Bushido Blade 2: Information from Answers.com Mobile

Bushido Blade 2

Release Date: October 27, 1998
Genre: Fighting
Style: 3D Fighting
Similar Games: Bushido Blade (PlayStation), Power Stone (Dreamcast)

Game Description

Swiftly strike your foes to cripple or kill them in this follow-up to 1997's weapons-based fighter, Bushido Blade. The game includes a total of 22 characters, divided equally between two rival ninja clans. To succeed, you'll need to master different fighting stances while progressing through a series of battles on predominately outdoor maps. Play modes include Story, Practice, Versus, Tournament, and Link. Each character wields one of nine weapons, from a katana and long sword to a rifle and revolver. Bushido Blade 2 also features an option to view the action from a first-person perspective in select modes.

~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

The original Bushido Blade provided a jolt of fresh air for the fighting genre. It was the first game of it its kind that had no health meters. It didn't have any 300 hit combos or any sort of special magical or special moves. Instead, it focused on realistic sword and weapon fighting. Another factor was that you had to fight with honor. And because the original game was so successful, Square thought a sequel was in order. Bushido Blade 2 is the end product and does it reclaim the glory of it's predecessor? Unfortunately, the answer is no but it's not a totally bad experience.

The thing that hurts Bushido Blade 2 is that it's been simplified and dumbed down to make fighting easier. There are a few features like parrying and a 3rd action/attack button that have been completely removed from the sequel. It's really a lot less realistic in the fighting aspect and this is a major strike against it. What made the original so good was that you had to really study your opponent, focus on him or her and use the right stance and parry when being attacked. Now it feels a bit more "arcadeish". And while the areas are still immense, the environmental graphics have taken a critical blow. This is because the characters now feature much more detail and more weapons than in the original game. Their animations are much more fluid but the playing fields suffer because of it. There is so much pop-up in this game that it's almost sickening. Sometimes an object or the entire side of a screen won't pop-up until you're about 3 steps away from it. And at times the framerate really suffers at times and gets choppy.

On a lighter note, there are a lot more characters to choose from in Bushido Blade 2. You start off with six selectable characters (you only had six in the original) and there's about twelve characters you can unlock as you play and finish the game. This offers a lot of replay value and the characters themselves are all pretty interesting. As I stated earlier, the fighters have multiple weapons which is a nice feature.

But in the end, Bushido Blade 2 just doesn't have the style or class of the original. It's not that it's a bad game, it's just disappointing. The thing that irks me is how Square changed the gameplay and made it much easier to kill your foes and to fight in general. Fans of the original game may want to check this sequel out but be warned -- it pales in comparison of the greatness that is Bushido Blade. And if you weren't a fan of the original, don't even waste your time or money on this one.