246: The Last Samurai

[David Walton]

Sounding like an echo chamber in here, indeed,,, and I'm certainly not going to help that lol

This is still my all time favorite fighting game. As much as I love Guilty Gear and am excited for the BlazBlue sequels and iterations, nothing has ever captured the essence of a fight like Bushido Blade has.

I don't really feel most of the authors reasons for there never being a new are valid. Implementing a tourney mode really wouldn't be hard. I remember the 2p Vs mode having a kill counter at the top of the screen, if we just add some fancy time limits we immediately get the sense of urgency that other fighters have, as well as dumping the possibility of a match that lasts for hours The lack of flashy numbers is a negative, although a shallow one I think. Maybe make kills pop out in slow motion and artsy blood effects. A similar but much smaller effect for deep wounds.

There's a huge amount of promise in a new Bushido Blade style game. The #1 reason I think we won't be seeing one however, is that it's different from the norm. In a industry that gambles with budgets creeping towards Hollywood levels, trying something new is just too risky. We really need a market for lower budget games that aren't so low as to allow iPhone OS level gameplay only.

P.S.
How does on become a freelance writer for a company anyway? Are there job postings?

 

[carpathic]

I found this game was ruinded by only having the chance to play with people who were so much better than me, that it was frustrating for me and boring for them. I suppose if I had the chance to learn from the beginning I might like this game more, but more often than not, I was the dude missing arms and legs just asking to be finished off...

 

[bjj hero]

Can we start a petition for a next gen Bushido blade? I had no idea so many people loved the game as much as I did.

How many other one on one videogame fights can you finish in seconds with a lethally thrown blade?

 

[frozenfox]

Playing Bushido Blade (both 1 and 2) at a friend's house during my younger years is one of my fondest memories. I've often wondered what a current-gen version of a realistic fighting game would be like. I think, as Johnathan mentioned in his article, there is a heavy emphasis on complexity and the sensational in many games today, not just those in the fighting genre.

A experiment with the uncluttered, realistic and challenging gameplay that a current-gen Bushido Blade could offer would be worthwhile, though difficult to implement.

 

[raankh]

I still play it from time to time with some of my friends. Just updated graphics and animations would be enough for me, to be honest. I don't really see the point of the nex/cur-gen treatment apart from visuals and audio. Maybe some classical japanese music and recitals here and there. High fidelity sword sounds, that kind of thing.

QTE and/or funky controllers wouldn't be Bushido Blade to me.

 

[TarkXT]

A experiment with the uncluttered, realistic and challenging gameplay that a current-gen Bushido Blade could offer would be worthwhile, though difficult to implement.

How so? The only thing stopping them is the conservative nature of the genre which is really a poor excuse when you consider that it has been a rather bland genre in the past decade. The technology is there, the graphics are there, what's lacking is the willingness and desire to take the risk and do it.

 

[FlakAttack]

This is the sort of game i'd love to play i've even talked to people and asked why there are no decent realistics sword fighting games. The only one that come close is mount and Blade but it's not really quite there

It's funny, I was going to say the same thing. I love Mount & Blade to death, and it is an amazing game, but it doesn't quite capture the feeling of Bushido Blade combat. Then again, I wasn't quite looking for BB combat from M&B for reasons obvious to anyone who has played M&B.

You know, I have hated almost every fighting game I played. I only ever took a liking to Bushido Blade and Die by the Sword (PC). All the others feel the same: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, etc... Why do people play all this copycat garbage? I suppose it's no better than all the FPS and RTS games coming out lately. C&C 4 = Starcraft 2 = Supreme Commander 2 = every other modern RTS. Many who liked the first Supreme Commander feel my pain.

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Bushido Blade was sucessful enough to get a sequel, one released in the west, at that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido_Blade_2
The control was a lot tighter and the characters moved a lot faster,so much so that the fight against the pistolero no longer felt as unfair as it did in the original.
Besides developer-publisher disagreements, maybe one other reason why there hasn't been another BB just yet is that you haven't touched on is that they may think that they have advanced as far as that mode of one-hit one-on-one fighting game can go. If they add any more move-list complexity, it would be for naught if everything can be decided by a small practical set.
Still, even if they added things such as Melee battles(similar to the extra 1 against 100 challenge to unlock the gunfighter for player use)to the story mode and a more extensive defensive game,a character creation mode and even a few dismemberments for good measure, they might have something on the combo heavy fighting games.

 

[Shjade]

I have one major gripe with Bushido Blade, one that remained years later when I sought it out for nostalgia's sake: controls are terrible for movement. Terrible.

How many games can you think of that require you to run, crouch while running, then immediately hit a stance-raise button just to jump? You could do it with just a step-forward crouch, but running made it a lot easier to pull this off. This was every jump. Not that jumping was a viable action at most points, but what you wanted to do it, it was a needlessly complex input for what should be a basic movement. Oh, and the jump itself was always the same incredibly high arc directly forward. No jumping in place or backwards. Forward arc.

That was really the worst offender, but all the movement controls in that game are...not user-friendly. The combat controls are fine, but positioning is a chore. I don't remember it getting much better in the sequel which suffered from having a much larger cast of forgettable and in some cases intended-for-comedy - I'm looking at you, Random Afro Guy - characters and even more stupid bosses at the end of each campaign - oh god that armored-everywhere guy is terrible; it's taken me over half an hour to land a hit on him while he's standing still - and...yeah, I generally think of the sequel as a worse game, but that's just me.

Aside from iffy movement controls and dated graphics, though...yeah, good times. Oh, and whoever said the single-player mode is too easy, were you unlocking the "good" endings easily, or just beating the game? I agree it's not hard to just get from the beginning to the end, but try doing it without taking any injuries whatsoever and getting the minimum number of kills possible. That's not easy, at least it wasn't for me. (Hint: you have to lead your first attacker all the way through the opening stages and jump into the sewer to fight him/her there. That skips from the first fight to the last of the opening rounds - only two battles instead of four/five - sparing several lives.) If you get hit - doesn't have to be fatal, any hit at all, even from a thrown weapon - you have to start over from the beginning because you won't unlock the second ending.

Have fun with that. I think I've only unlocked 3 of 6 characters. (...the endings aren't worth the work it takes to unlock them, to be honest. But it's a challenge anyway!)

More games would benefit from having honor enforcement, I think. I wonder what the BB judge would have to say about a teabagger...

 

[Stormanne]

I remember this game fondly. I had it until I got my first PS2. There was a disc read error when I would try to play BB on the PS2, so I begrudgingly got rid of the game since I had used my PS1 as trade on the PS2...

 

[dmase]

I remember playing that game forever i have a hard time remembering all the environments but there where a lot. I remember beating the last character in the game while crawling on one knee with one arm with one low slash to the stomach when he went for a downward strike. I'm pretty sure my weapon was always the shorter katana.

I forget how far i had gotten on the arcade mode(if thats what it was called), something like a red and black or maybe gold and something ninja group. Incredible game and besides the original tekken the only fighting game i got into.

 

[Spacelord]

It takes balls to wrestle ninjas for food if they can one-shot you.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Oh, and whoever said the single-player mode is too easy, were you unlocking the "good" endings easily, or just beating the game? I agree it's not hard to just get from the beginning to the end, but try doing it without taking any injuries whatsoever and getting the minimum number of kills possible. That's not easy, at least it wasn't for me.

Other than the general uniqueness of the game (and, yes, the extremely poor movement controls) this is what I remember most; how insanely difficult it was to get some of the good endings. It wasn't even a question of just knowing what you had to do, which was in itself often complex, but even if you knew what to do executing it was crushingly hard.

As for a new BB game.. I don't know, I think it's the sort of think that would be perfect as a high quality downloadable title. Almost a sword fighting sandbox game with different areas to visit and a minimal storyline. It really does seem too "simple" for it to be a full retail game now a days though. I can imagine if it was made and released to retail, it would sell terribly. As a downloadable title for Live or PSN, however, it could be perfect.

 

[Shjade]

I don't know, I think it's the sort of think that would be perfect as a high quality downloadable title. Almost a sword fighting sandbox game with different areas to visit and a minimal storyline. It really does seem too "simple" for it to be a full retail game now a days though.

Hm. A sandbox samurai game. "Like GTA but without cars and working for honor instead of crime?"

I dunno. I'd say "I'd have to at least try a game like that," but I don't own any of the relevant consoles and that doesn't sound like a PC game to me. ... Actually it sounds sorta like it'd be Assassin's Creed-ish in (obviously?) Japan. Without the parkour-over-rooftops bit, maybe, which would be a considerable loss.

I dunno about too simple. The more I think about it the more the sound of this game idea appeals to me.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I don't know, I think it's the sort of think that would be perfect as a high quality downloadable title. Almost a sword fighting sandbox game with different areas to visit and a minimal storyline. It really does seem too "simple" for it to be a full retail game now a days though.

Hm. A sandbox samurai game. "Like GTA but without cars and working for honor instead of crime?"

I dunno. I'd say "I'd have to at least try a game like that," but I don't own any of the relevant consoles and that doesn't sound like a PC game to me. ... Actually it sounds sorta like it'd be Assassin's Creed-ish in (obviously?) Japan. Without the parkour-over-rooftops bit, maybe, which would be a considerable loss.

I dunno about too simple. The more I think about it the more the sound of this game idea appeals to me.

Well, when you flesh it out like that lol I was thinking more in line with what BB1 was, a smallish game with limited but refined mechanics and a fairly sparse storyline. Something like that sounds more like a downloadable title to me. A full on AC2 in feudal Japan with honourable and dishonourable sides to choose from (samurai VS ninja battles anyone?) would indeed be amazing. The question then would be if the generally realistic gameplay of BB would fit in well. Would being able to die, or at least get maimed, in one hit work in a situation like that? Maybe have a selectable "realism" difficulty level?

 

[Moosh50]

Kengo actually had a sequel which, even though it had a lifebar, had a much more realistic battle system. There were two kinds of fights, fights with bokkens and real swords. With bokkens, the lifebars actually had a meaning. With real swords... Not so much. A couple stabs or a single succesfull counter were all that you needed to kill someone. Of course, same rules applied to you.

 

[Shjade]

A full on AC2 in feudal Japan with honourable and dishonourable sides to choose from (samurai VS ninja battles anyone?) would indeed be amazing. The question then would be if the generally realistic gameplay of BB would fit in well. Would being able to die, or at least get maimed, in one hit work in a situation like that? Maybe have a selectable "realism" difficulty level?

Ugh, please, let's not let an interesting idea degrade into samurai vs ninja. ;p

As for how the realism would work with it, well, I'd say it would encourage you to pick your battles more carefully for one. Difficulty level would more likely impact enemy AI than health concerns: when your enemies aren't skilled enough to land one-hit kills it isn't as great a concern, or at least not an immediate one. Armament variety would also matter here: not everyone in Japan was walking around armed to the teeth, after all. Being attacked by someone with a wooden spear is still potentially fatal, but there are more defensive options than facing a weapon of war like a heavy broadsword. You can take a whack from a spear haft in a lot of places where getting cut would be killer. You move up to tougher jobs, you have to worry more about catching an arrow in the eye from a professional.

This could actually prove to be a very interesting exercise. Suddenly (and not for the first time) wishing I had the skills and means to develop a game myself.

 

[TarkXT]

A full on AC2 in feudal Japan with honourable and dishonourable sides to choose from (samurai VS ninja battles anyone?) would indeed be amazing. The question then would be if the generally realistic gameplay of BB would fit in well. Would being able to die, or at least get maimed, in one hit work in a situation like that? Maybe have a selectable "realism" difficulty level?

Ugh, please, let's not let an interesting idea degrade into samurai vs ninja. ;p

As for how the realism would work with it, well, I'd say it would encourage you to pick your battles more carefully for one. Difficulty level would more likely impact enemy AI than health concerns: when your enemies aren't skilled enough to land one-hit kills it isn't as great a concern, or at least not an immediate one. Armament variety would also matter here: not everyone in Japan was walking around armed to the teeth, after all. Being attacked by someone with a wooden spear is still potentially fatal, but there are more defensive options than facing a weapon of war like a heavy broadsword. You can take a whack from a spear haft in a lot of places where getting cut would be killer. You move up to tougher jobs, you have to worry more about catching an arrow in the eye from a professional.

This could actually prove to be a very interesting exercise. Suddenly (and not for the first time) wishing I had the skills and means to develop a game myself.

I kind of like the idea myself. Start out small then work your way up to full on meelee wars. Add the option of doing things from horseback and you can pull off some neat stuff.Admittedly it would look like oblivion or mount and blade but probably with gameplay more akin to GTA. Add in the idea of honorable duels between rival samurai, orders from your lord ot be carried out (which can actually be very ninja like in and of themselves and you have the makings of a great game). Just add in a decent storyline or steal a few from Japanese literature and it's money in the bank.

 

[zana bonanza]

Oh man, this game was awesome. Now I have the urge to go digging for it in the Pit of Doom (aka my basement). You could even cut down trees! I dunno why that amazed me so much, but it did. I swung at my opponent, he dodged, and down went the poor cherry tree that stood behind him. It was a nice touch.

I hated climbing up walls though. It was hard to get do it and if you were playing against an asshole brother, you'd get stabbed in the face before you could pull yourself up.

...oh, nostalgia!

 

[Jack T Robyn]

BlazBlue is misspelled on the bottom of page two. Speaking of which, this is probably the only thread where BB will be assumed to reference Bushido Blade.