Yet more fuel for the bargain bin PS2 bonfire with an arguably even more obscure niche hack n slash title from an even more forgotten ilk, as Bujingai was at least co-developed by Taito and Red Entertaiment, the latter being behind the PS2 Gungrave games as well as Sakura Wars So Long My Love, the Fossil Fighter games, or much of the Record Of Agarest series.
Instead Raging Blades (originally called Raging Bless in Japan) comes from a developer pretty much unknown, Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), whose portfolio mostly consist of this, something called Dream Audition and some racing or idol games that never left Japan, and was distributed by Wanadoo, one of those European publisher that no one remembers but did have a presence back in the day, though i remember them mostly for their logo on PC graphic adventure like the Necronomicon titles, and later a lot of tie-in shovelware… but also the PS2 reboot of an old Tecmo series, Rygar The Legendary Adventure, which i will eventually feature here.
That aside, this is even more distant, because while Bujingai was surprisingly pretty nifty and complex for a 2003 release, Raging Blades also released the same year yet it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, being pretty much a 3D styled take on Golden Axe, its roots in the arcade years of the genre pretty much unfazed by how the genre evolved in the third dimension and especially from Devil May Cry on forward.
It’s so arcade there’s no “Continue” option from the main menu, because you’re expected to beat the story mode in one setting.
How much more arcade can you get, besides inserting coins in a non-existing slot?
You can save, let’s make it clear, you can, but after finishing a story run.
And oddly it’s ok because you can finish the game in an afternoon.
Which IS still far better to have in super hard games like Neo Contra (also on PS2) or that crappy Rocky & Pocky sequel, Legend Of Sayuki, which wasn’t that short and WAY frustrating due to its old fashioned design being badly done too, and as a twisted joke did eventually let you save anywhere…… AFTER you cleared the whole game.
Here it’s actually a thing you can accomplish in a couple of hours at most, so it’s at least reasonable, even if it is absurd they couldn’t be arsed to let you save after a stage, it is stupid there’s no saving in between missions, even if they are this short.
You might think i forgot the plot… i didn’t, i just deliberately didn’t mention it because it is indeed an after thought: demons happen in a generic medieval fantasy realm and so you’re tasked by the king to choose your class/character from an also generic quartet of RPG archetypes (knight, barbarian/axe tank, mage, girl martial artist) so you can go ethnic cleanse the 7 arch-demons and their numerous spawn and-or lackeys.
Or something like that, there is lore and there is text explaining what you’re doing in the next level, but it boils down “you’re the chosen hero of legend, go kills the obviously evil demons and the evil sorcerer that is behind all of this”, it’s really not more complicated than that, and it fits the arcade philosophy for the genre,
Gameplay wise, i’ve heard it being compared to Slash Out as well, a 2000 Sega arcade game for the NAOMI hardware configuration (itself a spin-off of the Spike Out series, apparently), and i can kinda see why from looking at longplays, but i did not happen to play that game before or now, so i literally do not how yet if it’s comparable.
Regardless, it’s still very much a “console cousin” version of an old arcade beat em up that never was but might have, to the point it does feel like a 3D Golden Axe stylistically more attuned to generic high fantasy instead of the dark fantasy, barbarian infused display of sword & sorcery.
You know what this means: lots of knights and armored enemies, piggish monsters, evil wizard knights, generic abominations, dragons, evil sexy darkness ladies, demons, etc.
One would assume this to be also kinda an earlier 3D take on Gauntlet, but there are no exp systems, no moves to unlock, no armor or support items, though each character is basically a different class, has different combos (even if the input are mostly done the same way), more/less dexterity or attack range, so everyone doesn’t just feel but is different to use, for example the barbarian rolls instead of dash-evading in the direction you press.
Not much to explain in terms of the moves themselves, as everyone has a light quick attack, a heavy horizontal strike, a dodge/roll/evade, and a magic attack that pushes enemy back while making the character invincibile, useful to “counter” the bosses doing the same with their specials.
It’s a bit odd how the buttons are mapped, with X for the light attack and Circle for the horizontal slow slash, first time i saw this set up, and while you can’t remap the controls (or have other control schemes available to swap into), you do get used to it fairly quickly.
Wish there was a tutorial or movelist in game (maybe it’s in the manual, which my copy didn’t have) that explained there are some unique combo moves for each character, more than you’d think at first glance, as some specific moves (like timing a precise chain combo with Bud) are quite helpful, and kinda broken…
Speaking of odd, it’s also peculiar how the game opts for a fixed, isometric camera, giving you a mini radar for the enemies, which is also works as a compass/map of sorts, and to compensate how some areas a bit dark, also helping avoid you getting sucker punched or taking hits from things the camera isn’t properly showing yet, or that spawn nearby area transictions before the camera angle has to change/reset itself.
I said it’s a very arcade style experience, yet even i underestimated how arcade it actually is, because on the Easy setting the game stops on Level 3 of 5, it does that old chestnut of basically treating this difficulty as a tutorial… and in a way i almost get why do this, since even on Normal, despite the game giving you what looks like a generous amounts of continues (9), you simply won’t be able to beat the game on the first run, as you’ll need to learn the levels and bosses so to avoid using continues until the very end.
The flipside of the deliberately retro design (even for the time) is they doubled and tripled down on reusing bosses and cheap shots, making levels longer so they can indeed recycle mid and end level bosses from previous stages in order to make you consume continues earlier than you’d expect, they do raise the difficulty curve too much all of the sudden for this, despite the game not being made to guzzle quarters, the spirit of robbing kids out of their allowance lives on…
It’s annoying because the game does so in more subtle ways, like i noticed it’s more likely for enemies to drop health picks up… if i did literally just used a continue a minute or something ago, while you can’t always rely in finding the same power ups in some breakable items, or to find the same boss in certain levels, most are fixed but it depends if you’re doing the campaign as a specific character… and you still could also get an area boss swapped for another regardless.
To say nothing of how for any character besides the barbarian even mid tier enemies can take way too many hits, and often how even advances peons are more nimble and crafty, like the bone minotaur warriors being able to dash dodge, and parry, which you can’t do, there’s no block manouver, while you are also expected to contend with bosses that can guard and dodge, and just are by default faster in attacking and using interrupts of their own to stunlock your ass.
On the other hand, they often can be hit while downed as you can, and yes, this is “cheese off” where the game has been given a fromage advantage from the beginning, but searching you can find methods to exploit the game back and make the whole “finish the game in one go with 10 lives” doable, even if it doesn’t change the fact the design it’s a bit too happy in recycling older bosses in many gauntlets to prey on your impatience and chisel down your extra continues.
And very unsubtly expecting you to more easily finish it by playing co-op with a friend, again, the old arcade method of bringing a buddy (and his quarters) to better dealt with the excess difficulty.
For example all characters have some advanced OP move, like in my case i find out the barbarian has a move that requires a precise timing, but if pulled off can deal a lot of damage and give the character some invincibility frames, and while it wasn’t enough in itself to win me the game, it did help and eventually i was able to finish the game with him,
While i wish it was less cheap and less fixated to replicate the issues with old arcade beat em up, i didn’t end up hating the game.
Yes, it’s a bit too “arcade cheap” at times, but it made me angry, but enough to retry and eventually finish it, as i did enjoy the gameplay, even with the bosses at times cheating more than they should, it’s not utterly unbalanced or unfair to the point of be impossible (actually the game even gives you health back after beating a stage or doing the final stage single boss rematches before the final one), there is some satisfaction, and i was able to eventually get a better hold of the boss patterns, how to better exploit the game back, in a way, you can actually get better and it controls fine.
And i will say that at least the game rating your performance on the level with technical bonuses is actually decently done and makes sense, it’s kinda embarassing that this random 20+ yo PS2 game has it and stuff like the Asterix & Obelix Slap Them All games i’ve reviewed earlier last month play the retro card but don’t actually have scoring or evaluation system.
So yeah, i did enjoy the game despite its flaws, and i do like how every character is actually different to play, plus, there’s a decent enemy variety, the game isn’t too “high fantasy” after all, as the ancient ruins somehow have scifi automatons and even fuckin mecha mini boss and bosses, so you can expect those alongside the skellington warriors, kobolds, weird ass wolf monsters (which took me a while to understand they were wolf-based instead of being weird cave goblins).
The game also looks and sounds decent, though given it’s not that amazing to look at, you’d wish the loading times for every sections of the stages were a bit shorter, but it’s not a deal breaker, the soundtrack is kinda generic but it’s not too bad, and they did bother to also dub the few lore/text explanation/story exposition bits before the levels even in Italian for the european release.
As said before, each character gets its campaign, meaning while some levels are shared, there’s a path with specific enemies that only a character will see because it’s designated for them, some levels are simply not present in some character’s campaign, others are, and often the bosses are fixed… but in some cases are not, so you either get the usual one or another one meant for that, while other times you face different bosses at the end of otherwise shared/reused levels.
So there is some replayability and other stuff to see, though oddly beating the campaigns will make the game ask you to save or not, because you actually unlock more of the enemies to become playable in the other mode on offering, Duel mode.
Duel mode is an interesting one, as in, it’s exactly what it means, you and up to other 3 players duking it out in a battle royale match. There is some options to customize, like teams, time, friendly fire, handicap, so it’s oddly not that thrown together of a mode.
It’s a peculiar…. okay, it’s kind of a stupid choice to basically reward the players that finish the game multiple times with more characters to use in this mode, and eventually some secret ones for the story/campaign too, not stupid conceptually, but i just don’t see anyone investing any considerable amount of time in this mode, even if you have a multitap and hence can have 4 players battle royale matches, given the combat system in place is clearly not made for this at all.
i will give them credit for featuring even the mooks as playable characters in this mode, obviously is the only way they could ever pull of having a roster of 24 players, and of course it’s unbalanced as hell, since some characters have way plenty more moves than others, like some have just 2 puny combos or abilities, others 8-9 super combos or even the ability to block, so yeah,
I appreciate the developers just giving you the option to play the fodder enemies for a laugh, though, i really do.
Overall Raging Blades is definitely an acquired taste, a bit too old fashioned a beat em up /hack n slash even when it released, lacking much sophistication and being a bit too fond of old arcade game designs despite not being a cabinet that will guzzle up your quarters, one where you’d better venture alongside a friend in local co-op to deal with some cheap shots by bosses.
Yet there is some satisfaction to the gameplay, despite its flaws and some odd choices of controls, there is some fun to be had for retro beat em up enthusiast, the characters do play different from each other and their campaign often have specific or unique levels just for them, so there is some replayability, alongside some secret characters and a lot of the random enemies to play as in the other main mode, where up to 4 players can duke it out in a free-for-all, messy, unbalanced bout, pitting ancient mechas against puny trash tier revenants for a laugh.
If you’re not a retro or retro styled arcade beat em ups buff, there’s not really much to recommend, this isn’t a hidden gem of the genre in the PS2 library, but it’s a flawed yet enjoyable game of its kind, and one that can be found used about as cheap as i remember this being back in the day, not quite a costant in bargain bins but also by a niche combo of developer and publisher that it was bound to go there a lot or not retain much of an asking price since there are many copies around and there wasn’t much of a demand as most people never knew this existed until i reviewed it.
Wise Cafe (International) 