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Review: Bushido Blade (alternate) |
Bushido Blade doesn’t talk originality. It SCREAMS originality. The fighting game genre, often compared to 3 week old herring due to its stagnant and unoriginal crop of titles, has been given a breath of fresh air by who else, but the geniuses at Square. Granted, Lightweight created this little gem of a fighter. However, the brilliant suits at Square had the intelligence to publish this new addition to the genre.
Now, if originality was the only basis for review, this game gets a 10. No thought involved. It just gets a 10. However… it’s those other pesky categories one must also take into consideration.
Blah-day, as it’s referred to at my place of employment, is unusual where graphics are concerned. The characters are simply beautiful. They animate like a dream, and the detail in their outfits and faces are excellent (3rd only to Soul Blade and Tobal 2). The backgrounds are also great, although some are pretty drab. The one stage where you can cut down the bamboo stalks is fairly stunning, where as the snow stages are very undetailed (as one might imagine a place covered in snow would be).
The sounds are simple, yet effective. The music (where applicable) is traditional Japanese fare. Think Samurai Shodown. The “sword slicing through flesh” sounds are fairly realistic, and the sword clanks are exactly what they’re supposed to be.
The gameplay is simple, yet amazingly deep. You get slashed in the chest… you die. You get hacked in the knees, you’re crawling for the rest of the bout. However, it’s the use of the sword parry and the full 3-D movement that keeps it being a first-person-to-hit-a-button-wins ordeal. I believe it is put best by Tatsumi in his ending…. “Swordsmanship is not brute force… it’s timing.” Truer words were never spoken.
Bushide Blade’s points of originality:
1) Fighting style is not determined by the character you choose, but by a combination of the character you choose and the weapon you choose.
2) Actual different levels of the playing field. Certain levels have 5-10 ft. drops. You can get stabbed and fly 10 feet down. Then your opponent can jump down after you and continue the fight. I like.
3) Gigantic fully 3-D playing fields. One can just run around for a while to enjoy the view if they like.
4) The use of the link cable. Thank you, Lightweight! Please, someone else do this!
Not all is peachy though in the land of Bushido. Not everyone will like the one hit kills. I take that for granted. What bothers me, though, as that the one-hit kill is not difficult to attain. It can often just be a freak occurence. Which leads me to my next point. In all fighting games, there is a fine line which seperates an experienced veteran from a lowly beginner. In Bushido Blade, however, the lowly beginner can often win by button-mashing. Hell, I’ve seen seasoned veterans (myself included) lose to little children (8 and 9 year olds), simply because their reaction time on the parry wasn’t fast enough, and they got stabbed in the head. Which leads me to my NEXT point: The reaction time on this game leaves a little to be desired. When I parry, I want my character to parry AS I do. Now, I can understand when someone’s lugging around that monstrous naginata, it takes a while. However, in general, the lag time on the play control can be a little nerveracking at times. Next, very simply put: They’re just aren’t enough characters and weapons. 6 just don’t cut it. Finally, after playing this game for about a week, I’m completely out of stuff to do. The Training Mode helps you learn the basics, the story mode gives you a wonderful little plot, the slash mode is a great way to test your one-hit-death prowess, and POV mode is a nice little addition (1st person perspective… kinda eerie). However, the game still doesn’t seem like it has enough to keep you playing. Oh well.
Right now, I’m looking down the road at Soukaigi, Lightweight’s next attempt, which seems a little more RPG based. Something I’ve dying to see (RPGs with the battles more like traditional fighting games). An excellent first attempt, though, for Lightweight and Square.
Bottom Line: Not for everyone…. but at $34.99 (in most retail stores), Bushido Blade is an excellent alternative to the otherwise predictable genre.
