#bushido blade

Hey, sorry for the long break (holidays + pneumonia, whee), but we’re back with a Retronauts tie-in: Bushido Blade! Jeremy and I just spent a while talking about Square’s 1990s fighting games, and this is a big one, known for its unique mechanics.

Developed by LightWeight under director Tetsuo Mizuno and released on PlayStation in 1997, Bushido Blade is a stripped-down weapons-based fighting game based on precise maneuvers and realistic damage. With no life bars, meters, or any interface to speak of, players go for one-hit kills or disabling an opponents limbs with clean hits.

I included a few shots of the manual highlighting the unique mechanics - controls change if you lose use of a leg or an arm, stances play an important roll, and you can also fight dirty by trying to blind an opponent with dirt. Most combos are tied to weapons, and you can mix and match as you please, but each character has a few special moves with weapons they favor.

In story mode, each character escapes through a castle fighting their former fellow assassins and then up to five bosses in a row. One of two final secret bosses is seen only if you make it through with zero damage, which is quite a feat. The stage layout is also really cool, featuring connected regions of one large location, and because battle is free-roaming the terrain comes into play with hills, water, and trees getting in your way.

All in all, a really addictive and intriguing variation on the fighting genre - and one we’d love to see an update of today.

(Sadly I don’t have an Ehrgeiz or Tobal artifacts to share, as I only played other people’s copies of those games, but I do have one more bit of Square fighting history which I’ll put up soon…)