Shaman King: Spirit of Shamans is a game developed by Dimps and published by Bandai, released on June 6, 2002. It is one of the last PlayStation games released at the time.
Gameplay
Spirit of Shamans is a fighting game that involves the usual fixed-floor 2D-plane combat between two characters.
The game serves as a precursor to both the games, Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale and Shaman King: Funbari Spirits (both are also developed by Dimps):
- In the former case, Spirit of Shamans has a button for a weak attack, strong attack, damaging-deflect (that can block almost any attack possible), special move, forward dashing and backward dashing. Characters perform automated attack strings by pressing either weak attack button or strong attack button in a specific order unique to each character, and Super Moves can be performed via using two joystick motions akin to more traditional fighting games and ending it with the Special Move button (e.g. down, forward, square).
- Each character has around 2 special moves minimum, and one Super Move minimum.
- In the latter case, HP is divided uniquely into two segments unlike in other fighting games: an SMP bar up above, and an OSP bar below along with a GP gauge at the very bottom. Damage inflicted is done primarily to the OSP bar, which in turn when emptied inflicts direct damage to the SMP bar; upon this happening, the victim's OSP bar refills to their default max amount and the process must be repeated to fully-lower the SMP bar to end around.
- The GP bar, on the other hand, increases the damage inflicted to the SMP bar the higher it is whenever a character's OSP is completely emptied.
- The Spirit Explosion technique done with forward + deflect button can be performed where at the cost of some of the user's SMP, they can increase both their OSP and GP bar at once.
- If on low HP, Super Moves can be performed for free as Desperation Attacks.
- The GP bar, on the other hand, increases the damage inflicted to the SMP bar the higher it is whenever a character's OSP is completely emptied.
Another unique mechanic is the ability to increase the Spirit Percentage bar on the bottom corners of the screen for each respective character. A prompt from the said spirit/shaman will pop up that proclaims them to press a certain button within a brief time period. Doing so will increase the Spirit Percentage by a certain amount, and when full, can allow for 2 things:
- The ability to have special moves and/or supers inflict bonus damage along with a chance for cut-in cinematic.
- The ability to use a Super Move at the cost of a certain amount of percentage, causing the percentage to need to be filled up once more.
- Getting hit and/or waiting for a certain amount of time at 100% will cause the percentage to lower over time.
Playable Characters
- Asakura Yoh (possesses three forms which all share the same moveset:)
- Hyōi Gattai form
- Over Soul
- Over Soul V.2
- Tao Ren
- Wooden sword Ryu
- Usui Horokeu
- Johann Faust VIII (Eliza Faust fights in his place)
- Chocolove McDonell
- Lyserg Diethel
- Silva
- Marco Lasso (Michael fights in his place)
- Iron Maiden Jeanne (Shamash fights in her place)
- Tamamura Tamao (Ponchi and Conchi fight in her place)
- Kyōyama Anna
- Asakura Yohmei
- Oyamada Manta (Hidden character)
- Asakura Hao (Spirit of Fire fights in his place and is normally played through a glitch or through hacking, as he is a boss character)
Trivia
- Yoh's Gokoujin in this game is performed uniquely as a single-bladed attack, as well as Dai Gokoujin being a stronger version of it that can be done in all three of his forms outside of his Spirit of Sword O.S. (Hyoui Gattai, Over Soul V.1 and Over Soul V.2).
- Yoh's Over Soul V.2 form shares the same leitmotif as Hao.
- Ren in his normal form however, depending on the story-mode stage and if the difficulty is set to maximum, also has a different leitmotif which is a slight remix of his normal one.
- Despite not possibly being taught the Eijuuken style by Shamon, Pryon is able to use his master's Soujuuken technique in this game.
- Marco possesses the least amount of moves in the game, with only one special move and one super move.
- Horohoro has the most amount of Super Moves in the game, up to 3.
- Both Silva and Yohmei are the only characters with unique air actions; the former is able to briefly levitate in the air, while the latter can double jump.