Game:

Beach Volley (1989)

Duration: 1:41:46

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Volley...ball! Again! For the last time!

A G-MODE recreation / reissue of old mobile phone games, this introduces "G-Mode Archives 36: Beach Volley Girl Shizuku 3: Sekai Taikai-hen". They've released quite a few reissues for the PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch and it's good to see them getting ported from old defunct hardware for posterity. Of course, most of them have not aged well and this is more for novelty than anything else, but it's a commendable project and I hope many more old mobile phone games can be salvaged such as the BREW service titles, J2ME releases and older Android / iOS titles. There are a few games I really WANT to play such as Climax's 2006 iteration of "Lady Stalker" ("Waltz of the Labyrinth", which has practically been forgotten) and many Western Java games on mobile, to name a few, but this is a good starting point. There have been projects for years now slowly integrating old mobile titles for use in emulators.

That said, while this is a great recreation of 2009's "Mobile & Game Studio" title, it's a functional and great sequel in a pretty nice series overall, with three other games (and a demo) that are related to each other. One title that will most likely NOT be covered is "Beach Volleyball Girl Shizuku Training Camp Edition" which was a free flash demo distributed for the "Pico Pico Mixi" (aka "pikomiku") between August to September of 2008. Said title essentially takes place somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd game as the two mains are doing intensive training. When you look back at games like these, it's truly impressive how far mobile phone gaming has come in such a short time (but at least these titles weren't predatory like many of the phone games we have today).

G-Mode has done what they need to on their part with a few basic configuration elements, the ability to scale up to 1080p and the ability to turn graphics filters on or off (though the in-game filter here is pretty good without making things blurry or too pixilated). The same jerky, low framerate is also here (for better or worse) and the game has gamepad support which doesn't seem to suffer any issues in terms of lag or latency. Even with the game's low framerate, it's easy to control for the most part, but you can't control things with maximum efficiency like most games in the 30/60FPS range. The story has a smidgen of depth for a series about volleyball and actually builds upon itself with each subsequent release. In this game, another year has passed since 17-year-old high school seniors, “Shizuku Asagiri” and “Haruna Minase”, played on the world stage. Shizuku and Haruna go their separate ways and Ran's younger sister, Suzu, becomes Shizuku's junior partner. Shizuku is on a quest to reunite with her best friend and finds her during the prelims of the latest World Tour but... several plots ensue that dig up old memories and even a little trauma.

The game is 2-vs-2 paired volleyball and is easy to operate. Unlike real volleyball, the game is broken into sets where the player must reach a set amount of points first based on the rules (7 points for a single set by default now). The gameplay has improved dramatically in this finale as you can get many more outfits (and all characters can wear all outfits now, complete with a censor bar, rumble and jiggle physics), choose different characters (including returning characters from 1&2), swap between your partner during a match (each character has their own special move now), execute team specials (Super Serve + Enhanced Special), follow a broader story with a bigger flow chart, view funny and anecdotal series commentary, witness Haruna's Blog, and more. Scenario's can be played with other partners as well and profile and ranking data is expanded (S-Ranks are a little harder to achieve now too).

The actual gameplay is mostly what you'd expect: Blocking, Jumping, Serving and Spiking all make an appearance. As this was originally a phone title, the game automates a lot of the movements and positioning for you, but you will still want to go manual in small doses (especially when a special attack comes your way). The main change to the core gameplay was the aforementioned team specials and ability to switch members mid-match. Of note, team specials require a maxed out special bar. The HUD has been improved to be more visually appealing and the graphics have improved even more with many slick cut-ins for special attacks as well as new background animations to add more life to the overall packages. As a whole, it is one of the best-looking G-Mode titles currently available. The sound has also been upgraded a bit and a few tracks are even catchy and memorable. It's an excellent follow-up to the second game and the best in the series, but you need to play the first two to have a better appreciation for it. This is a video of some things in action with a basic run-through.