For me Rival Schools is like a lightining inside a bottle, a very rare videogame that had the specifi recipy of perfection along side the best ingredientes, the best people behind it and it came out in the best moment as well for both the arcade world as well as Capcom. A game that perfected everything learned by Street Fighter and Darkstalkers to give a jump to an extra dimesion. The game wasnt only 3D, but it had a 2 vs 2 fighting system as well as videogames, a character creator, a visual novel style story mode as well as multiple endings. Even the "Loading screes" were completelly unique since they shown artwork instead of a black screen.
While many games have kind of replicated that style of content (Soul Calibur and the characters creation, Blazblue and the novel visual, Tekkn and the Tag Tourament system) non has done all of this at the same time and certainly not even Capcom dared to inovate this much. Even Street Fighter story mode feel short compared to wath Rival Schools did back then because this game, this game felt not only HUGE but also completlely different to anything else in 1996.
But not happy with gameplay and inovation, Capcom also managed to create an amazing cast of characters that felt incrediblly easy to love. Non of the Rival Schools students felt plain or boring, each character was completlely original and unique, even when triying to be boring (Hideo) they manages to stand out and despite they weird and completelly cartooy character design, they also didnt felt out of place either, they felt natural and rigth in home inside of the game and inside the mythology of other Capcom games like Street Fighter and Drakstalkers. I mean, even Sakura from Street Fighter was present in the game and she belonged there naturally.
Edayan was the master artists behind all that. A novice artists at Capcom that manages to master the Capcom character style ( huge hands and feet, round face and noses, spiky hair...) and perfection it to the top. I mean, his cover for Street Fighter Alpa 3 is one of the best Capcom illustrations ever and most of the art we identify with Capcom is actually Edayan work. This man pretty much defined the Capcom of the 90s from a visual stand point.
Sadly, in XXI century, all the artists from Capcom like Kinu Nishimura, Edayan, Shinkiro, Bengus, etc...started to fade and Capcom started to use them less and less and less until dissapeare. Most of them dont work in Capcom anymore and the very few they are still there, like Edayan, are only limited to design armor for Montser Hunter. They art no public anymore helps to lose the identity Capcom had in the 90s but all pther game studios suffer of the same lack of artistic view and identity....
Its tragic deffinetly, but after 29 years of wait, Udon finally released the artbook dedicated to Rival Schools. After soo long i didnt expect this at all....it was a big shock for me and i had to own it but stupid Udon didnt shipped it to my country soo i needed a help of a proxy friend to be able to get it. It took months, but it was worth it.
The printing quality if the book is superv and not only it highligth the bios of the characters and theyr character design, but it showcase a huge amount of art not seen before, like unised characters or charaters present only in the japanese version of the game (since in America and Europe they deleted the story mode of the game), and yet....theres a fw artowork i seen that is not present in thei book, like the profile of each characters in the VS screen in Project Justice.
Seen Edayan magic in detail is insane....from his poses and how each of them reflects the character personality soo perfectly, to details like the different shoes or the size of theyr neck or theyr accesorys. The colored illustration show the characters outside school and interacting with each other and theyr famillys and the world of the game as well since theres even detailed info of how do each school looks. Its weird how Street Fighter being the main IP of Capcom only can dream of this kind of world development.
The amount of art here is soo intense Udon had to release a second books called Official Sketch Book, complete in black and white, this book have all the skecthed Edayan did for the main cast as well as for the secondary cast outside of the battles. Theres an ocean of sketches of every single character that once inked and painted, they could make an spectacular splash art of them or even build a full illustration. Edayan knew from the very sketching starting point how to infuse each drawing with lots of personality and its own unique magic.
As an extra theres a giant double sided poster that shows the cover of the book in all its glowy as well as the chaarcter profiles of the first game in the other side. Chamba did a great job doing a continuation of Edayan cover from the second game illustration.
There is also a set of cards with new illustrations and the bio of each character in the back as well as a Daigo metalic card. The metalic card is soo awesome!! But while the art of the cards is very well done and colored, it deffinetly lacks of the charm the Edayan illustrations had.
Udon did a great job making this book feel like smething special because it trully is!! This was Capcom at its best moment and as far as things goes, maybe we will never see this Capcom never again but thats OK, we got this little lightning in the bottle
I been thinking about write here about videogames. At first i didnt wanted to do it and focus on art but this is my space after all and is amepty like a crypt soo i can write about wathever ai want i guess soo maybe i post some other tough about very important videogames in my life, like this one. Rival Schools was trully a special moment in my life.
