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Review: Bushido Blade |
Bushido Blade in 5 words, redefines the fighting genre completely. Never in my life have I seen a game like this.
To make the readers understand, I’ll use a simple comparison. In basketball games, you have 2 basic types. Arcade and Simulation. Arcade would be like NBA Jam, and Simulation would be like NBA Live ‘97. In a similar fashion fighting games have two distinctions. Where Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat fall under Arcade, Bushido Blade splits off into the path of Simulation. It does this in a magnificent way.
Square has put together a winning combination of good graphics, sound, and most importantly, gameplay. You begin with one character and your choice of swords. As you begin your fight, you notice dynamic backgrounds and another guy ready to kick your ass!
When I first started playing, I’ll be honest, it was in Japanese, and I just button smashed the hell out of the game. It worked nonetheless. I proceeded to strike my opponent in various parts of his body and impair him in multiple different ways. I myself, am a very violent person and enjoyed this thouroughly. Nothing like seeing your opponent crawling along the ground and the only attack he can muster up is to throw dirt in your face. As I got to the next fight, my opponent hit me first. I ended up eventually winning the fight, but in the next fight instead of having a nice clean suit, I had my arm bandaged and bloody. Very cool effect. I love when developers pay attention to detail.
As I have played the game more and more I have learned various counters and blocks and I have realized the depth of the game. It involved a lot more skill than most fighting games out there and is definately worth your time when it hits US shores. If you haven’t seen Bushido Blade yet, keep tuned to your TV, I see ads for it all the time. Bushido Blade is hands down, the best PSX fighter to date.
- Valium
