Game Details
| Size | 171 MB |
| Region | Japan |
| Genre | Fighting |
| Format | 7z / BIN |
| Year | May 9, 1997 |
| Console | PSX |
Asuka 120% Excellent: Burning Fest. Excellent (1997) is a spectacular hidden gem in the PlayStation 1’s fighting game library. Developed by Fill-in-Cafe and published by Family Soft, this Japan-exclusive 2D fighter is part of the influential Asuka 120% franchise—a series widely credited with pioneering the “all-girl anime fighter” (or Bishoujo) genre.
While it sports a lighthearted, slice-of-life anime theme, don’t let the high school club uniforms fool you. Under the hood lies an incredibly deep, fast-paced, and fluid mechanical engine that matches the technical complexity of fighting giants like Guilty Gear or Street Fighter Alpha.
Story & Premise: The Mega Club Tournament
The game is set at the prestigious Ryoun High School, an all-girls academy where the school’s various extracurricular clubs compete aggressively for a larger slice of the annual school budget. To keep things orderly, the student council hosts the “Burning Fest”—a full-contact martial arts tournament where club representatives settle budget disputes with their fists.
The Roster: You control one of 11 playable high school girls, each fighting to secure funding for their beloved club. Their martial arts styles are hilariously themed around their respective activities:
- Asuka Honda (Chemistry Club): The series protagonist, who throws explosive, bubbling chemical flasks and plasma waves.
- Kumi Ookubo (Rhythmic Gymnastics Club): Uses highly agile ribbon attacks and rolling acrobatic flips to cross up opponents.
- Tamaki Shindou (Tennis Club): Rains down hyper-velocity tennis serves and uses her racket to reflect enemy projectiles.
- Torami Houjou (Karate Club): The traditional, hard-hitting shoto character who relies on raw defensive parries and flaming punches.
Key Gameplay Features
- The Revolutionary “Clash” System: The absolute mechanical signature of the Asuka 120% franchise. If two attacks collide at the exact same time, they don’t trade damage. Instead, they clash, completely neutralizing both hitboxes and allowing both players to instantly cancel their animations into another jump, dash, or special move. This creates breathtaking, rapid-fire parry sequences where projectiles and physical strikes can be deflected infinitely.
- Hyper-Aggressive Air Mobility: The game features incredibly loose, freeing movement mechanics. Characters can execute multi-directional double jumps, instant air-dashes, and swift ground slides to close distances or slip out of heavy corner pressure.
- The 120% Gauge: Your super meter charges rapidly as you attack, defend, or clash. Once it reaches 100%, you can execute devastating Super Moves. However, if you let it charge to a full 120%, your character enters a temporary “Max Mode” state, granting infinite super meter usage for a brief window until the gauge drains back to zero.
- Visual Novel Story Presentation: Between the chaotic matches, the single-player arcade mode plays out like a classic 90s visual novel, complete with beautifully drawn, high-end pixel art portraits, expressive dialogue screens, and lighthearted school-yard drama.
Short Review: A Masterclass in 90s 2D Fighting Design
The Good
- Incredible Mechanical Fluidity: Fill-in-Cafe crafted an absolute masterpiece of an engine. The input window for combos is incredibly forgiving, and the game runs at a rock-solid, fluid framerate that makes high-speed air-dashing feel marvelous.
- Phenomenal Chiptune Soundtrack: Features a brilliant, high-energy 90s synth-pop and rock soundtrack composed by Keishi Yonao, which perfectly matches the frantic pacing of the matches.
- The Ultimate Clash Mechanic: The clash system completely eliminates projectile-spamming camping tactics. If someone throws a fireball at you, you can simply strike it with a basic punch to cancel it out, keeping the gameplay aggressively engaging.
The Bad
- Import Barrier: Because the game was never officially localized outside of Japan, navigating the story mode and option menus requires a bit of trial-and-error or an English translation guide (though the core fighting gameplay is entirely universal).
- Slight Character Imbalance: While every character is incredibly fun to play, a few top-tier archetypes (like Tamaki with her massive tennis racket hitboxes) have noticeable frame data advantages over shorter-range club members.
Screenshots
