Outlaws Of The Lost Dynasty

Outlaws Of The Lost Dynasty, known in Japan as Suiko Enbu (水滸演武), is a 1995 fighting arcade game developed and published by Data East.

Story
For generations, people have believed in the Chinese myth known as the Dark Legend. It occurs sometime in the 11th or 12th century when China plunges into a state of total anarchy, when power-hungry warlords rebel against the central government. To regain control over his empire, the emperor devises a cunning plan. He prepares for the ultimate conquest for his most ambitious rivals, a challenge that no warlord is able to resist as the rewards are unimaginable. The victor will be endowed with incredible abilities and possess ultimate power, not to mention unlimited wealth. The triumph is absolute as defeat means death. Thousands of fearless warriors battle among themselves with special fighting abilities.

Gameplay
The game has eleven playable characters and many locations around China to choose from. Each character fights with his/her own unique weapon while some are unarmed. If the weapon is used to block attacks too often, the character will only be able to fight with his/her bare hands and lose the weapon for the rest of the round. Fighting moves are classified under low, medium and hard in terms of attack power, in order of increasing amount of damage dealt to an opponent. Each character also has his/her own special attack to use against the opponent.

Characters
The game takes place in Liangshan Marsh, where 12 of the strongest outlaws out of 108 gather to test their battle skills against each other while the Gods of War watch from above. The characters are inspired by the 108 outlaws from the Chinese classical novel Water Margin by Shi Naian.

Ports


In 1996, Data East ported Outlaws Of The Lost Dynasty to Sega Saturn and PlayStation, retitled as Dark Legend while the Japanese title remains unchanged. These ports includes both the Original Mode which it plays just like at the Arcade and the Special Mode, which adds extra moves and also a beginner mode if you press L or R at the same time. It's a update from the Japanese Version and it was translated for the American audience, but most of the Japanese text remained. Some of the options has been removed as well as the option demo play. Unlike the Japanese version, you cannot select between Arcade More or Special Mode, instead it defaults to Special Mode.

A Japan-exclusive semi-sequel titled Suiko Enbu: Fuunsaiki (水滸演武 風雲再起) was later released only for the Sega Saturn, which featured several new and updated features, plus two special guest characters, which are both from the Fighter's History series, also by Data East: Makoto Mizoguchi and Yon Miy.

Around 2009, G-Mode has ported the PlayStation version of Outlaws Of The Lost Dynasty over to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, but only over in Japan. It has yet to be released to the rest of the world.