Fighting For It

Bujingai and Tekken 5 arrived today from Play-Asia. I'll start with Bujingai because out of the two it impressed me the most. I didn't really know what to expect going into this game, as I'd seen many mixed opinions on it, but also a lot of very good ones. One in particular mentioned that it was like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Gackt" so I pretty much went in with that in mind. What I didn't expect was a game that has such solid controls and enjoyable combat system. Think of Ninja Gaidens controls mixed with the fluidity and playfulness of the action from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and you have an idea of how this game plays.

It's so unexpected when you first start playing that is just catches you off guard, especially the way that combos just rolls of your buttons and the awesome parry system. If you manage to hit the attack button at just the time an enemy is about to strike you, you parry their attack, landing many a blow upon then, which can then be carried into a combo. The one boss fight that I've played so far is basically a really large sword/parry fight with wicked visuals. The only complaint I have about the game is the rather bland textures and environment, though I haven't played a great deal of the game yet it's just that so far it's very open, but not much really fills the space.

Since Bujingai has had a PAL release it's quite easy to pick up, but you will probably want to try and get it for around $30, because while it a interesting game I've heard that it's quite short and wouldn't be worth shelling out too much for. Just one too look out for at some point.

Now Tekken 5. It seems that Namco has taken a few cues from Sega's Virtua Fighter 4 release, since the Arcade Mode now incorporates the whole ranking system, and a load of other stuff. It's not as well done and VF4 but it does the job. I really wish that the game let you use the Analogue Sticks in the main game, because after playing for an hour or so with the D-Pad I always seem to get a really sore thumb!

Anyway, the game looks and sounds great, I would have to say Arcade quality conversion, similar to VF4. I haven't played Tekken in a while and it always takes sometime to get back into it. As a result I got my arse handed to me a number of times in Arcade Mode. The only real issue I had was that the CPU really seems to take too much advantage of hitting you when your down, and abusing the whole juggling thing. Now I don't really mind this when I've played the game for a little while, but right of the bat it's goddamn frustrating. Other characters are worse than others, namely Hihatchi (barstard). Though it does push you into improving your game, which I guess works.

I really wanted to check out the bonus Tekken games that come included with it, but my PS2 was having none of it and wouldn't load them. So I'll try and fix that and see if I can get them to play.