Where angels go to die.
"The earthquake that struck the city at 7:13 A.M. on February 10, 2000, measured 7 on the richter scale.
The veneer of peace that had been maintained in the city's streets by total information control suddenly vanished, and the computer-controlled concrete jungle stopped functioning.
A major shift in the Earth's crust had severed the city from its surrounding landform, leaving it an island with virtually no outside contact. Money-crazed inhabitants soon lashed out for the city's remaining but useless vestiges of power, preaching salvation while hiding their wicked motives.
Sex, crime and drugs ruled the streets, as the city began to decay. Ironically, they called the wretched remains of their city "Eden- the last paradise."
It is now a decade later. The year is 2010."
Daraku Tenshi: The Fallen Angels is a 1998 2D Fighting Game developed by The Steel Hearts development team and published by Psikyo. It is their second attempt in the 2D versus fighting genre after Battle K-Road.
This game is known for mainly two things. One, that it was developed by ex- SNK designers. And two, for being incomplete when it was released despite some pretty ambitious plans for the time. Notably, the presence of four character sprites that never got fleshed out as full parts of the roster.
Rumor has it that the devs went back to SNK after the game's rushed release. This is supported by how many of the characters (both finished and unfinished) have striking resemblances to fighters that later appeared in The King of Fighters series and Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
Yatagarasu, also made by the same development team, is seen as a Spiritual Successor.
To get more info about this game, you can see the article
in The Other Wiki, as well in its own wiki. Also, these archived pages with info and galleries (in Japanese and English) thanks to Wayback Machine.
In 2019, it was reported that Zerodiv will attempt to finish the game after two decades.
Daraku Tenshi provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Due to the game's unfinished nature, a lot of the backstory has been culled from supplemental material and storyboards released online years after the game.
- After the End/Apocalypse Anarchy: The main plot of Daraku Tenshi.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: For SNK's Garou: Mark of the Wolves and Atlus's Groove on Fight.
- Anti-Hero: Cool, being closer to a '90s Anti-Hero.
- A Winner Is You: There's no endings for any of the characters. Chalk that up to it being unfinished.
- The Bartender: Yuiran, who also manages the bar along with Yuiren.
- Big Bad: Carlos, the man behind many of the events of the game.
- Boxing Battler: Haiji Mibu. Years after Haiji escaped from Carlos he resurfaced as a reckless bouncer.
- The Cameo: Apart of this game, the only appearance of characters from this game was in the Psikyo/Capcom Mahjong crossover Taisen Net Gimmick: Capcom vs. Psikyo All Stars. Also some of them appeared with other Psikyo characters in company's artworks.
- Charge-Input Special: Cool's special and super moves are this, and he happens to be a rare case of a charge based fighting game protagonist.note
- There's also Yuiran, who happens to be a charge-based grappler.
- The Cracker: Carlos. He managed Harry's files on FBI and sent it to Eden.
- Creepy Child: Ruccio Roche. Apart of his look, he's also an assassin and a hired killer. With just 16 years old.
- Cyberpunk: In the same vein as AKIRA, in which lacks many of the clichés of the genre, but plants itself firmly in this.
- Dystopia: Likewise, one of the few dystopic fighting games that play this straight.
- Deconstructive Parody: If Ryu evokes the fantasy of a noble martial artist Walking the Earth to seek stronger opponents to hone his skills, Torao shows that such a person in real life would more likely be a filthy vagrant obsessed with martial arts to the detriment of their own well-being.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Japanese and English names of the same game, respectively. Usually the game is known as one of these 2 names instead using the 2 at the same time.
- The Foreign Subtitle: As explained above, this is more a case of You Are the Translated Foreign Word.
- Dining in the Buff: One of the four unfinished characters found on the ROM is a naked man named Jimmy with no genitalia that looks like a clone of the Final Boss Carlos. One artwork found in the game depicts him drinking a glass of wine... also naked.
- The Dragon: Trigger, Carlos' henchman.
- Expy/Shout-Out
- The main story of the game, mostly the Cyberpunk-theme and Closed Circle aspect, is based on AKIRA as mentioned above.
- Haiji Mibu's moveset and outfit (white hair and pants) could resemble Yashiro Nanakase.
- Taro seems to be a hillbilly Frankenstein, green skin and sewered parts of his body included.
- Carlos is like a Geese Howard in a Blade Runner-like world. Also, his special attack with his katana seems similar to Hajime Saito's Gatotsu.
- Trigger looks like Vash the Stampede going mad. Not to mention he has Ryuji Yamazaki's voice.
- One of the discarded characters, Snake, is a cunning looking character dressed in a suit and wears bondage pants very reminisce of Iori Yagami.
- Fighting Game: One of the two titles Psikyo made as this, being the second one after Battle K-Road.
- Genius Bruiser: Carlos isn't just a skilled swordsman, he's also a genius level hacker and dabbles in genetic experiments. His mingling in the latter resulting in Taro, Haiji, and the unused character Jimmy.
- Gentle Giant: Taro. Despite his bizarre appearance he is actually very friendly and loves animals.
- Guns Akimbo: Trigger.
- Half-Identical Twins: Yuiran and Yuiren. Also, they're Polar Opposite Twins.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Cool and Haiji.
- Hobo: Torao, a karateka example.
- Humanoid Abomination: Taro, another of Carlos' experiments.
- In the Hood: Ruccio Roche.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: Carlos, as the crime lord he is.
- Married to the Job: Harry Ness has a daughter but he and his wife are seperated as a result of him always working.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Yuiran and Yuiren, respectively.
- Meaningful Name
- Cool, his name isn't there for anything, especially being The Protagonist.
- Trigger, who uses guns as part of his attacks.
- Mighty Glacier: Taro, closer to a Stone Wall.
- Moveset Clone: Cool plays with charging commands and his moves are very similar to Guile, Charlie and Remy.
- Only One Name: All characters in the game are known with just one name (or at least it seems), with the exceptions of Harry Ness, Torao Onigawara and Ruccio Roche.
- Old Master: Torao Onigawara, a Retired Badass who also was Harry's master.
- One-Hit Kill: Trigger's Limit Break is a shoot from one of his guns. As could be in Real Life, if you got the bullet, you're dead.
- The Pig-Pen: Torao Onigawara. To say it all, probably
he isn't dark-skinned by birth. And we didn't mention the flies around him, of course. - The Protagonist: Cool, but also Haiji is seen as one. Given the art seen in the credits of him being the one taking Carlos and Trigger down and his more personal connection to the former, Haiji might have been the planned protagonist all along.
- Real Is Brown: The game employs a uniquely desaturated, washed-out aesthetic to reflect the dystopian atmosphere.
- Scenery Porn: Not just the stages, all in the game is beautifully drawn and plenty of details, like Cool's feathers and Torao's flies, to name some.
- Shotoclone: Cool, has some similarities, but the move commands are quite different compared to Ryu and Ken's. Also Torao for the Karate outfit and moves, which are more similar to Sakazaki's school.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: The twins Yuiran and Yuiren, also doubling with Red Oni, Blue Oni respectively.
- The Smurfette Principle: Yuiran, even when she's a Tomboy. In part subverted by Lapis, the only girl from the four cancelled characters, which could be the second girl on the roster.
- SNK Boss: Both Trigger and Carlos qualify. Especially since both use weapons in hand-to-hand fights (Trigger got guns and Carlos a katana).
- Some Dexterity Required: The game is more focused to hand-to-hand fights than in specials and supers unlike other fighting games. But also, various commands are hard to perform, especially about super moves.
- Spiritual Successor: Being made by the same group of creators, Yatagarasu is this to Daraku Tenshi. And in part, also The King of Fighters '99 since the creators from this game went to SNK and put their designs on the NESTS Saga.
- The Stoic: Roche.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Yuiran.
- Take That!: Torao is probably one to the "homeless, wandering martial artist" character archetype in fighting games set by Ryu and his various expies by showing how filthy and unglamorous such a lifestyle would actually be.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Yuiren. If it wasn't for the story and cutscenes, we'd never figure it out he wasn't a woman at all. Also Yuiran, which is the opposite.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Harry Ness and Yuiran, the grapplers of the game.
- Wretched Hive: Eden, the city where the events of the game occurs, which also has an Ironic Name.
