In 1984, while many Americans were running around trying to prevent the western world from falling to some new tyrannical totalitarian government, the Japanese were riding on the success of the Famicom to a position of video game manufacturing dominance in a similar fashion to how they had gained a Galactus-like foothold in the automotive industry. This was bad for American game companies like Atari who couldn't keep up with the novel look at gaming that Japanese designers like Shigeru Miyamoto had, but it was good for the Orwellian spooks. They would have fun games to play when they finally snapped out of it and realized that the sky wasn't falling. Japanese games would entertain them until they were adults whose job it would then be to handle the cataclysmic problem that the was the year two thousand bug.

Getting back to 1984, Nintendo was not the sole Japanese video game market robber baron. Many other toy and electronics companies under the rising sun saw the potential in electronic gaming and had started supplying arcade machines and such to what was then a small, but growing demand. The results were a mixed bag of video games that were often odd even to Japanese gamers and are sometimes down right wacky to westerners. However, more often than not, you ended up with a game that was perfectly normal at a glance, but that after extended playing left one with a strange feeling. You cannot discern just what it is, but for some reason you just know it has to do with the country it comes from.

When games were still in 2d and ran on machines that could handle less than 16 bits, this quirky nature often made a game far more enjoyable. A game that was less straight forward was far more delightful. If my review up until this point is emitting such a vibe it's probably just because of the horrible inaccuracy of my little historical introduction. Don't mistake my habit of embellishment for entertaining quirkiness, that's being far too kind to me.

Great Swordsman is a sword fighting game which takes you through the three styles of swordsmanship that Taito apparently feels represent all areas of the art. The first stage introduces you to the game with the easily recognizable, highly refined, and fairly foppish European art of fencing. In this round, matches are fought to four points making this the most forgiving stage of the game as long as the Hitler quintuplets who judge your every move don't startle you. With the simplistic graphics Great Swordsman has, it still manages to depict a fencing competition quite admirably. Everything is there right down to the effeminate left hand position that fencers abandoned only recently and somewhat disappointingly. While you learn the game's controls, the fencing environment provides you with an un-intimidating, fairly nonviolent and almost aseptic atmosphere. At least from a glance it would seem this way until you make your first opponent cry with a flying lunge at his face. Not only will the Fuhrers not be displeased by you savagery, they'll grant you a point for it. Don't worry about your foe protesting the judges' call either. A little telekinetic persuasion from the them will make everyone see things the correct way.

The fiery Frenchman known as Fantin is your last opponent on the strip. His constant, underhanded low blows may upset you more than once before you can overcome him. But eventually, his futile resistance will fall like so many UN vetos. Your pearly fencer will remove his helmet to reveal some rather girlish locks, but more about those later. Bouquets are thrown to you and the game pats you on the back with the best English it can muster, "You are a grey sworesman!" I'd say you were more white than grey but any kind words from the Japanese are to be appreciated. They even saw it fit to randomize the falling positions of the bouquets that rain down on you so that every time you play the game, it can be a new adventure. You are now forced to play the bonus game for additional points before the next actual round. During this intermission, your goal will be to deflect arrows which an archer dressed to match your current round's theme will fire at you. William Tell's overture is cleverly played in the background as you preform impossible arrow evasions with your foil - probably the last object you would choose to block a projectile with other than a hula-hoop.

The Kendo and Roman Colosseum stages which follow increase both the game's difficulty and in my opinion, its closeness to true swordsmanship. Just as the previous round managed to depict the fencer's strip with admirable detail, the Kendo stage reminds me of all the All Japan tournaments I've seen through the magic of VHS. The albino twins that replace the savage Hitler quintuplets as officials in this round continue a bizarre "The Matrix" theme that the bonus round's Neo-like missile negating started. They are far less cruel than Adolf and his brothers. The only disgraceful points they will award you are ones for smacking your Japanese adversary in the balls with an overly low do strike, which I think we can all agree on as more funny than cruel. As a Kendoka myself, I can inform you that this is not as rare an occurrence in real Kendo competitions as I might prefer it to be. The Kendo round is longer with five battles standing between you and the next bonus round. It is also far more cut throat with matches going to the martial art's standard two points as opposed to fencing's four. But stick to the strategy that won you your deadly duel with Fantin and you should prevail.

The Roman stage is quite an unsettling level to be in. The jarring music alone will probably lose you your first fight and it won't be difficult for it either since combat is now fought to first blood. Plunge your gladius awkwardly and robotically into the fleshy half of the toga draped torso of your enemy and the piston-like plebs will pump up and down in adoration. This round came as considerable bubble burster to me as until I kneeled before Caesar, I fancied Great Swordsman's protagonist to be a female. From her high pitched cries terrifying the gonad carrying combatants that stood in her way, to her long feminine hair waving in the wind at the end of each round, it all seemed to fit. But with one half naked male breast, Taito destroyed all my dreams of early video game equality. An other faceless he-man replaced my brave, pioneering, swashbuckling feminist. Oh, and most of the Gladiators had Greek names and not Roman ones... that was pretty dumb too.

Great Swordsman is a fantastic game for a sword fighting simulator designed for a 1984 arcade. It's controls are simplistic, but allow for many different moves and help to show the similarities in three different styles of swordplay. The graphics are superb for the era and the cute, fluke animations will have you playing for hours once you master the game just to see them all. The game is repetitive as the controls and situation you are in are pretty much exactly the same throughout. However, differing strategies and fighting styles displayed by your opponents will keep competition freaks coming back to the game weeks after ditching it in their mame folder until they find away to beat the last swordsman to skewer them. But due to way the final round disappointed me on such a deep and moral level, I cannot give Taito a perfect score this time around. Also, the lack of a two player versus mode and the absence of continues or any lives system of any sort can make the game very frustrating at times. Great Swordsman goes a long way to electronically simulating the mechanics of real swordsmanship, but the soul of the art just isn't there. I must tearfully give this game four Hitlers out of a possible five.

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