the game has celebrated its 11th birthday this year released on 14 march 1997 in japan
even then and even more so today it was one of the few games that actually innovated on beat em ups since street fighter II brought it to attention
samurai shodown introduced weapons virtua fighter the third dimention tekken a whole package and soul blade a true 3d beat em up with weapons and breakabel weapons as well
unlike other beat em ups of its time ( and now) bushido blade echew's beat em up stalwart conventions such as timers life bars fire bals and 20 hit combo's instead it is more ' realistic' a fight can take 1 slash and 1 second to finish or can last for several minutes while hacking away at your enemy
if you hit a limb or if your limb is hit you wil lose th euse of said limb but you can even continue to fight on your knees
th eonly really dissapointing aspect of the game si the smal roster of characters and the speed with whcih you can play through the story mode
the game is too smal for its own good but its great while it lasts and i stil play it to this day

it has had a sequal bushido blade 2 and kengo master of bushido neithe rof which were as good as this

I enojoyed this game because it arguably introduced actual skill into the combat arena. On it's own, I didn't find it all that entertaining, but surprisingly, this became one of our most played party games. At the time, nothing said "pwnt" like a one-hit kill unleashed at that critical moment.