Beach Spikers
ビーチスパイカーズ (aka “Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball”)
Ladies and gentlemen, I got another video game to please the guys with these fine ladies in this beach volleyball video game (originally released for the Japanese arcades in 2001). Before there was Haikyuu!!, there is Beach Spikers! The game was developed in-house by Sega AM2 and published by Sega. A GameCube port, renamed Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball, was released in 2002 for all regions. I never owned the game myself, and I would try it, but unfortunately, Nintendo stopped supporting the Wii, so I have no other option but to sell it on eBay. The game on Substack we’re reviewing is rated “Everyone” on the ESRB (US and Canada, formerly Mexico) even though there are women in bikinis in the game (Substack is not a fanservice site!). Tatsutoshi Narita, Sachio Ogawa, Shinichi Goto, Fumio Ito, and Megumi Takano are the game’s composers, Hideki Tanaka is the game’s programmer, Hiroshi Masui is the game’s director, Yu Suzuki is the game’s producer, and the Serpentine font is often used throughout the game.
Based on the sport of beach volleyball, the game revolves around two-on-two matches where a volleyball is hit back and forth over a net until one side allows the ball to touch the ground. Similar to Sega’s Virtua sports games, most of the gameplay in Beach Spikers is based around the concept of “charging” the strength of moves, judged by how long the button is held prior to release at the point of which the move is executed. There is a button for setting (passing) and a button for rallying (sending the ball over the net) which, combined with how long the button is held to determine strength, is the basis for the way the entire game is played.
There are two modes to choose from: Arcade Mode and World Tour mode. Arcade mode is a basic progression through a series of AI opponents, and in the multiplayer portion of Arcade Mode, it is head-to-head matches for up to four human players. In World Tour mode, the player takes a user-created team through a tournament, earning points as they go that allow them to increase the stats of their players and unlock player customization items, including some based on other Sega titles like Fighting Vipers and Space Channel 5. The player has the option to customize their own characters or choose a team from a specific country, such as the United States, Jamaica, Italy, and France, to name a few.
It’s worth noting that the game’s official website, formerly located at http://www.beachspikers.jp/gc/ (Japan only), is no longer available and can only be accessed through the Wayback Machine.
