The UFO 50 Diaries: Bushido Ball

More like Bullshit-o Ball amirite?

Bushido ball is…not for me

While I'll admit I haven't really given it as much time as other entries in this collection, I am bouncing off it more than I'm bouncing the damn ball during the tournaments.

It's that very specific type of hand eye coordination that I don't possess. Split second decision making required from a brain that is normally a good couple of seconds behind everyone else. It was never going to happen. And that’s a shame because like everything else in UFO 50 this is a game with layers.

I did give it a good go. I tried out all six playable characters. I noted some of the complexities hidden beneath the surface. I even managed to score a few points from time to time, although not consistently enough to win any matches so far.

This is a game about precision, and thinking on your feet. Two things I've historically never been great at. I think at a glance one might be lulled into a false sense of security about what it is you need to do to win a match i.e hit the ball, but in many regards the ball is the least of your worries, and it's your specific opponent that will dictate how you approach the challenge at hand.

Each character plays differently, both in the player's hands and at the behest of the machine. There's the special tools, of course, unlocked and replenished by maintaining a volley; an array of shurikens and caltrops, bombs and grappling hooks and the like. These are an interesting wrinkle in gameplay, not quite Mario kart levels of fuckery, but something a smart person could use to get the upper hand.

As you can see from the character select screen, there are also native stats for each competitor and although I’m not 100% certain how crucial these are in determining your prowess on the court, they do seem to matter. Some fighters handle the ball with a greater degree of finesse, others skirt about the arena at a rate of knots. Crucially, in my brief time with each one I explicitly felt them to play differently, a learning curve that lends the game a surprising amount of longevity considering it’s modest roster and frugal customisation offerings.

Outside of the players themselves there are ‘rules’ to the game, as one would expect in a formal tournament. You can't stall, you can't cross the line. These rules are not made explicit until you infringe upon them, although throwing a spinning blade of death into your opponent’s face is fair game apparently.

There also seems to be a Sekiro style parry system where if you hit the ball at exactly the right time it absolutely wallops it across the screen, but I couldn’t tell you if this is 100% true because I’ve only managed to do it once, and had it done to me a dozen or so times.

That’s the thing that’s brilliant about this game, even though I’m not all that crazy about it. Those layers of complexity. Not only enriching an already quite engaging experience (if you like that sort of thing) but also a necessary function of surviving long enough to win the tournament in the first place.

It's a bit of a swing and a miss for me, though, I'm afraid. There's clearly a lot going on in this game, and I do appreciate it. The fact that the default settings ask 8 points for a victory is a nice touch as it not only gives new players a bit of leeway to find their feet before getting pasted, but it also means matches last long enough for more enthusiastic gamers to develop those deeper skills.

But for me, it wasn’t enough to keep me engaged, and I found all too often my hand hovering over the Block Koala option (which, cards on the table, I have been playing alongside this this week, but words to come at the normal time next week!)

All of this is to say, this is only the second game so far that I’ve been unable to get on the wavelength of, after Ninpek, but it’s one that I do appreciate has a lot going for it. If you like this sort of thing, I think this is probably a winner.

But I’m not, and I’m a sore loser.