Better fighting through chemistry.
Asuka 120% is a series of fighting games, originally developed by the now-defunct group Fill-In-Café (with the series' final entries being developed by Success Corporation).The setting is the prestigious all-girls' school Ryouran Academy (often shortened to "Ranjo"). Every year, during the school's culture festival, a fighting tournament is held, with representatives from each of the school's clubs duking it out to determine what the school's priorities for club funding will be for the next year. Naturally, the more athletically-inclined clubs tend to place higher than the culturally-inclined ones, with the Chemistry Club in particular suffering from a humiliating string of losses in the tournament prelims...
Enter one Asuka Honda, scouted in middle school by the current Chemistry Club president and subjected to a year's worth of Training from Hell in order to be the Chemistry Club's secret weapon. Making it past the prelims, Asuka enters into the final tournament, where she and a host of girls all vying to improve their club's standings will face off.
...And that's about it for the story. Although a multitude of games have been released in the series, they are all retellings of the exact same story, with the major differences being in just how each character's version of it is told.
The official games in the series are, in chronological order:
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. (FM Towns, 1994)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. (Sharp X68000, 1994)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Excellent (FM Towns, 1994)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Excellent (PlayStation, 1997; this version was later made available on the PlayStation 3 via the Play Station Network)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Maxima (PC Engine, 1995)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Special (PlayStation, 1996)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Special Ver. 2 (PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network Game Archives, 2010)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Limited (Sega Saturn, 1997)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Final (PlayStation, 1999; later made available on the PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network)
- Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. Return (PC, 1999)
There also exists a single unofficial entry in the series, Asuka 120% Burning Fest LimitOver, an upgraded version of Limited which was released by former Fill-In-Café employees shortly after the company's dissolution in 1998. The former developers of Asuka 120%, Masatoshi Imaizumi and former Treasure employee Masaki Ukyo, are working at Release Universal Network and went on to develop Phantom Breaker, a Creator-Driven Successor to this series.
A character sheet is currently under construction.
These games provide examples of:
- Action Girl: The entire cast, on account of the setting.
- Aerith and Bob: All of the girls' names are Japanese with the exception of Cathy, a foreigner among the cast.
- Batter Up!: As expected of the Softball Club's representative, Kiyoko brandishes a metal bat during one of her special attacks.
- Berserk Button: Do NOT call Kiyoko "Otearai".note
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Ryuuko's.
- Blood Knight: Torami of the Karate Club is a martial arts fanatic who strives To Be a Master. Uninvited party-crasher Shinobu just really likes to fight.
- Capcom Sequel Stagnation: Nearly every single game up until Limited was built upon the same engine, while all of them are retellings of the story of the exact same tournament, just with new characters added in and scenarios for each iteration.
- Climax Boss: Tamaki, as the previous year's champion, fills this role.
- Clothing Combat: Kumi can use her ribbon as a whip.
- Combos: Attacks can be chained together and followed up with specials.
- The Cutie: Megumi, the Cheerleading Club representative.
- Dark Horse Victory: This is the Chem Club's ultimate goal. Indeed, Asuka is referred to in-series as the tournament's dark horse.
- Dance Battler: Kumi's fighting style has elements of this, while Nana incorporates her club's Japanese traditional dance into exactly one move in her entire movelist.
- Fixed-Floor Fighting: You only have a single plane of movement as with other fighting games.
- Gorgeous Gaijin: The American Cathy Wild is bar none the single most stacked girl in the game.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: A good majority of the characters make use of one, pulling out various weaponry and tools related to their club activities for special attacks.
- I Know Madden Kombat: Forms the basis of Ryuuko's (Volleyball), Kiyoko's (Softball), Kumiko's (Rhythmic Gymnastics), and Tamaki's (Tennis) fighting styles.
- Incendiary Exponent: Karina trained her pet frog to do this... Somehow.
- Improbable Weapon User: All over the place due to the abundance of Martial Arts and Crafts and Madden Kombat.
- Improbably Female Cast: In the original game, there were no guys to speak of. In the later releases, you can see some guys in the background in some stages.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Torami. Visibly androgynous in both official art and her in-game sprites, she also sometimes gets mistaken for a boy.
- Magic Skirt: Averted in some of the early installments such as Megami's panties being visible during some aerial attacks, but played straight in the later installments where some of the girls' skirts try to avoid upskirts.
- Martial Arts and Crafts: Most of the girls who don't fall under I Know Madden Kombat end up with this.
- Mirror Match: Only in Vs. Mode.
- No Plot? No Problem!: Asuka 120% BURNING Fest. LimitOver outright removes the Story Mode from Limited and replaces it with a Deathmatch Mode.
- Ojou: Tamaki, though she has none of the haughtiness generally associated with the trope.
- Older Than They Look: Megumi is a second year student... Who is repeatedly mistaken for a first year (or younger) due to her short stature and youthful looks.
- Phenotype Stereotype: Cathy Wild is a blonde haired and blue-eyed American.
- Puppet Fighter / The Beastmaster: Karina fights alongside her pet frog, who executes the majority of her special attacks for her.
- Recovery Attack: In some of the later entries of the series, you can recover out of a fall and attack your opponent.
- The Rival: Karina claims herself to be Asuka's, though Asuka's too good-natured/naive to see her as anything but a friend.
- Rocket Punch: Megumi uses her pom-poms like this.
- Serious Business: Club funding is a source of Real Life Serious Business in Japanese high schools, but it's cranked up here.
- Secret Character: Shinobu was the first. Limited added Tetsuko (the Chem Club president) and Gen'ichirou (the headmaster, Tamaki's father, and The One Guy), while Final brought in Ichiko (the Combat Commentator).
- Shotoclone: Asuka is close to, but not quite this trope, as she lacks a rushdown move. Instead, this trope applies to Shinobu, who is a rather blatant expy of the Trope Makers.
- Stat Meters:
- Break Meter: An additional "Down Gauge" was added for Final. When it empties, the character is given a "Down" and the opponent is awarded a point. In the case of a time over, victory is awarded not to which character has the most health remaining, but to who has the most points.
- Life Meter: A typical life meter.
- Mana Meter: A "Burning Meter" was adopted for Excellent and has stuck around ever since. When full, it allows for the one-time use of a Super Move. However, if the character keeps it full and continues to attack and/or take damage, it will power up to 120% and enable the use of Burning Mode, which increases the character's attack power and allows for unlimited use of supers for a short period.
- Superboss: Shinobu generally appears to challenge players who make a no-continue run on Difficulty 2 or higher.
- Three Round Deathmatch: Though in-game options allow the player to avert this.
- Taunt Button: This feature was added in LimitOver where players can taunt their opponents with a button press.
- Thong of Shielding: Cathy wears one.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: This is Asuka's whole shtick, utilizing burning test tubes and exploding beakers full of (presumably) volatile chemicals.
- Token Mini-Moe: Megumi, who's one of the youngest-looking characters of the series despite being a second-year student.
- Updated Re-release: Final is one to Limited, with vastly differently gameplay mechanics and adds Ichiko as a playable character. Return on the PC adds a few other tweaks to Final.
- Victory Pose: The characters will perform one after winning a round. Some of the poses include Asuka winking while holding out some vials of chemicals, to Shinobu looking back at the loser.
- Victory Quote: The character will say one after a match.
- World of Action Girls: The main cast are high-school girls who uses tricks of their club's trade to kick ass.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Aside from Cathy, whose propensity for these goes along with her being the Pro Wrestling Club's representative, Ryuuko's command throw sees her subject the opponent to a gravity-assisted backbreaker. Ouch.
