Its hard to believe that its been 25 years since Project Justice was released on Sega Dreamcast back in 2000. Project Justice is the sequel to the critically acclaimed fighting game known as Rival Schools: United By Fate from 1997. Project Justice was quite possibly one of Capcom’s most underrated fighting games ever since it never got the type of recognition that it deserved. Project Justice was a 3D fighting game that included team-based battles similar to that of the KOF series which became popular during the mid to late 90’s. The Dreamcast version of Project Justice was just as good as the arcade version of the game and had multiple modes that players could choose from. The Dreamcast port of Project Justice had multiple game modes including Story, Versus, Training and Free Mode. The Story mode allowed players to choose one of three characters including Batsu Ichmonji, Hinata Wakaba and Kyosuke Kagami. The cool thing about the Story mode in Project Justice was that the storyline would branch depending on what character you choose. The game allowed three vs three team-battles similar to the of SNK’s King of Fighters series.

However, when it came to gameplay partners could assist players or CPU controlled opponents during battles with special attacks similar to that of the Marvel vs Capcom series. The story of Project followed that of Rival Schools after Hyo Imawano was defeated and saw the rise of another foe named Kurow Kirishima. Kirishima ended up being the main antagonist of Project Justice and similar to Imawano he wanted to rule Japan. The character creation mode in Project Justice was also creative and innovative for one of Capcom’s less popular fighting titles at the time. Project Justice was a fighting game that had more depth than many believed it should have in terms of game modes but that what makes it special. If anything the storytelling, graphics and gameplay for Project Justice felt better than any main entry that we got in the Street Fighter series during the 90’s decade.

Despite, the Story mode in Project Justice not having any voice actors in between dialogues and cutscenes the setup was decent by early 2000’s standards. Even though, Project Justice was considered to be a commercial failure its still considered to be one of the few gems that Capcom had produced in relation to the arcade-fighting genre. One of the reason why Project Justice was flopped in sales was because the Sega Dreamcast was also a commercial failure. Also, when it came down to 3D fighting titles games like Marvel vs Cacpom 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament dominated the arcade centers because their mainstream appeal. In terms of gameplay Project Justice was ahead of its time because team-assists in 3D games did not become popular until the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series started in the late 2000’s.