Among the doujin games my friend sent me from Winter Comiket, this game has the honor of first being played. Putting my fanboyism aside, I’m intrigued to see another fighting game that features Suzumiya Haruhi. It turns out Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekitou is just a more developed version of Suzumiya Haruhi no Chourantou! It’s a good thing that my friend gave this one free to me or else I would’ve felt completely ripped-off!

I have reviewed Chourantou before so I don’t need to restate my overall feelings about the game, since it has completely same system as Chourantou! But of course there are several new things that at least keeps me entertained (for a short time).

• New story
• New characters (Konata and Akira from Lucky Star)
• Character Customization mode
• Mission mode
• Fully voiced!

The new story is a bit amusing to me. It basically tells about Konata and Akira got stranded in Haruhi’s world thanks to Haruhi’s wish. Konata and Akira are fun to use and they’re also balanced considering they’re special characters. Konata is specialized for both long and short range attack (her weapon is her chocolate cornet). Her skills consist of shooting energy ball towards her opponent, a deadly tackle, and a dive kick from air. Her second form turned her into some kind of Mahou Shoujo. However I find her special is a bit hard to use since it’s a linear attack and can be easily dodged. Akira is more of a short-ranged attacker. She uses her sleeves as her weapon (swinging them like claws) and her skill is very useful since it can stun all the enemies nearby. She transforms into Ayu from Kanon as her second form. Her special is also deadlier than Konata and also has wide area effect. I have no problem with bringing Konata and Akira as new characters, but IMO a game that features LS characters won’t be complete if it doesn’t feature Shiraishi Minoru (although his face appears on the gong Akira brings).

The character customization mode allows you to customize your character appearance. You can add several accessories but sadly they won’t affect your battle performance. You can unlock more accessories by completing the mission mode.

And the thing that matters me the most is the fact that it’s fully voiced! However, since it’s just a doujin game don’t expect them to use the real seiyuus here. In fact, some of them sound so different that it makes my ears bleed every time they speak. Haruhi sounds awful, Kyon sounds like he’s spending half of his life smoking, Konata doesn’t sound like Konata at all, Tsuruya sounds… plain, and Kyon’s Imouto makes me wish this game is not voiced at all! The rest are at least passable or not just appealing at all.

Those are all what Gekitou offers to us. I can’t recommend playing this game if you already have Chourantou since it’s not really new when it comes to gameplay, but if you haven’t played Chourantou then Gekitou is a nice and entertaining game. But if you really insist on playing it then let those new features be your consideration.