I Play Battle Royale
the Battle Royale RPG keeps to the spirit of the first movie and has most of the items found as "weapons" in the students' survival packs.There aren't any of the combo assault rifles/grenade launchers from BRII, though. For those who don't know by now Battle Royale is about sending trouble high school students to an island to kill each other off, with a last man standing goal. That it was written by an actual high school student, Evil1 AKA Robbie Cousineau adds to the flavor of the game. Unfortunately there are a lot of spelling mistakes and the rules for character creation, skills and combat.The rules though simple, are not clearly expressed. These sorts of typos and errors found in other games are annoying, but they actually kind of add flavor to this game. Also, with a little work, the presentation could be improved and it doesn't keep the game down. So, no big deal. The weapons list follows pretty closely to the first movie as does the suggested dangers and plot set up. Character creation should allow you to play most of the original students. That by itself makes this game worth playing! Especially if you can get a cut of the video that the students are shown in the first movie to have your players watch before the game. I checked and Evil1 is fortunately wrong about the availability of the movies and manga: Battle Royale and the sequel BR II are both in fact available to rent or buy in the United States as is the manga series! However due to "Community Standards" laws these and other fine movies and products may be banned within your local area of the USA. Watch these movies before playing the game for a wonderful time re enacting your favorite blood baths. This game is also a great outlet for playing out violent revenge fantasies on your class mates. Just make your class the one kidnapped into the BR program.(Because, of course in real life violence is wrong.) Battle Royale RPG also provides opportunities to create back stories, plotlines, relationships and all the drama to be found in the world of Battle Royale.
don't worry
I didn't mean to pick on you or anything about spelling, etc. and I have made mistakes on facts myself. You've made some good games,including this one,please keep it up. I don't think I'm going to review your CBP it's been covered here, but I may well play "Cola Wars" for the next game of yours that I Play! if there is interest. It is just going to take me a while.
-John Lennon
I Play it! Do You?
I finished most of the review. Has any one else played the game, seen the movies or read the manga? What are your thoughts?
-John Lennon
Novel and movies ...
But not the manga, I'm afraid. BR is a much better movie than BRII, in my opinion. Leaving aside the fact that the Battle Royale Act is merely a McGuffin, BR the movie is one of those "world falls apart" movies that the Japanese do very well. The overall theme is similar to Lord of the Flies in that it shows what happens when the laws are removed (subtle difference in this case: the chaos is imposed by an outside force, but I believe my comparison is valid).
BRII is more of an action movie, with the two survivors from the previous movie being hunted down by other students. Not so good.
The novel goes into a lot of depth on the main characters and has a slightly different reason for the BR Program. I would recommend reading it.
As for the manga - never read it. However, I understand each volume is devoted to a different character and their reasons for participating.
If the game concentrates merely on the combat, the author is missing a lot of what goes on in the movie. Classroom Deathmatch takes this into account and is an interesting game to play at cons.
Evil1's game definitely includes more
I didn't now there was a novel version too, thank you for mentioning that. Battle Royale RPG definitely includes rules and room for more than just combat, the examples of the rules in action makes that point clear as Robbie shows the dice rolls for seduction and includes the downsides of being pretty.(you break hearts and you get stalked) I haven't played class room deathmatch, but I followed your link and looked at their play records for the game.(I wanted to see how others write those.) An interesting dynamic is shown in how you pick 1 friend who decides your successes and 1 enemy who decides your failures.
-John Lennon
Yeah
BR2 sucked. I "have" the manga on my computer and read through it. There are many differences from the movie and manga.
some are:
1. mitsuko takes her clothes off almost every chapter she is in
2. its alot more gory
3. the main hero actually does something than talk. He actually kicks ass.
4. the mangaka was pretty much a perv and many of the kids have sex. one of the characters is gay, and actually chases after the villian in an effort to rape him. he fails
5. much less realistic. at one point they fight with DBZ style energy blasts. but this is breif and only happens once.
As for the reveiw itself, I will read that now!
Sums it up
All I can say is:
1. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
2. Most manga have more gore than their equivalent in other media. In fact, a lot of US publishing houses used to use the gore to cover up the nudity. Never could figure that one out myself.
3. Talking in manga works fine for me. Mind you, I reckon Sanctuary is one of the better manga going.
4. I refer the honourable gentleman to answer no. 1.
5. Why?
Well
2. not just gory. i mean GORY. as in blood flys EVERYWHERE. half of every one of the manga is blood.
3. the hero starts with a gun i believe instead if the pot lid. i mean he takes action instead of just talk. even though he does talk alot which i fine.
5. One of the girls tells a boy of a trick they used to do to make pretend they threw around ki balls. the boy uses this to focus in his fight with the villain but the villain catches on and actually copies his focus so much that Sugi is seen having a blast of energy being shot out of him. Now that i think of it, i think later they show what actually hurt sugi. but the point still remains.
If your shy of adult material such as sex and nudity along with massive gore, then BR is better watched as a movie. But if you don't mind it all, go for the manga as well, its very well written and drawn
The Reveiw
I am fairly certain i noted that the manga series is availible in the U.S. as tokyopop pretty much sells anything good. (I live in a area with plenty of Borders stores. so if i had the money i could buy them all ^_^. as for the actual movie i saw it on a google-video link i found that had the entire version. And the "community standards" thing was what i meant. and i am sure i mention that the videos are not "banned" in america so much as stores refuse to carry something about kids killing other kids. (Wait, never mind! crap. John is right, the movie is not outlawed. I am fairly sure i knew this at the time of writing, i guess i messed up!)
As for the reveiw itself.
I was forced to write with text doc, so i had no way to spell check. And as everybody knows: people can't type perfectly ALL THE TIME; of course, your perfectly right how spelling errors subtract quality. You can expect me to spellcheck and go through my work before submitting it; but there are times where i can't.
The weaponry and character creation system are exactly for that: allowing people to be a BR student themselves and wish they didn't get up that morning.
I can definatly suggest this a game to play with a healthy-large group of people.
Thanks?