Black and White Bushido

By Jon Evans

Black and White Bushido is a Smash Brothers style game, but with added depth and substance. The immediate impact is the art style, the high contrast monochrome and the kanji style typography lends the game an attractive slant. The black and white is also one of the game's main mechanics. At its simplest, it's a multi-player brawler, with the game area sectioned into black and white. You choose a character. The white, 'light' character or the black 'shadow' character. You jump around with your katana sword trying to slash and attack your opponent. You can, however, hide in plain sight. If you play as the light character and enter your own white zone you disappear from site and vanish completely if you stay still. The same happens to the black 'shadow' character. This adds an element of strategy to the game, along with a variety of ninja-style power ups littered around the level such as shuriken and teleportation devices.

​The gameplay is fast and manic, especially if you have up to four players on the screen at once. You also have various game modes including team death match and capture the flag. In capture the flag, if you stand next to the flag long enough, you flip the Colour zone to match your character and gain a stealth advantage. 

The game is slick and well made and has a good level of challenge and skill required to master the levels. It's also great fun as a local multiplayer.  

Black and White Bushido comes out on the 2nd of October.