Bushido Blade 2

"This was surprisingly fun"

Squaresoft surprised me with it's earlier samurai fighting game, Bushido Blade, and now it's once again surprised me with the expanded sequel, Bushido Blade 2. And where a sequel is supposed to improve, Bushido Blade 2 does not lack.

Gameplay-7
This fighting game consists of one missing aspect; health bars. One good slice from an opponent will instantly kill you. So, to prevent a gory and dishonorable death, you'll need to counter attacks with the opposing button. A vertical strike is repelled by another vertical strike, and a horizontal attack parries another horizontal attack. You can select from numerous modes, ranging from Story, Survival, Team Battle and Practice, and from a small roster of beginning characters that will become even bigger as more become unlocked. Also interesting to note are the stages. Many of them are multi-tiered, and include trees, fences, short climbable walls and cliffs that cause fighters to plunge to their death in a hilarious fashion.

Story- 7
Two rival samurai schools are waging war against each other; the Shainto, who include many of the original characters from the first game, and the Hakyoku-Ken school, who are filled with many young brash fighters and who have stolen a special sword from the other clan. As you battle through Story Mode, you'll come across eight peons ending in a special character whom you can unlock if you can keep them alive when they themselves battle another eight peons and another special character.

Graphics/Sound-7
The designs look nicely on the detailed models, who move nicely against the background and each can die quite nicely in red and yellow ejaculations of light. While certain stages are quite bland and don't include too much detail, other, such as the Cherry Blossom stage are beautifully rendered with floating petals and trees that spawn even more moving flowers. The voices of each character are nicely personalized, each with a great difference in traits between each other, and each emit a satisfying scream upon defeat.

Playtime/Replayability-7
This game may take about fours hours to complete, and that's counting the amount of time you'll spend on the difficult bosses encountered at the end of each Story Mode. Also, the game's way of unlocking characters by actually trying to survive against other fighters while playing as them is a fun way to try out each as you try to unlock them.

Final Recommendation-
If you liked the first game, you'll love this one. It's packed to the brim with more extra than the first, and keeps the great, unique system fans have come to enjoy.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/06