LOVE * UPPER FAQ 1.4 09/30/2007 By Evk X Damascus (& freekosuave) (& various other heroes who send in tips! & questions!) evk_d (at) hotmail.com *** TABLE OF CONTENTS *** Introduction 1.) Version history 2.) Frequently Asked Questions 3.) System explanation 4.) Controls 5.) Specific Boxers 6.) Strategy 7.) Cheating! 8.) Outro/Contact Introduction Before we get started, I'd like to quote some E-mail I got: "I believe this is actually the worst FAQ ever. I may consider writing one just so people could be properly informed about this game. It would almost be easier than to correct the MANY mistakes you make in yours. " The lesson here is, don't drink and flame, because the guy who wrote this ended up writing me back with a lot of good information, for which I'm very thankful. You'll see his, and everyone's, info appearing throughout. Now on to the game. Love Upper? This is a obscure boxing title. I've been unable to find any info at all on this game, thus this FAQ. I don't know if anyone is still playing this game, but this FAQ should answer just about any question you have. If not, send me an email. What I do know is that this is part of the Simple 2000 series, featuring other such luminaries as Love Ping Pong and Love Smash. If you want a copy of Love Upper, try your local import store, or http://www.ncsx.com on the web. *** Version history *** September 30. 2007 (1.4) - Big update! Added all the information from the Heartbeat Boxing manual, plus a ton of charecter information from a fellow hero, PLUS more in-depth mechanics - as it turns out there's a lot I never knew about this game. Whew! September 23, 2007 (1.3) - Wow, still alive! Corrected some general typos and mistakes. I did get my copy in the mail (two years ago, heh), so there might be another update soon. Don't hold your breath. January 4th, 2004 (1.2) - Implimented the actual frequently asked questions section, now that I have some! Also fixed a bunch of errors that made this read oddly sometimes. September 5, 2004 (v 1.1) - Added everyone's names, PLUS a super handy trick to unlock everything without going through tournament mode! Man, this thing's almost done. June 15th, 2004 (v 1) - Fixed and added to control section and finally put some info in the charecters section. Here I am slaving away on my birthday for you people! June 14th, 2004 (v .9)- Added how to unlock the boss, boss strategies, and more info on special moves, as well as some rude E-mail I got. For next time I'd like to get the names, so I don't have to call people "jumping uppercut lady" and "the boss". June 1st, 2004 (V .8)- I wrote a basic FAQ. There's a LOT of information missing, so if anyone has any info, please send it in to the above address. *** Frequently Asked Questions *** I've finally got a bunch thanks to Mike Pettitt. What would I do without you readers? (Wither.) Q: Do you use a Japanese PS2 or a U.S. PS2 with a mod chip? I'm trying to figure out which would be the best way to go. I'd hate to buy a second PS2 unless I had to, but I'm not nuts about tearing apart the one I have and ruining it just to install a mod chip that might not even work. A: You'll need a playstation 2 capable of playing imports. Q: This is kind of a dumb question, but I'd rather ask and know the answer: would I need to use a Japanese memory card to save my game, even if I was using an American PS2? A: American memory cards work perfectly! Q: what'd you think of Love Upper? Or, to be more specific: if you were to write a review of Love Upper, how would you score it? A: I would have to say it's definitly worth $25. In my opinion, Love Upper's only real problem is that it seems like it doesn't know what it wants to be. All the boxing physics are taken from another Simple 2000 game, a more realistic one featuring male boxers. Love Upper has the serious engine from that game, plus all the goofy special moves and costumes. I've played versus a lot with it, and while the engine is there to have a serious boxing match, me and my friends usually end up just throwing the specials at each other (all the more so once the bosses with thier ridiculous damage specials are unlocked). But that's really the only bad thing I can say. It has a lot of replay value, cute girls, and you can't beat the price! (If you're paying more than $25 for Love Upper, you're getting ripped off!) I will warn my humble readers to avoid another Simple 2000 game, "The Catfight". Total trash... Q: Apparently, Love Upper has also been released in the UK and other countries as Heartbeat Boxing. Do you know whether this is a translated version of Love Upper or just the same Japanese game with a different cover? A: I imagine it would have to be translated, so it seems there is an English version of Love Upper out there - and lo and behold I've ordered it. Look forward to some info coming to this FAQ from Heartbeat Boxing soon. (I heard a rumor that a US publisher was going to start translating and selling the Simple 2000 series over here, but who knows when or if that will even happen?) If anyone has any more questions... my E-mail is at the bottom. *** System *** You have two life bars, a thick orange one and a thin green one. The orange one is your overall health. If this is reduced to zero you are knocked out cold. The thin green bar is your stamina. If this reaches zero you're knocked down. Both of these bars will recover between rounds and when you're knocked down (mash all 4 face buttons). Below these bars there are three empty circles. Every time you're knocked down one of them fills up. If you're knocked down three times in a round, it's a TKO and you lose. The same applies to the computer. IzunaOtoshi reports: "You might want to talk about stamina some. The actual gauge for it is hidden. (The game defines the green bar as "Down Points" and the orange bar as "Hit Points" (like in RPGs) However, its effects are seen in gameplay. While stamina is high, your auto-recover rate (while fighting) is increased, and you have limited auto-guard. When stamina runs low, your fighter's stance changes. Ordinarily, just having your DP reduced will trigger this temporarily, but low stamina is a different case. (you can always tell when stamina is low by when you no longer get the "energetic" stance when you stand a certain distance away from your opponent. Instead, you get the general "close" stance, even if you don't necessarily have low HP/DP.) Low stamina also translates to losing the auto-recovery and auto-guard, in addition to slowed overall movement. Stamina can be recovered in between rounds (while also recovering HP/DP) and during clinches." Between the bars is a clock. When it reaches zero a round is over. Simple, right? At the bottom are judge scores. You can ignore these, because I have never had a match go 12 rounds. I think my record is five. (You can change the number of rounds in Options.) IzunaOtoshi has the explination: "You can improve your Judge Score by: -Simply fighting well -Dealing out more damage than you take, minimizing your damage whenever possible by blocking -Dodging seems to help as well, but this needs testing (as well as dodge/countering) -Countering your opponent's attacks by interrupting them (though risky, the payoff can be worth it, and the judges really seem to like it if you can do it consistently) -Fighting stylishly by mixing up your combos, throwing in special moves on the tail end of your combos helps too" I have managed to get ahead on points - but usually you're beating the snot out of the computer to do so, so you won't need to wait for the judges anyway. *** Controls *** Here's what the Heartbeat Boxing manual says. Circle: Sway X: Body blow Triangle: Straight punch Square: Jab R1: Hook R2: Uppercut L2/L1: Block high START: Pause game OK, so what does all that mean? Well... L2 - Block. You'll be using this a lot (see Strategy). This will block (almost) all specials and high hits. It will NOT block body shots. R2 - Big uppercut. This is your strongest attack. If you push R2 and forward at the same time you'll do a big haymaker. R1 - Hook punch. This does less damage than R2, but it still does a bunch. Forward + R1 produces a stronger hit that can stun your opponent. Triangle - Your strongest normal punch. It hits in the face. If you push forward and triangle at the same time you'll do a kind of lunge punch. You can hit it 3, 4 or 5 times in a row for a combo. This is a straight punch. IzunaOtoshi has some thoughts: "This also comes in dash-in straight, dodge-and-counter straight, and sidestep straight flavors. Due to its long reach, its useful for punishing whiffed punches." X - Body blow. It hits in the stomach (usually, you get some illegal blows if you have a very tall fighter versus a very short one). This punch has an OK amount of power but the main use is that if you throw one of these and then a triangle you can mess up the computer. Blocking with L2 will not block these hits, so if the computer is blocking, you can throw one of these and go right into the high hits (square or triangle). You can hit X four times for a combo. Square- Jab. These do almost no damage, but you can do one of these to stun the computer long enough to throw some straight punches. I don't use this button much. Hitting square more times does not produce a combo, you just keep throwing wimpy jabs. :( IzunaOtoshi has another strategy: "You don't use Square much? Shame... that's my staple for poking/interrupting and setting up more damaging combos (as I'm sure you could tell from my vids ^_^). Also available as a dash-in. (no sidestep, or dodge-and-counter)" O - "Sway"? This makes you dance!! Ha. No, it makes you bob and weave. I don't use this much, but IzunaOtoshi has a reason you should: "Dodging with Circle will evade all normal high hits. Good for style points. Body blows and some specials will still connect, although some specials are completely evadable. Also, you can counterpunch out of it. Simply hit any attack button while still in the "dodging" frames after an opponent attacks you. Which button you hit doesn't matter. The counterpunch you do depends on what type of punch you evaded beforehand. If you lean back to dodge a jab/straight/upper, you'll attack with a straight. Duck under a straight, and you'll rise with an upper. Dodge a hook, and you'll punch back with a wider one that seems to have better range than the normal hooks. Attempting to dodge a body blow (which seems to only be successful if you were out of its range anyway) produces the hook dodge/counter, which can still connect at times due to its increased range (easier with taller boxers). Another thing about Circle dodging...you can use it to CANCEL punches! Good for fakeouts, dodging attacks that would've otherwise interrupted you, then counterpunching right back out of the dodge, etc. (wha...advanced techniques? In a budget title? Huh? ^_^) Although, this only seems to work with normal punches." And before we go any further, some MORE important information from IzunaOtoshi: "Keep in mind that since the buttons are analog, every regular punch has 2 versions, a quicker, weaker one and a stronger, slower one. You can easily tell the difference between the two by the differing animations, as well as the grunt your boxer makes when she throws the "stronger" versions of punches. This also goes for dash-in punches, sidestep punches, and dodge-and-counter punches. You might want to make a note of it." You might indeed! I'd been playing this game for 3 years and never noticed that until now. Sheesh! Blocking precludes you from using certain moves. If you are pressing L2, you will not do the lunge punch, for example. If you have a hard time hitting the computer let go of L2 when it comes time to counterattack. When you're knocked down or between rounds, you'll see a button pushing icon. Mash ALL FOUR face buttons. This will bring back both your bars. More information from IzunaOtoshi: "We know you mash the face buttons during recovery periods, but you can also mash the L1/2 and R1/2 buttons while recovering as well (you'll notice in my vids that that's how I speed up the recovery process when it counts!)" Until recently I was only pressing X, then only the face buttons - no wonder my green bar was always so low! Info from freekosuave on clinching and blocking those pesky body shots: "Both L1 and L2 are block buttons, pressinig them in tandem (and pressing towards the opponent) will allow you to grab onto the opposing fighter and regain some health (for both fighters) in the clench. Also pressing down on either the analog or control pad will allow you to block incoming body attacks." There are also special moves. Everyone has special moves executed by using the analog stick and trinagle. Hit start and then circle to see the move list. More info from freekosuave: "The lightweight fighters (the top row) can throw 5 punches in succession. The middleweights and the first unlockable fighter (which i believe to be the middleweight champion on the bottom left of the select screen) are able to throw 4 punches in succession. Lastly the heavyweights and the final boss are able to throw only 3 punches in succession. There is an exception to this rule and that is inputing a command for a combo while throwing other punches and completing that command as the final punch in the sequence. For example using the top right boxer... there is a ->, <-, -> combinations move. you can attack with a flurry of body shots while staring the command string and then finishing with the 5th punch being the special move for a total of 7 or 8 hits if all the punches connect. this applies to almost any special punch that does not have a delay before being executed (the final boss has at least 2 moves that i can remember that have a delay to them)." IzunaOtoshi has some information to bear in mind about the weight classes: "As expected, lightweights, though faster and able to throw more punches per combo, do less damage overall than heavyweights. Midweights strike a balance between the two. (although, the differences between the classes aren't generally significant enough to really go on when picking a character)" There are two advanced techniques I'll admit up front I've never actually tried: Sway Attacks and Sidestep Attacks. Quoth the Heartbeat Boxing manual: "Press any of the following buttons [Square, Triangle, X, R1, R2] immediately after swaying to execute a powerful attack." I never sway, but you might find this to be of some use. There's also this: "Use sidestep attacks to avoid an opponent's attack while launching one of your own. ^^ or VV + triangle = sidestep straight punch ^^ or VV + X = sidestep body blow ^^ or VV + R1 = sidestep hook" Again, I never sidestep, but you may want to try this. In addition to these, there are also dash in punches. IzunaOtoshi has the goods: "Dash-in punches: tap forward twice, then attack (while still in the early frames of the dash) R2 uppercuts can be dash-in punches, and dodge-and counter punches as well. (no sidestep) R1 hooks can be sidestep punches, and dodge-and-counter punches as well. (no dash-in)" Finally, you can practice all of these moves in, you guessed it... Practice mode. *** Specific Boxers *** Just a note before we get started here: Heartbeat Boxing devides the weight classes into Bantamweight, Flyweight, and Featherweight, but I'll just be using light/medium/heavyweight, because that's a lot easier to remember. If you're using a lightweight fighter, you have more strategies available. (See above and below.) As stated above, the top row is lightweights, the 2nd row is middleweights, the 3rd row is heavyweights, and the last row is the two unlocked boxers and the random box. Bill Walter reports: "The fighter in the center square is Riho, who is the d3 poster character." The reader will also be happy to know that two boxers (Lisa and Janice, middle and right 3rd row) speak English. And Janice has a move called napalm bomb, but when she executes it, it sounds like she's yelling "Apetown Bomb". Hey, this FAQ is free, you get what you pay for! Anyway, here's some more info on all the boxers... * LIGHTWEIGHTS * - KAORI - Left side of the top row, with the goofy hair. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Hirose Kaori, "Girl #1!" -- Private High School Student, with plans to continue on to a prestigious college. Invited by Mayumi (who also happens to be Kaori's boyfriend's older sister!) to participate in the tournament." - MISUZU - Top row in the middle. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Niiyama Misuzu "Typical High School Student!" -- Popular in school (due to her chest, which causes trouble for her) yet exceedingly shy. Encouraged by her gym's owner to participate in the boxing tournament in order to get over her shyness." Uhh... wow. - MIREI - Top row on the right, with the glasses. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Miyao "Mirei" "The girl from China!" -- I think a better romaji approximation of her name would me "Meilin," "Meirin," or "Mei Ling". Thinks of her glasses as a weak point. Therefore, fights for money to buy contacts. (though IMO, she may as well shoot for eye surgery if that's the case...)" * MIDDLEWEIGHTS * - MAYUMI - Second row on the left. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Shiina Mayumi "OL!" -- Office Lady. Strict personality due to her rigid upbringing. Fights for the pride of her company, also wants to teach Kaori (and her younger brother) a thing or two." - RIHO - The D3 mascot, second row in the middle. God, that hair! IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Futaba Riho "Gravure Idol!" -- Good at basically every sport (and always with a smile on her face in every one- even boxing!) Her reason for participating in this particular tournament is a "mystery"... (PR?)" - NATSUMI - Second row on the right. She has a nurse outfit and a angel costume. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Tachibana Natsumi "The Angel in white!" -- Trains to be a nurse, inspired by her doctor father (though due to her scatterbrain personality, she has been known to actually worsen the condition of her patients at times!) Fights in the boxing tournament because she was requested to by her hospital's administration. (she thinks this is strange.)" Can't argue with that :0 * HEAVYWEIGHTS * - REIKO - Third row on the left. She has a bee costume... scary. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Mizusaki Reiko "High School Teacher!" -- OWNS ALL. BOW DOWN. (j/k ^_^) Teaches math at a private high school. Born into a family of teachers, she naturally has exceeding zeal for study and diligence in education. Working on getting her thesis published. Participates in the tournament to further broaden her horizons (though it's questionable what relationship boxing has to math...Probability?)" - LISA - Third row in the middle. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Lisa Blanchett "Cat Fighter!" -- Good at skateboarding and basketball, though she's been known to get into a few street fights as well. Though she tries to appear tough on the outside, she has a kind personality. Enters the boxing tournament to test her strength." - JANICE - Third row in on the right. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Janice Latifah "Officer of the American Navy!" -- Member of the Marine Corps. Fond of animals. Ace of a combatant, even though she claims to hate war. Fights in the tournament because she was ordered to by her higher-ups." * BOSSES * - SERINA - The middleweight champ is in the forth row, right side. Her three outfits are a normal fighting outfit, a cocktail dress, and a playboy bunny outfit. IzunaOtoshi sheds some ligt on the situation: "Kanzaki Serina "Floor Lady!" -- A young madam, also the owner of a popular metropolitan shop. Extremely successful due to her skillful communication and people skills, though in the game she appears slightly airheadish. (did I just make up a word?) Took up boxing so she could advertise her shop in the tournament." - ERIKO - The heavyweight champ is in the middle of the fourth row. Her three outfits are a normal fighting outfit, a tube top and miniskirt, and a leopoard costume. IzunaOtoshi has her bio: "Shiratori Eriko "Race Queen!" -- Currently an active Race Queen. Her second outfit is her race queen getup. Fights in the tournament to distinguish herself from other race queens on the circuit." *** Strategy *** Despite its appearance, Love Upper can be a really hard game if you don't know what you're doing. This section covers defeating Tournament mode, which is how you unlock more outfits and boxers - unless you wanna cheaaaaaaaaaat. More on that later. Step 1 to beat Tournament mode is to put the game on easy. That's under Options, I think it's the first thing. Please try this if you have trouble. Of course, if you're NOT having trouble, some words of wisdom from IzunaOtoshi: "Easy is for chumps!! (and ryona fiends... >_>() ) I prefer to play on hard." Just remember, the author is not liable for any broken hearts that stem from getting your butt kicked on Hard mode! Once you've started Tourament mode, you'll be in for a pleasent surprise. In general, Tournament mode can be broken into two parts: The easy part and the hard part. The easy part of Tournament mode is the very beginning, when the opposing boxer's AI is very bad. You can just throw huge uppercuts at the computer and they'll generally go flying. You don't need my help for this section! This usually lasts for five fights. (You won't face the entire roster in Tournament mode.) The hard part of Tournament mode is always the same, and it will start with a heavyweight - Reiko, Lisa or Janice, either the blonde who speaks english, the black woman, or the tall woman with glasses. You'll know you've arrived at the hard part of Tournament because your opponent will start throwing special moves all over the place. The key to defeating the opponent who throws special moves is Block (L2). Hold down this button and 90% of the opponent's moves will be blocked. After this you can hit back with some triangle punches. If your opponent is blocking these, try hitting X to hit low and then triangle, which usually confuses them. Sometimes your opponent will use this strategy on you - throwing a low punch, which makes you block low, and then throwing a special move. There's not much you can do here except hope it does not happen. Alternatively, if you are brave, you can throw triangle/forward punches when the computer's just starting to attack. If you can sucker punch the computer like this it works well, but it's dangerous. Once you get the hang of blocking and countering with Trinagle, you should be able to defeat this opponent. Remember two things about this game: You need patience and there's also a luck factor. Good luck. After that opponent you'll come to a woman named Serina, and she throws a million jumping uppercuts. She's actually really easy to defeat. Hold down L2 until she does a jumping uppercut, and then nail her with a R2/forward uppercut. Again, the key here is patience - if you start throwing punches all over the place, she'll give you the jumping uppercut, and a few of those will put you on your ass. Just wait for the right moment and give her your uppercut. Sometimes she'll close in and start throwing normal punches. If you wait a little she'll get bored and go back to the jumping uppercuts. After her comes the final boss, Eriko, who in my experience is either really hard or really easy. Her biggest threat is she has a lunging kind of punch that will knock you down no matter how much stamina you have left and take a big chunk out of your life bar. In addition, some of her super moves will break your block. Be warned even one of her lunge punches can mean you're going to lose. There are two ways to defeat her. The quickest way is, when you see her raring back for her super lunge punch, quickly do your own, wimpier lunge punch (forward+triangle). If you time it just right, you can interrupt her attack and also do a hefty chunk of damage. If you can do this she will go down in a hurry! I did this twice and got a TKO in round one on her once. You can also knock her out of the lunge with normal (triangle) punches, but this is VERY dangerous. The second method takes a lot longer and does not work as well, but it's much safer. You can fight her the way you did the first special attack lady, by blocking her and throwing back punches with triangle. This will wear her down, but she'll also use her block-breaking attack and mess you up. If you really want to use this strategy, the best thing to do is be aggressive and use the forward+trinagle punch to interrupt her once, and then go into block/counterpunch mode. This seems to mess her up, I don't know why. If you try to just block and counterpunch her she'll figure out what you're up to after a while... IzunaOtoshi reports: "The bosses tend to fall into their predictable patterns most easily when you attempt to put space between them and you. Once you get a certain distance away, they are almost guaranteed to jumping uppercut (Serina) or lunge punch (Eriko) As you know, this can really be used to your advantage with the proper strategy." The last boss is most dangerous after you've taken most of her life off, as she'll really use her super a lot (and why not, it works wonders). So be careful. In this phase she'll sometimes throw them three times in a row, which is a good chance to hit her with your lunge punch if you have a lot of guts. The last boss' stamina meter comes back VERY fast, so you will probably have to drain her orange bar totally, unless you can consistently knock her down with your lunge punch. However, if you are playing with the right charecter, forget all the above information. You can defeat the last boss very easily with a lightweight boxer (see Controls). The last boss, and just about all the other boxers, can be defeated very easily with a lightweight charecter because of her speed. All you have to do is throw a few triangle punches and go right into one of her special moves. She'll go so fast the computer will still be reeling from your normal punches. With this, just about everyone is a pushover. After you beat the boss, you get the credits (I don't know what the significance of the automated boxing here is) and a new outfit for the boxer you beat Tournament with. IzunaOtoshi reports: "Automated boxing in the credits is just there for fun. The boxer you picked fights a random girl. This automated fight also reflects the difficulty level you're playing on. The harder the difficulty, the better they fight." Another mystery solved! Once the credits are over - make sure you save! Finally, here's how to play with the unlocked characters... I guess I should move this up to where I have info on them, huh? - SERINA - Is unlocked after beating the game once. Well, I bet you want to know how to throw the jumping uppercut, right? There's a movelist (Start and then O), but the short answer is swivel the left analog stick all around and hit triangle. That will often, but not always, produce it. Serina has a diffrent strategy for tournament mode... During the easy fights, just throw jumping uppercuts. Easy, right? If the computer blocks high, throw a X button combo. When you get to the first heavyweight lady, how to fight her really depends on the circumstances. Sometimes you can go out there, block her specials and throw your own and pulverize her. But sometimes this does not work (with miss glasses the most) and you'll have to, alas, revert to blocking and counterpunching. You can probably land one jumping uppercut, but the computer will use less powerful specials on you, and it's hard to nail a jumping uppercut. Even one will shorten the fight considerably, though... When it comes time to face yourself, the strategy is very simple: Block until your opponent throws a jumping uppercut and then throw one of your own. Your opponent will often try to throw a bunch in a row, so if you start yours even a picosecond before hers, you'll knock her on her ass really fast. Versus the last boss, you will again have to fight her like normal. You can throw a million jumping uppercuts and the computer will block a million of them. Luckily Serina is pretty good anyhow, and you can block/counterpunch the last boss if you're careful. Heck, you can even take one of her dumb lunge punches and come out on top. It seems that unlike normal fighters, you can be purely defensive with Serina, which is a plus. - ERIKO - Is unlocked after, I think, beating it with five boxers. When in doubt, keep pounding away at tournament mode. Or you could cheat. The main attraction of the boss is of course her super move. You can check the move list. I have a little trouble pulling it off on a regular basis. To be honest, the boss is not that great. Her super move is really powerful, but because it takes so long to do, once the computer starts blocking you will have a very hard time landing it. On the upside she has pretty good power and her life comes back pretty fast. Her super is so slow you can't even use it on Serina after you block her super. ;_; *** Cheating! *** Courtsey of reader Haddock, here's how to unlock EVERYTHING without doing Tournament at all! "There's one tip you may be interested in : how to unlock special characters and all outfits without having to complete tournament modes !! I do this by moving the left ananlog stick around and then hitting triangle while on the title screen (the very first screen, not the one where you choose game mode), much like special combos. You'll hear something said in japanese (don't ask me what she's saying :o) ) if you do it right. " This works like a charm. I rotated the left stick around and hit triangle a few times, and the game played the soundclip like six times, so it's not terribly discriminating. I think the sound clip is someone yelling "Love Upper", but who knows? In any case, sure enough, this will unlock everyone and everything. Of course, now you don't have much of a reason to play tournament mode... but you can put Reiko in a bee outfit. :0 *** OUTRO *** And that's the end. I hope people are reading this. Again, if you have more info... My address: evk understore d at hotmail.com Please give your message a subject with love upper in the title, otherwise it will probably be caught in my spam filter and killed.