Bushido Blade 2

"Honorable warrior. Commit seppku?"

Introduction

Bushido Blade was an innovative game that presents you with this unique and totally awesome game play that surprises, making you wonder if there is any other extraordinary idea game developers might conjure up.

And now Bushido Blade is back, which is called … Bushido Blade II! While the first game was amazing, this game was somewhat a bit different from the first one. It now as a health bar and that you can’t kill the person in just one kill. I find this some what interesting because it exchanges realism for something else … perhaps fun factor?



Game Play

In the game there two schools of sword fighting. Both schools are rivals and that they will clash with each other. You select the school and, depending the school you select, you get different characters.

The actually fight part of this game: You get to select a range of swords, such as board swords, rapiers, sword short, kantanas and much more. The range of weapons are interesting and that it resembles in real life.

You have three stances that you make during the course of the battle. The slow stance which enables you to make powerful attacks in your opponent; however, the slashes and chops are slow. Then there is the middle stance, which is fast and quick. This is your original stance, which there is equilibrium in the attack. Its not so fast, not so fast. And it’s not powerful and not so weak. Then you got the upper stance, which positions your weapon above your head and is extremely fast, but leaves you vulnerable to attacks.

You have slashes, diagonal attacks, swings and much more. You cannot punch or kick; the only weapon in your arsenal is your weapon. You can play dirty by throwing diggers at your opponents when you’re in the ground. You can block the attack by pressing square, which deflects your attack.

You can’t no longer disable the person, like slashing their leg and they have to fight from the ground. But instead you can disable and weaken their arm by slashing their hand. This makes their strike weaken and somewhat slow.



Sound Music

The music in this game is instrumental. There is no music when you’re actually fighting - I guess the developers want to add realism in the game.
The sound in this game is good. You get to hear the rushing of the waterfalls and the chirps of the birds that are perched on the trees while you fiercely battle your opponent to death.

During the extreme battle when you face your opponents, you hear the loud clashes and the steel on steel on the swords. Clank, Cling, Ding is the cacophony you often hear in this game. You also hear the grunts and the deflects of the steel when you’re fighting your opponents.

Graphic

the graphic for this game is all right. The characters in this game isn’t smooth and all. Its blocky characters, but it isn’t all that bad. They’re part blocky and part smooth.

The setting of the game is set mostly outside in the world. You fight in a century, a waterfall, in a rice pad, and in other parts of the field which is mostly covered in snow.

The character design in the game is ok. You get different costumes in the game for each character. The costumes are tradition clothing, in the shogun era. One of the guy characters has this flap in front of his pants - like those Japanese era anime.

Conclusion

This game was somewhat different from the first game but they’re equally good and that you should add this game to your PSX collection. Because of the graphics is somewhat not that up to par but the game play concept is still good.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/04