Bujingai

Bujingai is a third-person beat 'em up/hack and slash game where the player controls the protagonist Lau, exploring different environments, completing minor objectives, and battling numerous enemies and more powerful end-stage bosses. The player can attack with dual-wielded swords, jump, spin, execute magical abilities, or perform any combination of the aforementioned abilities. The game contains a large number of combination attacks, some of which can be chained together in excess of 1,000 hits on a single adversary. While in combat, the player will automatically block an enemy's strike if facing their direction.

However, a defense meter for both Lau and his enemy will deplete after each blow is exchanged; only when the defense meter is emptied can any real damage be incurred. Bujingai allows the player to counter an assailant as well. By timing it with an attack of their own, the camera will cut away to a fixed, posed shot of Lau, then allowing the player to deal heavy damage to the foe. Some tougher enemies like mid-stage bosses are, in turn, adept at countering Lau in a similar fashion.

Set in the 23rd century, Bujingai begins 100 years after an accident involving an environmentally-friendly energy source annihilated 70 percent of the world's population and all of its government. Those who survived found themselves with special abilities harnessed through the energies of the Earth itself, which they honed into a discipline of magic and swordplay. A mysterious and powerful human exile, Lau Wong, returns to the planet to battle his former friend and training partner Rei Jenron, who has been possessed by an evil spirit. Rei has kidnapped the soul of his once-beloved Yohfa and opened numerous portals, allowing demons to overtake the Asian city of Bujingai. Lau stands as the only one capable of stopping Rei and the demons threatening the world's remaining population.

Bujingai was developed as a joint venture between Taito and Red Entertainment, with the game representing a 50th anniversary release for Taito. Bujingai was directed and chiefly designed by Hiroshi Aoki. The game's characters were designed by Toshihiro Kawamoto, whose previous credits include the anime television series Cowboy Bebop and Wolf's Rain. , s-CRY-ed, and Trigun.

The game's music was composed by members of Zuntata, Taito's in-house band: Katsuhisa Ishikawa acted as sound director and composed the game's sound effects while Hideki Takahagi composed the background music. The likeness of Japanese pop icon Gackt was used to create Bujingai protagonist Lau Wong with CG models and motion capture. Though Gackt does not speak any actual lines (with the exception of some lines for gameplay) as Lau, fellow voice actors Kōichi Yamadera, Maaya Sakamoto, and Norio Wakamoto provide a generous amount of dialogue as supporting characters in the game.

Critical reception for Bujingai has been generally above-average among both print and online sources. The game has accrued aggregate scores of 73% on GameRankings and 72 out of 100 on Metacritic. Critics have found the combat gameplay enjoyable and rewarding, positively comparing it to other titles in its genre including the Devil May Cry series, Shinobi, Nightshade, Otogi: Myth of Demons, and Ninja Gaiden. GamesTM summarized, "Spend time mastering the fighting system, powering up your various attacks and revisiting stages to improve your combo scores and the game becomes so much more than just a basic hack-and-slash romp - it's a feast of replayable swordplay."

GamePro stated the gameplay is "both surprisingly deep and unfortunately simple", lamenting that blocking, parrying, and counterattacking belies the ability to button mash one's way through most battles. IGN's Jeremy Dunham also noted Bujingai to have a simplistic gameplay model beneath its stylized visual presentation, but still celebrated it as "challenging, fast, and easy to learn". Reviewers have criticized the game's camera system and its jumping and gliding gameplay, referring to these mechanics as "simplistic", unresponsive, "impossible", "awkward", and "purely frustrating".

Media Create sales information shows that Bujingai ranked 19th among all video game releases in Japan during its debut week, selling 43,116 copies. The game sold an additional 51,549 copies in Japan throughout 2004. Prior to the game's North American launch, Taito had considered creating a sequel. Okumura explained, "As long as the energy of the fans remains, Bujingai 2 will see the light of day!!

For sure!" Despite the game's positive reception, Bujingai did not receive a console follow-up. According to a statement by Aoki in 2010, "the company wanted to go in certain directions... I did want to make more, but anyway, it didn't really happen".