The fans have spoken, and Japan’s Kenka Bancho 3 is getting “a badass name for a badass game” when it comes stateside courtesy of Atlus as Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble.
Can I say that I called it? Well, at least half of it. Last week Atlus announced that they would be publishing Spike’s Kenka Bancho 3, an over-the-top beat-em-up for the PSP reminiscent of Clover’s God Hand in its sheer ridiculousness. Kenka Bancho 3 that puts players in the shoes of the meanest and leanest Japanese high schooler around. There are Hitler mustaches and eyebeams involved.
What better name for such a game than Badass Rumble, which was one of the nominees for gamers to choose from in an Atlus election for the game’s localized moniker? It’s definitely what I voted for. Well, Badass Rumble didn’t win, but it didn’t lose, either. Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble will be the name of the game, a title sure to please both hardcore Japanophiles by preserving the native tongue and fans of the use of the words “badass” and “rumble” in conjunction (that’d be me) alike.
“The title was voted in by a 3-to-1 margin, which means that fans strongly felt it was the best fit for the game, or, that they all giggled uncontrollably at the sight of the word ‘badass’,” Atlus PR man Aram Jabbari said. “Either way, everybody wins, except of course for the titles not chosen.”
Jabbari feels that “Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble” is the perfect title for a game in which you prove your mettle by “burying your fists and feet into the faces and/or guts of your foes,” and I have to agree. Atlus is calling it “a badass name for a badass game.” The only thing that would have been more badass is if they had kept the original title, Awesome Master of Badass Beating-Up-People Guys.
Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble‘s due in early 2010.
