, I only experienced this recently and I found it through another YouTuber and content creator by the name of Sean Seanson who was raving about this game and he recommended that people have to play it so I went and I decided to try it out and I'm glad that I did because he was right in every word that he said. 

This is a really fun game and it's for me definitely one of the best and easy to pick up and play fighters that I've ever played on the PlayStation. I just love the graphics and the visual style, it really suits it but the gameplay is very fast paced. 

It's easy to pick up get into, it's not overly difficult to pull off moves and combos and you'll get familiar with the game's aesthetics very very quickly. 

Although there's different characters that are easier to use than others, some were slower while others are faster but you can pick and choose and work your way through the roster of characters until you find one that you like and then just go from there. 

The game does also offer up a load of unique modes and multiplayer features as well that you can have a lot of fun with your mates. 

This is one of those games that's even looking back now I didn't play it back in the day but had I done it I think that this game would have really stood out and you would have had a blast with your mates back then and it's just there's so many quirky elements to it and it's just so fast-paced that it would have appealed to a lot of gamers back then. 

And even now if you go back to look at it now it is a game that I genuinely believe that is worth looking into for sure and I also recommend that people go and check it out as it is a worthwhile addition to the fighter lineup on the PlayStation and I also consider it to be among some of the best-hidden gems that I found so far from trying to re-explore a lot of these older type games. 

If you go to play it you'll see for yourself so I highly recommend it and I would love to know your thoughts on Slap Happy Rhythm Busters for the PlayStation if you have played it yourself and if so what do you think of it be sure to share them in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Slap Happy Rhythm Busters, you can check out the blog where we will be diving into the iconic elements of these classic video games and as always keep those gaming memories alive...