Bushido Blade

Slashin' Throats and Buyin' Boats

Remember back in the mid-to-late '90s when everyone wanted in on a slice of Tekken and Virtua Fighter's sweet, sweet 3D Fighting Game pie? Just like the deluge of Street Fighter clones in the years prior, the fifth generation of home consoles brought with it a dump truck full of 3D fighters like Dark Rift and Bloody Roar that expanded the genre by allowing you to slowly rotate around your opponent, as opposed to jumping ten feet into the air like in their 2D predecessors. Remember Ehrgeiz? Man, Ehrgeiz was great. Wait, no it wasn't.

But what is great is another Square-published Playstation fighter: Bushido Blade. I'm a bit late to the party on this game, having only been introduced to it in the last few weeks, but I can say it's easily jumped to the top of my list of favorite 3D fighters. Admittedly, this is a short list, because I don't like too many 3D fighters, but, uh... it's still good.

Typical footage of me watching the replay function to figure out what the hell happened.

The things most people remember about Bushido Blade is the quasi-realistic damage system, wherein a direct hit to the head or torso is almost always a guaranteed kill. It's kind of like those tense moments in other fighting games where you and your opponent are both down to a sliver of life and the next hit will determine the victor, except in Bushido Blade, that's the entire game. Hitting an opponents arm or leg will cripple them, but as long as they still have their sword, they can still take you out in a single hit. It is jaw-droppingly crushing when someone who's balancing on their one good knee lunges forward and stabs you in the face to win the match.

One could argue that the fact that rounds are so short and that it's so easy to hop right into a rematch kind of mitigates the tension such sudden death should provide, and I would agree, before punching them in the stomach and stealing their lunch money for insinuating that's a bad thing. One would then say they weren't insinuating that at all, they were just sayin', at which point I would tell them their mother is calling, reducing their defense by five just in time for another punch to the gut.

Rounds do go like popcorn, though, frequently lasting under ten seconds. Fortunately, the devs at Light Weight recognized this, and rather than going with a 2/3 rounds type system like a traditional fighting game, opted for simply having win counters for both players, allowing you to quickly get back up immediately after you're killed to restart the match.

Pulling a gun is not very Bushido of you, friend.

Like most fighting games, playing 1v1 against another human opponent is where the game really shines, but it has a few single player modes to keep you occupied. What I guess you'd call the "main" single player mode is Story Mode, where after picking a character and a weapon (my favorite being the sledgehammer for how incongruous it is with the rest of the game's aesthetic), you proceed to kill all of the rest of the characters, as well as a few non-playable ones. My first time through the game, I didn't realize you are actually supposed to follow Bushido code, which in the context of the game means not hitting people in the back or when they're knocked down or talking or anything like that. Failing to follow the code ends the game abruptly after you beat all the playable characters, giving you a plain text ending that I think chastises you for being bad, though I'm not entirely sure. Of course, your reward for following the code through the first several matches is that you get to fight a guy with a handgun. This strikes me as odd, but c'est la vie. Wait, does that apply here?

EVERYBODY GET DOWN

Aside from that, the big draw for me at least is Slash Mode, which sadly locks you into using the katana. As a digression, a lot of the fun for me is in trying out the different weapons. Especially the weird ones. The katana just feels like picking Mario in Super Smash Bros., because nobody does it because why would you?

Anyway, I was supposed to be talking about Slash Mode. Slash Mode is great. It's essentially just a gauntlet where you knock out one generic opponent after another, with every tenth enemy being a slightly stronger "boss" enemy you have to fight before moving onto the next level. Every level serves as a checkpoint, and apparently you get something for beating all ten levels (so, 100 enemies). I'm not sure if you have to do it all in one go, but I personally brute forced my way to the upper 80s, dying about fifty times and killing probably a few thousand faceless ninjas. At about 2:30 am, I decided it was time to give up for now because I wanted to write the review. Then I accidentally deleted the review and ended up writing it this afternoon instead.

I do not recommend playing POV mode more than once.

Last and definitely least is POV mode, which does what it sounds like. Just look at the screenshot above. It's a fun novelty, but actually playing the game just kind of feels awkward. It's like having a sword fight and a neurological disorder at the same time. One thing I could  see as a benefit is that this gives you a better perspective on where a weapon is actually hitting an enemy. In the standard third person view, you might think you're slicing directly down the center of your opponent, only to see in POV mode that you're actually more like glancing their shoulder repeatedly. I think that'd still hurt pretty bad.

I just wanted to quickly mention the music. It's strange. If you've played Eastern Mind or LSD, it's got a kind of similar, weird quasi-traditional-Japanese synthesized style that makes it feel like you're playing a fighting game designed by Osamu Sato. Musically, anyway. The rest of the game doesn't feel like that at all.

Even if you're like me and don't particularly like 3D fighters, give Bushido Blade a shot. It's different enough from most of the genre that you'll probably at least find it amusing. If you don't find it amusing, try playing it with a friend, and I guarantee you'll find it slightly more amusing. If it still does not amuse you, then I've failed you and I apologize.