Bushido

The Good
Now this game was way....way ahead of its time. The game had simple but beautifully detailed scenery of medieval Japan, as well as fast movements for an action game which was kinda rare (I think) at that time...as many weren't real-time games.

The game is basically simple, although there is a lack of story line as you might wonder what kinda trouble you got yourself into, that you have to fight off a bunch of crazed ninja. You have fight your way through a bunch of ninja with your amazing martial art skills, though you seem to be very "confident" to your skills as your the only one not carrying a weapon.

The ninja come in all shapes and sizes, some carry swords, some throw shurikens. They basically move in a automatic 2 movement pattern (e.g. sword up - sword down), with the difference of speed as you continue to rise in levels. There comes to a point were the speed of the ninja is almost Pentium-like (e.g. 5 sword thrusts per second), which means that you'll obviously be dead very soon. That moslow software would be perfect in this game.

It's also kinda cool that when you defeat your enemies, they obliterate into hundreds of dots. It's kinda like a Matrix movie. As I said...way ahead of its time.

The Bad
Repetition. I forgot how many levels there are, but let's use this example. There are 5 stages with different enemies and backgrounds. After you defeat the enemies at the 5th stage, you go back to the 1st stage. The only difference is that the enemies are faster and sometimes they give you more enemies to fight.

It really doesn't matter much to fight more enemies, but its the speed that is irritating. Fighting ninja that move at the speed of light doesn't give much chance of winning the game...that is if there is such a thing as winning the game.

I do recall you had to fight off an eagle in this game...don't think I ever succeeded...hmmm.

The Bottom Line
The one, the only the forefather of ninja fighting action game with a touch of Matrix.