Rival Schools 3: Graduation Year

Rival Schools 3, also known as Rival Schools 3: Graduation Year in Europe, Australia, and Latin America, (Japanese: 燃えろ!ジャスティス学園) is a 3D fighting video game produced by Mad Man Ninja Studios and published by Capcom.

It is the sequel to Project Justice and was first released as an arcade game in July 2022 in Japan and ported to consoles worldwide in September 2022.

Gameplay
Graduation Year's fighting system is lifted from the original Rival Schools, with some notable changes. The game continues to be a team fighter, but has teams of three characters instead of two. This allows another Team-Up attack to be used in a fight, but also adds a new type of attack, the Party-Up, initiated by pressing any three attack buttons. The Party-Up is a three-person attack that varies based on what school the character initiating the attack is from.

The additional partner also allows players to cancel an opponent's Team-Up Special by inputting a Team-Up command of their own. This initiates a short fighting sequence between one character from each team. If the person initiating the sequence gets the first successful hit in during the sequence before time runs out, the Team-Up they are caught in will be canceled, and the game switches back to the main fight; if the opposing player gets the first hit or time runs out, the Team-Up continues as usual.

Additionally, the 'vigor' meter in Graduation Year, similarly to Project Justice, is limited to 5 levels (down from 9 in the original Rival Schools), with Party-Ups requiring all 5 levels, Team-Ups continuing to cost two levels, and any attempts (successful or not) to cancel a Team-Up costing one level.

Game Modes

 * In Story Mode, players select a portion of story grouped by school and play through a rigid storyline with a limited group of 2 to 6 characters that the player can choose from for each fight. Like the original games, each fight in story mode is accompanied with 2D cut scenes that advance the story. In some stories, the plot will branch out depending on the results of certain fights or decisions made by the player, changing the fights that the player faces. After fighting the boss of the game, an ending for the school's story is shown.
 * In Free Mode, players select a team of three characters and fight random teams of opponents until getting to fight the boss, similar to selecting two characters from different schools in Project Justice. After defeating the boss, the player is shown a screen where the game rates the performance of player, and gives them a ranking named after a character from the game.
 * In Character Creation Mode, a player is able to create their own fighters who can be used in all modes except for single-player. However, the mode is packaged as a board game, taking place during an inter-school festival, rather than a date sim game like in Rival Schools.
 * In School Life Mode, the player creates their own custom character and go through a typical Japanese school year with the rest of the cast. This mode isn't enabled in the arcade versions of the game.
 * In Versus Mode, a multiplayer mode enables players and/or computer players to fight against each other or in a variety of settings.
 * In Training Mode, options are available to see game play elements such as inputs and damage scaling that can be triggered on and off among other game play elements.

Plot
It is the third year of High School, and two years have passed since the events of Rival Schools: United By Fate. Although things have gone back to normal in Aoharu City, Batsu Ichimonji, Hinata Wakaba, Kyosuke Kagami, and the rest of the fighters have a decision to make: what will they do with their lives? While most of them have resumed their normal school lives and enjoyed the calm peace that came after their last adventure, the peace itself doesn't last for long when new fighters and familiar faces get involved in a new struggle.

Taiyo Academy: The High School of the Free-Spirited
A school in Aoharu that currently consists of a middle school and a high school. The latter division has 720 students enrolled as of the events in the games. The school has rather conservative uniforms, but the children don't raise too much of a fuss about wearing them.

The school's motto is "A liberated school tradition that yields carefree students", giving consideration to the individuality of each student. Aside from the entrance examinations that assess the students' individuality, interviews are also conducted that assess their excellence in extra-curricular activities. Basically, this school aims to give students freedom in their lives.