Vajura Fight

Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight

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• Characters
• Gameplay Mechanics
• Gallery and Gameplay Videos
• Ingame Audio

Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight
Alternatetitle	Demon God Child Zenki FX - Vajura Fight
Console	NEC PC-FX
Released in	1995
Producer	Hudson Soft
Based on	Kishin Douji Zenki Manga Volume 4-7

Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight is a NEC PC-FX game based on the Kishin Douji Zenki series.

It was the fourth Kishin Douji Zenki game to be released for the home consoles in Japan and hit the stores on December 22, 1995.

Vajura Fight is a classic side scrolling arcade jump and run game where you play as Zenki (both in his Chibi and Demon God forms) and Chiaki as you traverse through different places, fighting to survive against all kinds of Hyouijuu, while trying to save the Japan from various foes up to the Inugami Roh ark.

This game is very fast paced and allows single- and (cooperative) multiplayer playthroughs, where one player will take control of Zenki while the other one will play as Chiaki.

Whenever you die in a stage, you can choose whether you want to continue to play as the same character or switch. This obviously only works in singleplayer mode.

Also both characters have a special move which can be activated by collecting a randomly dropped Bracelet of Protection. Chiaki can call Demon God Zenki to perform a short and powerful dash attack, while Chibi Zenki can transform himself into his Demon God form, allowing him to hit harder and making him more resistant to enemy attacks. Whenever Zenki dies, he will come back in his Chibi form, if Zenki is chosen in the character selection.

This might make bosses more difficult, as Chibi Zenki's physics make him behave like in the series' manga and anime. As such, he is way weaker than his true form both in offense and defense.

Ingame, Zenki will mainly behave as a melee fighter, while Chiaki is more of a ranged fighter. This means, that Zenki is mainly using his fists and feet to fight, while Chiaki prefers shooting fireballs at her foes from afar, which causes the gameplay experience to differ greatly depending on which character the player chooses.

Notable differences to the Manga/Anime plot

Ingame Zenki and Chiaki are constantly saving a girl named Nozomi over and over again. In the manga, Nozomi is killed by Wawashi (the mouse-like Hyouijuu) shown in the first screenshot. Zenki from the game also seems to care a lot more about humans than his manga self. In the manga it is implied that Zenki only saves humans because either Ozunu or Chiaki would seal him away if he would turn into a rouge Demon God.

Also ingame the Bracelet of Protection can be collected by Zenki to transform himself. In the manga or anime, Zenki can't transform without Chiaki's (and later Goki's/Akira's help) and would be forced to stay a Chibi forever if Chiaki were to die or kick him out of her home.

Despite the fact that the game plays during the Inugami Ark, Goki is never seen. In the manga, Goki is one of the main characters that appears constantly and is even more present and active then Zenki and Chiaki in this ark.

Zenki's emotional outbreak in Vajura Fight?!

While it was previously thought to give an in-depth insight into Zenki's true self, there have been issues with the original, mainly visual interpretation, so here is an updated version featuring the original script alongside with a translation kindly provided by Kawaguchi N. on Azure's DeviantArt account:

Chibi Zenki:
「とり憑かれたお前が悪い。あきらめな。」
(Tori tsukareta omae ga warui. Akirame na.)
"It's your fault, that you were possessed. Give up."

Nozomi:
「ごめんなさい...　わたしいつも迷惑ばかり...」
(Gomen'nasai... Watashi itsumo meiwaku bakari...)
"I'm sorry... for always being a nuisance..."

Chibi Zenki:
「俺様は実を食えればそれでいいんだ。こんなの迷惑じゃないさ。」
(Ore-sama wa mi o kuereba sore de īnda. Kon'na no meiwaku janai sa.)
"It's fine if I can eat the fruit. Ain't a nuisance."

Nozomi:
「あたし生まれ変われたら　もっと修行する...」
(Atashi umarekawaretara motto shugyō suru...)
"If I were reborn, I'd definitely train harder..."

Chibi Zenki:
「あいつらどこまでも俺様をコケにしやがる!　完全に頭にきたぜ!!」
(Aitsu-ra doko made mo oresama o koke ni shi ya garu! Kanzen ni atama ni kita ze!!)
"They've insulted me to the limit! I COMPLETELY LOST IT!!"

Notes

"Mi" (実) can be translated both as "fruit" or "seed". It is basically an abbreviation of Hyouinomi (Possession Fruit / Possession Seed) in this case.

The original translation has been checked by our KDZ Wikia bot via the "bot auto translate Japanese to English"-command. The new and updated review of the scene, seen below, was written by Semerone.
_{-- updated by Zenki on 2018-01-02, original post from 2017-12-31.}

Updated Review

Nozomi

Ironically, the visual experience gravely differs from the spoken one. While the visual entry gives the assumption, that Zenki mourns Nozomi's death, their spoken words come to the conclusion, that, while Zenki tells Nozomi not to give up, she is a lost case and in the end, he only cares about the Hyouinomi left behind by Nozomi after her death and the fact, that the Hyouijuu toyed around with him.

In fact, it also shows, that Zenki thinks, that a dying human can recover like a demon god and leaves him disappointed and feeling even greater, when the human loses the fight against death, as losing a human life implies punishment by his master for failure.

Ironically, Zenki is right, that it's Nozomi's fault, that she has been possessed, as only humans with strong desires are possessed by Hyouinomi. Sadly, she pays with her life and never gets a chance to redeem herself.

So all in all, this scene reveals the following about the two characters featured in it:

1. While is Zenki a very down to earth being stating his opinion on the matter, he is a slave to his pride and feels greatly insulted by the Hyouijuu's actions.
2. Nozomi feels bad for her past mistakes and wishes to make up for them, but her death cancels out any chance for her to redeem herself.

Trivia

Voiced grunts and lines

• Vajura Fight is notable for being one of the rare games of its time, to feature fully voiced lines and grunts for its characters. It improved on Den Ei Rai Bu's standards by having almost all characters featuring both fully voiced dialogue and well animated, voice synched mugshots for each of their moods.
• Like in Den Ei Rei Bu, minor foes may only feature voiced lines or grunts in rare instances, but but this is to be neglected, as the game is outstanding for featuring voiced lines, grunts and fully animated, high quality anime video sequences, which didn't become common in games until the Nintendo DS era and even then, fully animated, high quality anime video sequences were a rarity due to the beginnings of the 3D games era making gamers reject video sequences in games due to the common use of quicktime events at the time.
  • Vajura Fight's videos and the game itself don't have any quicktime events.

Japanese title and translations

• In Japan, Kishin Douji Zenki - Vajura Fight is known via the Kanji and Furigana writings of
  鬼神童子 ゼンキ FX - 金剛交闘 and きしんどうじ ゼンキ FX - ヴァジュラファイト respectively
• Both the Kanji and the Furigana writing translate as "Demon God Child Zenki - Vajura Fight", as the Katakana used in the Furigana writing directly reference the English words for "Vajra" (Vajura) and "Fight" (Faito).
• Alternatively, the game is also known as "Kishin Douji Zenki - Vajra Fight" and "Demon God Child Zenki - Vajra Fight". This is due to the alternate spelling of Vajura as Vajra, which comes from two possible interpretations of the title with the former being related to Zenki's Vajura attack and the latter to the Buddhistic Vajra and Ozunu Enno's relationship to religious terms.

Asymmetry

Unlike every other Kishin Douji Zenki game Vajura Fight takes account of asymmetrical characters like Zenki or Hiki the Black Tortoise. So instead of just mirroring their sprites, it gives them additional sprites for facing to the left or the right.

While in Zenki's case this keeps the way his tiara's middle horn faces and the location of his dominant fang intact, in Hiki's case, it prevents his healthy and his missing eye scar switching places.

Introductory Text

The introductory text, which is seen at page 6 at the very beginning of Chapter 1.1 of Volume 1 of the Kishin Douji Zenki manga, has been reused in the second cutscene of Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight, albeit with a blue text color instead of a white one, which unfortunately makes the text especially hard to read due to its combination with the lower ingame resolution.

The text as it is seen in Volume 1 page 6 of the manga's original, Japanese release

The text as it is seen in the cutscene from Vajura Fight

^{All credit for the photograph of Volume 1 page 6 goes to Semerone.}

The Good Guys

• Zenki
  • He is one of the two main characters, which you play as throughout the whole game.
  • Zenki starts out in his Chibi form, but using the Bracelet of Protection allows him to call Chiaki, who turns him into his true form via the Vajura-On-Ark spell.
• Chiaki Enno
  • She is the other main character, which you play as throughout the whole game.
• Miki Souma
  • In this game, he is a minor character that only shows up in scripted events, where he will drop a Bracelet of Protection mid-way through the stage and while fighting boss battles. The Bracelet of Protection is also known as a random item drop ingame and can appear at any time.
• Nozomi
  • She is a supporting character who is saved multiple times at numerous points in the game. Near the end, she was possessed by a Hyouijuu named Fushushoku and dies succumbing to her wounds, but not before telling Zenki and Chiaki not to give up.

Notes

• You can either chose to play as Zenki or Chiaki.
  • As mentioned earlier, if one player choses Zenki/Chiaki in the multiplayer mode, the other player will play as Chiaki/Zenki.
  • If there's only one player the can change to the other character or keep playing as the previous character when they die.

The Bad Guys

• Wawashi
  • Wawashi is the first boss of the game, the mouse-like Hyouijuu that Zenki and Chiaki save Nozomi from.
• Endoku
  • Endoku is the second boss of the game. He appears when Zenki, Chiaki, and Nozomi are transported to an alternate reality by Marubasu following Wawashi's defeat.
• Shoukouga
  • Shoukouga is a bird-like Hyouijuu and the third boss of the game. She attacks Zenki and Chiaki following Endoku's defeat and drags them into the sky, after which they fight her on top of an airplane.
• Gahekiyou
  • Gahekiyou is a grim reaper-like Hyouijuu and the fourth boss of the game. He attacks Zenki and Chiaki throughout the train level and eventually merges with a boy in a wheelchair before fighting them.
• Gairinzan
  • A sea serpent-like Hyouijuu with a knife in each hand, Gairinzan is the fifth boss of the game, appearing in the sewer level.
• Hiki the Black Tortoise
  • Hiki is the sixth boss that is fought after the sewer level. He appears while Zenki and Chiaki traverse the building to rescue Nozomi again.
• Tetuhewreki
  • Tetuhewreki is the seventh boss of the game. He is a car-like Hyouijuu who kidnaps Nozomi and is fought twice.
• Razurou
  • Razurou is a frog-like Hyouijuu who appears several times throughout the game. The first time he appears, he is interrupted by Shoukouga before he can fight Zenki and Chiaki. The second time he appears, he falls out of the train and can be jumped on by Zenki and Chiaki. The third time he appears, he attempts to fight them again only to be interrupted by Tetuhewreki, who was presumed dead when the rubble fell on him but turns out to still be alive. The fourth and final time he appears, he is possessed by Fushushoku and becomes enlarged and mutated, setting up the eighth boss fight of the game.
• Fushushoku
  • Fushushoku is a tiny Hyouijuu who possesses Nozomi near the end of the game until after Tetuhewreki's defeat. He later possesses Razurou as a setup for the eighth boss battle. Fushushoku is later killed by Marubasu before the final battle.
• Marubasu
  • Marubasu is the final boss of the game. He is an excellent swordsman that also uses powerful magic. He is a very tough opponent that might cost the player many lives even if they are really good at playing the game.
• The Inugami Roh and Kokutei
  • Despite making multiple appearances in the game's cutscenes these two are never fought by the player.

Characters Gallery

Mugshots

Nozomi

Hiki the Black Tortoise

Marubasu

Sprites

Chibi Zenki

Demon God Zenki

Chiaki Enno

Miki Souma

Wawashi

Hiki the Black Tortoise

Marubasu

Options menu

Vajura Fight's options menu.

If the player selects OPTION in the game's main menu, they will be able to visit the options menu. The options menu features various options like the difficulty, a sound test and the control scemes for player one and player two.

The background features images showing various Kanji related to Zenki's transformation sequence. In the middle we can see a silhouette of Demon God Zenki standing there with his arms crossed.

Occassionally, lightning strikes, illuminating Zenki's otherwise completely black silhouette in a blueish light, which allows the viewer to make out more details.

Difficulty

An animation, showing the player switching through the three available difficulty settings.

Note, that while it's possible to switch from NORMAL to EASY or HARD, it's not possible to directly switch from EASY to HARD or the other way around.

Unlike the other games from the series, Vajura Fight actually has a difficulty setting, which is displayed by the text LEVEL and the currently selected difficulty shown beside it.

Vajura Fight features three difficulty levels. Those are EASY, NORMAL and HARD, which are also known as "Easy mode", "Normal mode" and "Hard mode". While they are pretty much self explaining, this section will feature what acutally changes to make the game harder when selecting hard mode.

Easy mode's existence has just recently (as of December 6, 2017) been discovered by Semerone and needs further research and documentation, before we can inform you of any differences between easy and normal mode.

Just as known by many other games for whatever console, the default difficulty of Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight is NORMAL. The game will always default to this difficulty setting upon restarting the PC-FX, regardless which difficulty was played on in a previous session.

So here are the changes between Normal and Hard mode:

Player Select screen

• When entering the player select screen, the game now displays the Japanese text for "Hard mode" at the bottom of the screen.
  • This text is written in a rather huge lettering, so the player knows they are actually playing "Hard mode" and doesn't miss it for whatever reason.

Enemies

• Enemy attacks deal twice as much damage
• Enemies take more hits to defeat

Items

• Miki Souma appears less often to provide health items (food) or the Bracelet of Protection.
  • Luckily, he will still appear at the same scripted points as in Normal mode

Difficulties Trivia

Despite Vajura Fight being the only Kishin Douji Zenki game allowing the player to choose the difficulty the want to play on, Kishin Douji Zenki - Battle Raiden actually features a similar mechanic in form of its new game plus, which slighly increases the game's difficulty.

Though it should be noted that the difference in difficulty from Battle Raiden's regular game and the new game plus is way less drastical than the one from Vajura Fight and is sometimes even enforced by some rather unfair enemy placements.

Unlike Vajura Fight, where the harder difficulty setting also affects the mini-bosses and bosses, this is not the case in Battle Raiden, where the mini-bosses and bosses stay the same as in normal gameplay.

Sound Test

The sound test is rather easy to use.

Selecting a title from BGM (background music) will allow you to listen to any song from the game. Selecting a number from SE (soundeffects) will allow you to listen to any sound effect from the game.

Controls

The controls are rather self explaining as well.

• JUMP
  • The button this action is set to allows your character to jump.
  • If the jump-button is pressed with a direction, your character will jump into that direction.
• ATTACK
  • The button this action is set to allows your character to perform their basic attack.
  • Try various button combinations to perform special attacks.
• GUARD
  • The button this action is set to allows your character to guard against enemy attacks.
  • Keep the button pressed to keep guarding against attacks. Guarding can be used both while standing, crouching or jumping, but it might fail to block an enemy's attack when used while jumping.
  • When a character guards, they will take no damage from regular attacks and reduced damage from special attacks.
    • But beware: Guarding doesn't work when your opponent tries to throw your character, so be careful when an enemy gets to close and tries to grab your character. The bird woman boss Shoukouga just seems to love to throw your character around when you guard against her attacks, so be careful when dealing with her.

Feel free to check out Zenki's and Chiaki's ingame sections for Vajura Fight, if you want to know which moves they can use in this game.

Tricks

This screenshot shows the ingame location and the trick in action. The trick can be performed regardless if you play as Zenki, Chiaki or even together.

After defeating Gahekiyou (the grim reaper like Hyouijuu), the player will fall down and end up in a place with rugged terrain and a trainwreck. After walking to the left for awhile, one should be able to see Razurou (a green frog like Hyouijuu) peeking out of one of the trainwreck's windows.

Stop here and walk to him. Razurou will be dazed and fall out of the window. The player can then jump on him and keep jumping. This will cause Miki Souma to appear over and over again, dropping lives and other items, allowing the player to completely restore their health and collect lives until they reach the maximum anmount of 99 lives.

The live item is a small heart and the player's current lives are displayed as "CREDITS".
Don't forget that the lives are shared by both players when playing together.

Trivia

• Unlike Kishin Douji Zenki - Battle Raiden there's sadly no funny message when collecting another life after reaching the maximum anmount of lives in Vajura Fight.

Main Menu and Box Art

Vajura Fight's main menu
It has three options:
START (allows the player to choose Zenki or Chiaki and start playing the game)
LOAD (loads the game from a previously saved session)
OPTION (allows the player to choose various options and listen to the sound test)

The game's load menu not only lets the player continue from the stage they reached on their last playthrough, but also allows them to replay previously visited stages.

Vajura Fight's box art
Demon God Zenki and Chiaki can be seen in the box art. Zenki is standing there with a fierce expression on his face and his Diamond Horn extended from his fist, while Chiaki is standing there with her spell-tags ready to use her "Khan"-fire spell against the next foe that comes around.

Trivia

• Vajura Fight is the only Kishin Douji Zenki game with a built in save feature. If the player presses pause and quits the game, the game will save the session, allowing the player to continue playing from where they left of after restarting the console with Vajura Fight in it and choosing the LOAD option.
  • As the game saves the session into the console's memory, this only works when putting the game into the same PC-FX console. If the console breaks or the player plays the game at a friend's console, it will only find the other consoles saved game.
  • Obviously, loading the game only works after saving the game at least once.

Images

Gameplay

Stages

The first ingame stage, as it appears in its original state when Marubasu holds his speech after Wawashi's defeat at the hands of Zenki and Chiaki.

Shortly afterwards, everyone is being been warped into an alternate reality by Marubasu.

The first ingame stage, as it appears in its wrecked state after Endoku has taken enough of a beating to take flight.

Outside the shrine, Zenki fights Endoku's little brothers as he attempts to catch up with Endoku himself.

Bosses

Wawashi

Zenki and Chiaki arrive just in time to save Nozomi from the Hyouijuu Wawashi

Soon enough, Chibi Zenki takes on the mouse-like beastman, while Chiaki looks after Nozomi

Endoku

When Endoku is encountered for the first time, he will appear shortly after Marubasu has warped everyone into an alternate reality.

In his first encounter, the acid spitting Hyouijuu is fought as Chibi Zenki and/or Chiaki. Note, that Zenki will be stuck as a chibi for this first encounter. Once half of Endoku's health has been depleted, he will flee.

After defeating some of his clones, Endoku is encountered again for a second and final time on the shrine's rooftop.

This time, collecting the Bracelet of Protection will allow Zenki to transform into his true self and recover all of his health. When playing as Chiaki, collecting the bracelet will cause her to summon Kishin Zenki to her aid instead.

The encounter against Endoku is the first time, Zenki is able to transform in Vajura Fight.

The Vajura on Ark animation featured above is a rough example of what the animation looks like ingame. Note, that this animation is way more fluid in the actual game. A more accurate to the original version will be featured once enough screenshots are available. - Zenki

Shoukouga

Zenki fighting a bird-like beastwoman named Shoukouga

After being dropped by her bird, Shoukouga dashes at Chiaki to attack her

Gahekiyou

At first, Chibi Zenki needs to advance to the left and avoid a grim reaper-like Hyouijuu and his undead followers

Once he reaches a dark wagon, he will come across a young man in a wheel-chair

The young man is possessed by a Hyouinomi and teleports Zenki and himself onto the train's roof. Then the young man transforms into a Hyouijuu!

Afterwards, Demon God Zenki proceeds to fight the grim reaper-like beastman Gahekiyou

Gairinzan

Chibi Zenki encounters the fish/dragon-like beastwoman Gairinzan

Hiki

Before he encounters Hiki, Zenki finds himself inside an elevator that moves upwards as a view of the city scrolls by in the background.

Demon God Zenki and Chiaki fighting Hiki the Black Tortoise, the leader of the Inugami Roh's Shitennou

Tetuhewreki

Tetuhewreki makes his first appearance before Zenki and Chiaki encounter Hiki and kidnaps Nozomi. He can't be fought until later, though.

Nozomi was kidnapped by a car-like monster called Tetuhewreki. Zenki and Chiaki try to save her once again.

Marubasu

Demon God Zenki fighting the final boss Marubasu, a powerful magican and excellent swordsman

Normal mode ending

The ending screen that is shown when beating the game on normal mode. Ingame this screen casually scrolls by from the left to the right as the credits are shown onscreen.

As the ending image scrolls by in the background, there are also images of the main characters from the game, which appear at random intervals. This is the first image, which depicts Chibi Zenki.

The second image shows Chiaki with the Bracelet of Protection, wearing her usual priest clothes.

The third image shows Nozomi, who is seen multiple times in the game. She dies midway through the game in the scene shown in this article's main tabber.

The fourth image depicts Roh and his pet wolf Kokutei as they appear ingame.

The fifth and final image depicts Demon God Zenki glaring into the camera.

Videos

Intros

Zenki - opening 1

Once the game has booted up and the various developer screens appeared one after another, the opening from the first season of the Kishin Douji Zenki anime can be seen. Once the opening has finished playing or the player has skipped it by pressing a button, the game will cut to the main menu screen.

The second cutscene, that is seen when starting a new game from the main menu. It plays before the game goes to the character select menu.

Gameplay videos

Kishin Douji Zenki FX - Vajura Fight (PCFX) - Co-Op Netplay - Vizzed.com Play

This video shows two players playing the game in the multiplayer mode. In this video, the first player plays as Zenki while the second player plays as Chiaki.

PC-FX ZENKI FX NORMAL 60fps

This video shows a complete playthrough of the game as Chiaki on normal difficulty.

PC-FX ZENKI FX HARD 60fps

This video shows a complete playthrough of the game as Zenki on hard difficulty.

Kishin Douji Zenki (PC-FX) All Bosses (No Damage)

This video shows an amazingly good player defeating all of the bosses in the game without taking any damage while playing as Chiaki.

PC-FX - Kishin Douji Zenki FX Vajura Fight (Full Game)

This video shows a complete playthrough of the game as Zenki on normal difficulty.

Hard mode ending

Zenki Ending Song

After beating Marubasu on hard mode, the game will play the anime ending. Normal mode has a different ending, which shows a still of the main characters and the bosses instead.

Trivia

• No matter if the player finished the game on normal or hard mode, the song played in the background will always be "I'll Give a Smile". This is the ending song from the anime, which features Chiaki's voice actress singing joyfully and with a almost childlike innocence.

Ingame Audio

BGM (Background Music)

01 - TITLE

02 - SELECT

03 - BATTLE 01

04 - BATTLE 02

05 - BATTLE 03

06 - SCENE 04

07 - BATTLE 04

08 - SCENE 05

09 - BATTLE 05

10 - SCENE 06

11 - SCENE 07

12 - BATTLE 09

13 - BATTLE 0A

14 - Kishin Douji Zenki Main Theme - SCENE 0B

15 - BATTLE 0B

16 - BATTLE 0C

17 - BATTLE 0D

Notes

Are these really all tracks?

It is currently unknown, if theses are all tracks from the game, or if some tracks are missing due to being unlocked over the course of progressing through the game. Semerone will have a look at this and inform you here once she knows more about the situation.

As such, it also might be, that some tracks could be missing due to content being cut from the game. In that case, the situation would be similar to the one with Gaki who was a mini-boss, that was cut from Battle Raiden.

Also, we are going to add more information on when Vajura Fight's audio tracks are played and which characters they are related to in the future.

Sound Effects

The game also features sound effects in the sound test. These will be added once they have been recorded by Semerone and prepared for upload.

Ingame Audio Subpage

It is likely, that we will move the content from this section to its own subpage in the future. This change is likely to occur when we are adding the sound effects.