Retro Friday #5: Bushido Blade

Once again it is Friday, the week is nearing its best part, and it's time for another Retro Friday.

We're dusting off the original PlayStation once again, to check out one of the most unorthodox fighting games of all time - Bushido Blade.

Admittedly, I'm kind of walking on the edge here, since many might not even consider Bushido Blade to be a full on fighting game. And to be fair, it probably has more in common with Arena Fighters rather than something like Virtua Fighter or Tekken.

The movement is one of the most significant differences here. Unlike other fighting games, where your movement is relative to the opponent, Bushido Blade lets you zoom around and face any way you want to. This even plays into the game's title, and one of its distinguishing features - Code of Bushido.

To put it simply, Code of Bushido doesn't allow you to be dishonorable, and one of the most common ways to go against it is striking the opponent in the back, but you also have other dishonorable strats. Like chopping them up while they are doing the respectful bow, or trying the Dale Gribble tactic of throwing random crap in your opponent's face (usually depends on whatever is under your feet).

This dedication to authenticity is easily one of the most interesting things about Bushido Blade, and why it still has so much lasting appeal. Instead of your usual combos, special moves, and other suck things, it almost attempts to emulate samurai combat, but not without throwing some glances at the chanbara movies to make sure everything is not just authentic but also cool.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of combat would reveal that there is far more depth than you would assume at the first glance. Bushido Blade utilizes very simple controls. You have the standard movement buttons, guard button, three levels of attack (high, mid, low), and L/R buttons for some contextual stuff, such as running, climbing, crouching, jumping, and a few other things.

This is where the game is most similar to 3D fighting games. It might not use too many buttons, but it gains a lot of extra depth from contextual actions that depend on the state of your character. Running, sidestepping, and crouching opens up many extra options, and it even has a fairly complicated wake-up options that are very comparable to Tekken specifically.

It was a very smart move from the developers, to enable so many contextual moves, because it ends up benefiting the game in two ways. The variety and flexibility of the system does a great job of putting you into the shoes of the character, which is rather important when you're making such an immersive game. It also has a great amount of gameplay importance, because with so few characters and weapons, you better offer a complex system that encouraged variation and replays.

Small rosters are nothing new for fighting games of that era. Unless you're playing Tekken 3, KoF, or some of the later SFIII/Alpha titles, you better get used to small but cozy groups.

In BB's case, we're operating with only 6 characters, but 8 total weapons. To make sure characters aren't just different looking dummies, each of them has weapons that they specialize in, and that's another layer of complexity for you. If you want to, you can of course just use any character and weapon combination, or you might pick them around each other, which might come with its own set of drawbacks and benefits. Brilliant!

This led to combat being somewhat similar to Samurai Shodown. Single strikes in Bushido Blade are typically even more devastating, but the core principles are the same. You want to maintain a tight control over spacing, and you want to take calculated risks. A Hail Mary attack might just bring them out in one hit, but you could bide your time and try to take out one of their arms, significantly crippling the opponent's offensive power.

The content left quite a bit to be desired. Yeah, there's some story in there, but it's so surface level that hardly anyone ever care about it. To this day, the thrill of the fight is the main appeal of Bushido Blade. When both you and your opponent are extremely vulnerable, but have a high degree of control, it makes every fight, every attack, and every motion so much more intense.

This will be all from me this week, and I'll leave you with another OST track that makes up this game's lovingly crafted atmosphere.