| paleface [sys=PS2; cat=Platformer; reg=JPN] |
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"Bujingai and Shinobi are kinda similar in 3D slicing, and both from Sega divisions."
Funky Chinese-themed sword-slicing 3D platformer from Sega's old Red division, and although Red didn't do that one it sort reminds me of Shinobi in terms of level design (flat surfaces, but fast) and wall-running.
Bug Bujingai is a bit of a weirder beast, in no small part because your extravagantly-dressed warrior is based on real-life Japanese pop star Gackt, who seems to owe much of his popularity to his decidedly girlish face. Sort of a Boy George thing I suppose, except that Boy George wasn't almost... cute. Oh boy.
Awkward sexual orientation issues aside, Gackt throws out some smooth moves, flipping and flying with sparkly magic and wire-fu style. Combat is simple and rather button mashy but the massive chain combos nice and the boss fights at least require a tiny bit of thinking sometimes. The over-the-top visual style (dig the gorgeous and out-of-control trails your double-swords leave behind) and classical-sounding Chinese music help move things along in an agreeable way.
I'm not so fond of the camera, it's slow to move behind you on its own and thus requires constant correction, but the right-stick control is reversed and twitchy. Gackt's moves also sometimes have what seems like unreasonable recovery time, usually when you've accidentally landed right in front of a boss--he just won't move and you simply get clobbered. So you gotta be a bit careful about that.
Overall I kind of like it. The camera is much more of a pain than it should be, and the first two stages have been on the murky and flat side, but the unusual style gets me interested and while you're playing you don't really want to stop running around and slicing things. |
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| | | | Oh, another thing: the save file is over 1 MB, which is completely unnecessary and a big pain in the butt. Boooo! |
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| | | | Well, I'm a tit. RED Entertainment isn't a Sega division, they've always been their own separate company doing their own thing, although they have worked with Sega a number of times (Sakura Taisen, Gungrave). |
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| | | Finished the game and overall I like it quite a bit. Combat is fun once you get used to the camera--not that the camera stops being troublesome, but you at least get to the point where you spend more time fighting the enemies than the viewing angle... well except maybe in a couple boss battles.
At first the fighting seems pretty button mashy (mash Square) but then you find out about floats and dodges and parries and magic attacks and levelling up of abilities, and it becomes a lot more interesting. And you can still mash a good deal. A good fight looks like a rainbow-colored aerial typhoon of sword/claw/etc trails (and you may just be mashing the button, but you don't have to tell anyone that). There ain't a huge variety of enemies but they have very distinct combat techniques and the bosses in particular are rather memorable.
Didn't like most of the last stage as they made it pretty much a string of horribly difficult (for me) jumping puzzles. Blarg. Then finally you get past that and into some tough multi-on-one arena-style battles and it's okay again. |
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