After salivating for months over these beautiful katanas being sold in Samurai Island, I finally decided tonight to get one. 800 Linden Dollars later, I was a happy owner of a Musashi Eternal sword, swinging it around like the Star Wars kid, when I ran into several swordfighters who proceeded to cut me to ribbons. Man, it was fun.
The Musashi katana comes with this beautiful case that makes you feel like a shogun.
But of course, swords aren’t meant for display, they are meant for combat. And the Eternal handles like a Kurosawa movie gone CGI. You get a set of 17 combat moves that are fairly intuitive to operate, even for a tard like me. There’s even a powermove that comes straight out of Mortal Combat, with cool light effects and a swooshing sound.
I learned the basics pretty fast. But I also learned that there’s a big difference between knowing the combinations and performing them in time to cut your opponent before she cuts you.
I ran into several other bad-ass looking sword fighters just hanging out and sparring. It’s very entertaining just watching the avatars go at it, and see the different strategies employed. These woman warriors were deadly and fast.
After watching the action, I figured it was time for First Blood. Even if most of it was my own.
The clever sword fighting system uses a HUD to keep track of your hits and energy. Dashing and blocking are effective evasive moves, but they use up energy. Different sword and kicking moves target different parts of your opponent’s body.
You can watch your damage meter to see how you are doing, or just listen for the fleshy sound of blade hitting skin and the little red puff when you get hit. Finally, one of the combatants falls to the ground dramatically. The other one bows in respect of the dead.
A few seconds later, the "dead" person rises again, fresh as a daisy. Neat.
I fought four rounds with different fighters. The hardest part was using the Mouselook mode, which I hate with a passion. Suffice to say, my avatar must have had more holes in him than a sieve.
Well, what doesn’t kill you….