Rurouni Kenshin Making A Comeback On PSP

Would you look at that. It’s true what they say…you can’t keep a good man down. And that applies to Himura Kenshin, too, star of Nobuhiro Watsuki’s hit manga set in Japan’s Meiji era.

Kenshin’s getting what appears to be a new fighting game on the PSP, titled Rurouni Kenshin: Second Hirameki, due out in Spring 2011. The “Hirameki” is presumably in reference to Kenshin’s “Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki” technique (translated as “Dragon Flight of Heaven” by U.S. manga publisher, Viz)

Given the terrible quality of the Jump magazine scan above, details are hard to come by at this point, so let’s take a real quick look at past games starring Kenshin and Co.

Kenshin and his pals have been in a few games over the years, ranging from fighters to RPGs. The first was Rurouni Kenshin: Ishin Gekitouhen, a rather terrible fighting game for the PlayStation released in 1996, which covered Kenshin’s encounter with Shinomori Aoshi’s Oniwabanshu group:

The second was Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenyaku Romantan, a spin-off RPG, also on the PlayStation, which put you in the boots of two new characters that weren’t in the manga. I never played this one.

Later, Kenshin also starred in Jump Superstars, a crossover fighting game for the Nintendo DS, alongside a long list of other Shounen Jump characters. You can read an old Siliconera playtest for the game here.

And finally, in 2006, Kenshin and his friends made it to the PlayStation 2, in Enjou! Kyoto Rinne, which was yet another fighting game that covered the Shishio Makoto arc of the manga.