Bujingai: The Forsaken City

[Kwokinator]

This game is my recent obsession, so I just decided to review it, even though it's probably not the kind of game the majority here play.  Those who read further should be warned though, this is not an objective review.  I try to point out both the good and bad, but I'm very much biased towards the good.

First of all, my personal opinion:  this is a cool game.  Very cool.  Out of all the games I've played, this game probably best captures the feel of wuxia fights, no other game even comes close at this,  IMO.

But that's kind of to be expected, with the name and all.  Bujingai's kanji literally means "martial sword street", and the "bu" in the name is a Japanese reading for the "wu" in "wuxia". Just a little side information.

Anyway, this game is cool, but it has its flaws.  You play Lau Wongu, martial artist extraordinaire.  The time is 674 M.A. (Martial Age), for some reason, and the world is overrun by demons.  There's not really any story here.  There are cutscenes, but the flashbacks are inexplicable and never really tells anything about the plot.  The story can be summed up in one word: non-existent.  Then again, this is just a hack-and-slash, so we don't really need a story... right?  

So, the story is a write-off.  The visuals are good though.  Every time Lau swing his swords (he wields dual swords), they leave behind trails of colourful light.  The combos are very flashy and stylized.  When you start the game your combos are pretty flimsy, but when you collect enough orbs that killed enemies drop, you can upgrade.  There's three levels to his swordsmanship, and they enhance your attack strength and/or lengthen your combos.  Combos are basically executed by mashing one single button, but there are combos that involve a second button that launches the enemy into the air and you can follow up with a juggle.  If you're completely in the open, it's possible to juggle enemies well after they're dead, but you're rarely that open, juggles are basically over when the enemy hits a wall.  

You can also upgrade your magic, and health, and your defense gauge.  That's the token RPG element, I suppose.  The defense gauge is used for one of the cooler features of the game: clashing.  When an enemy attacks, you can enter into clashing state if you attack as he would land the hit.  A circle of light explodes outwards from the combatants, and you basically counter, with the opponent going into dodging or blocking.  This dodging/blocking depletes his defense gauge, and when the defense gauge is depleted, he can't block or defend anymore and will get hit.  At any time during clashing, if you're on the receiving end you can attack to go into offensive clashing, or if your defense gauge is almost depleted, you can press the jump button to evade.  All those combos and the back-and-forth nature of clashing makes combat very stylish, more than what any other game has to offer.  There's also spell counter, when an enemy shoots a spell at you (spells are usually beams, like Kamehamehas), you can act as if you're starting a clash, and Lau will start to swing his swords like crazy, with a black circle in the center.  If the spell counter gauge meets your magic gauge (when you begin a spell counter, the magic gauge is flipped around and your magic gauge is on the right, the spell counter gauge begins on the left), you can press the spell button and launch the collected spell back at your opponent for huge damage.  It depletes your magic gauge, but it's an extremely cool move, and does huge damage.

Getting around is also cool in this game.  Like the Prince of Persia series, you can do wall-runs.  There's two wall-runs in this game, horizontal and vertical.  You run farther than the Prince in both wall-runs, and the vertical version doesn't have you doing a backflip to land on the ground, but the run still ends.  However, you can end a wall-run prematurely and start another one right after.  It's entirely possible to wall-run infinitely, providing you have a wall that long.  I've scaled the entire length of buildings on nothing but wall-runs.  There's also air gliding, where you just glide in the air for about two seconds.  This is basically the counterpart of the flying in wuxia movies, except it doesn't go nearly as far, and it's not infinite like wall-runs.  It's an essential move for getting around the game though, as it's neccesary in a lot of places, especially the platforming parts.  You can also triangle jump off a wall, or scale up a building by triangle-jumping the sides of two walls.  Triangle jumps act much the same way as do the other games that have this, except Lau is noticeably more... floaty in the air during a triangle jump.

Unfortunately, the combat gets repetitive.  This is a straight hack-and-slash game, so all you do is run around killing demons.  There's only a very limited number of combos you can do (basically only two or three, not including minor variations), so the combat can get old if you're not crazy into the wuxia kind of thing like I am.  There's also not much replay value to this game, besides trying for the best ranking you can get.  At the end of each stage you're rated with a rank of A, B, C (I haven't had anything other than C, C is Beginner).  The ranking is based on the maximum combo length, how many continues you used, how long it took you to complete the stage, how much damage received, and how many orbs collected.  You only have a few seconds after your last hit to find another enemy to extend the combo, but with there being so many hits in a combo and with usually more than one enemy on the screen at once, it's not hard to get at  LEAST 40+ hits at any given time.  The cool big-numbered combos are satisfying, to a degree.

There's also annoying jumping puzzles, which sometimeshas you landing only inches from the edge, so if you jump just slightly too early...  You don't actually die if you fall off an edge somewhere in this game though, you kind of just land back on the spot you were last at, minus some health, so the puzzles aren't TOO bad.  There's other little annoyances in the game, like how you can be struck and have your 60+ hits combo interrupted by an arrow-shooting enemy, or how you can be blindsided when you're locked on to an enemy.  When you're locked on to an enemy, the camera is always centered on him, so you can be rather easily blindsided.  Unfortunately this is the only way to do some combos, like lengthy air juggles.  Holding the lock-on button is also the only way to block attacks, but you can only block the frontal assaults, attacks to your side will hit and reset your combo meter.  It's also entirely too easy to be too combo-happy and end up falling off the edge of a building somewhere along with your enemy, although you never suffer damage if you land on solid ground, no matter how far up you fall from.

To sum it up, I'd say this is an average to above-average game, although not long.  It might take an average player maybe 6 or 7 hours to complete, and that's only if you take many many tries to complete the jump puzzles.  There's a hard mode and other unlockables that're unlocked after you beat the game on normal, plus 65 gold coins in total to collect, which sometimes unlocks various extras like interviews. To the niche audience (wuxia fans.  Or Gackt fangirls, as Lau is modeled after Gackt, which was its selling point in Japan), it's a great game, but to the general populace, it may just be a repetitive hack-and-slash with no story whatsoever.  Still, it's at least worth a rental, if only to check out the unique combat system.

And this concludes my first, and possibly only, game review.

[Dracos]

Nice review kwok. =D

Fling it up on the main page too, will ya? =D
http://www.pishoque.net/index.php?module=writereview

Dracos

[Kwokinator]

Your wish is my command, Captain.  The deed is done ^_^

That was actually my first visit to the reviews page.  Never looked at anything other than the forum itself. ^_^;

[Dracos]

It just went up. =)

We're working on expanding the content of the site and making it more accessible in order to draw more people here.

Dracos