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[aku:jiki]

I'm almost finished with this game, as far as I can guess, and I have to wonder where all the import love came from. Usually, the import crew around here is spot on and never miss in a game recommendation, which is why I'm wondering why Bujingai kinda sucks.

Elaborating in point form:

* Clashing. What's the point? I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here, because this part of the game just feels so random to me. I'll mash square a little, get his defense down and smack him up some. Or I'll be the one losing defense and backing up to get it raised, and then repeating the clashing.

* Precision control. Lau just floats around, it feels like, without me having much control. Running up a wall or gliding to an exact spot is a pain in the ass because he doesn't control very well in those situations. Worst are the spots where you have to climb a wall and launch a glide off of it in the opposite direction. That's just a big WTF.

* Level design. Sooooooo boooooooring! A few rooms in each part of the level, each containing like three enemies. One archer, one or two grunts and perhaps one of the more "difficult" enemies. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

* Auto blocking. Yeah. Fuck this. Due to Lau's attacks sometimes taking longer than they should (ie, he does two swipes during the second press of the combo, stuff like that), I never feel like I have any power over getting hit or not. And it totally sucks that if an enemy gets one hit in, he can roam free with a full combo knocking off a good inch off my health bar.

* Lau isn't very cool. He never says anything and the style chosen for this game is just...gross. Mixing in pinks and purples where they sure as hell don't belong is not stylish. Otogi's twin blades that leave orange and blue trails look beautiful, Bujingai's dark purple/black and yellow trails just look like a cheap knock-off.

I don't know... To me, it feels like Red played Onimusha and Otogi and missed what made them fun when making Bujingai. So what's up? Where's the love coming from, what am I misunderstanding?

 

[kitchenmotors]

I haven't played it yet (although I want to!) but very much of the appeal of Bujingai is the main character being modeled after Gackt.

 

[aku:jiki]

You can hardly even tell it's Gackt!

In, for example, Onimusha you can tell straight away that Samanosuke is Takeshi Kaneshiro since the modelling looks so much like him (at least in CG movies). But here, it just barely looks like Gackt, and like I said he never speaks anyway.

He is the focus of pretty much all the unlockable movies I've seen so far, though, but that's just kind of painful. He doesn't want to be there and it shows.

 

[dark10x]

Hmm, from what I remember, the impressions really weren't all that positive. People had mixed reactions regarding the game, but there wasn't a whole lot of praise.

 

[aku:jiki]

Hmm, from what I remember, the impressions really weren't all that positive. People had mixed reactions regarding the game, but there wasn't a whole lot of praise.

Really? I had the impression that everyone around here that played the import absolutely loved it, and those scots in that Consolevania show love it too. And I usually love the same stuff these people do, but here I am considering shelving Bujingai forever due to this absolutely crap Cloud Sea level.

 

[bloke]

I think ntsc-uk was hyping this game, they gave it higher score than Otogi 2, I was really looking forward to see what it is it all about, then I played first two levels and my reaction was '???...what is this crap', boring levels, boring fights, boring fucking everything, I stopped after first 2 stages and never played it again.

 

[FortNinety]

Yeah, I thought it was common knowledge that the game was mediocre. I too was looking forward to it (I'm still tempted to pick it up actually).

 

[aku:jiki]

Yeah, I thought it was common knowledge that the game was mediocre. I too was looking forward to it (I'm still tempted to pick it up actually).

Cool!

I feel better now. Thing is, I'm going to review it later tonight and I was still under the impression that everyone loved it.. And in a situation like that, I like to find out what's "wrong" in my thinking before I write. Maybe I'm not playing it right, etc, you know.

This thread makes me feel better about rating it like a 4, though. Thanks dudes!

 

[evil ways]

I played it a bit on EB a few months ago and it was just an easy and stylish looking hack & slash with no depth and a lot of repetitiveness.

The music sounded pretty good, but the game gave me the overall impression that it gets old a few minutes into it.

 

[aku:jiki]

I played it a bit on EB a few months ago and it was just an easy and stylish looking hack & slash with no depth and a lot of repetitiveness.

The music sounded pretty good, but the game gave me the overall impression that it gets old a few minutes into it.

It does get old, but not because it's shallow. The chaining system is actually pretty great. If you stay off the ground, you can keep running through levels building up a mighty chain by the end of it. That alone brings a decent amount of depth in how freely it lets you build these chains.

The problem, however, is that this chaining and chasing high scores is completely countered by the game. For some reason, you don't get ranked when revisiting old levels. What, I'm supposed to S rank it, or whatever, on my first attempt? That makes no sense...