You've got to be careful when you're putting together any sort of action game that involves the legendary art of martial arts. The reason being this - one misstep in any given direction and you could falter in a number of ways. Slip on tight gameplay and you find yourself muddled with a product like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Don't tweak the difficulty enough and you end up with something insane like Ninja Gaiden (although that's a welcome insanity, mind you). Make it look goofy, like Shaq Fu, and you'll practically be laughed off the market. To date, many game companies have crafted some unique game fighting engines to carefully capture the martial arts, but only a select few, like Gaiden and Sega's incredibly hard Shinobi for PS2, seemed to have succeeded.

Now we have a new competitor, courtesy of the folks at Taito. Yes, the same company behind such classic arcade games as Elevator Action and Space Invaders. They're back with an all new action title for the PlayStation 2 called Bujingai: The Forsaken City and, from what I've played of the title, it packs an incredibly rich combat engine that'll keep you interacting well into the night, unpacking the game's heaping amount of combos and special attacks until you've become a master. And, yes, that will take a while.

The story goes like this. It's the 23rd century, and mankind is looking to create a new source of energy to keep its world thriving. However, the energy they create is too great and it wipes out a huge amount of the world's population, leaving only a meager 30 percent. These 30 percent actually use the remaining energy to make themselves into superhuman fighters, thriving on the power they deem as Skill. Soon, however, a demon dimension rips open from the ashes of the forsaken city and seeks to have the power for itself, sending out hordes of demons and warriors to capture it. It's up to you, one of the best Skill fighters, to make sure that the Earth is kept safe from this new nightmare.

You're armed with a pair of vicious looking swords and a number of sweet spells, which can both aid your character in moves and also cause damage to those enemies around you. Some may think this is a traditional action setup to, say, Ninja Gaiden and its elixirs. But, like that setup, Bujingai has a completely focused combat engine with moves to learn aplenty. You can chain up combos well into triple digits, finish off enemies with stylish swipes and sneak attacks, and also engage in some excellent swordplay, timing blocks and preparing counter-attacks to eat away at their precious energy bars. The gameplay, from what I got a chance to try out, is lively and tight, allowing you to keep faced on your enemy while also preparing for other attackers and timing counterattacks damn near perfectly. It's really rather nicely done, even if your character looks a little strange in their bright-colored uniform. But that's an honored Skill fighter for you.

The game's graphics aren't exactly what I'd call top of the line, but, for Taito, they really do shine, especially in the game's environments and animation. Environments vary from cluttered cities with crumbled buildings and walkways to quiet forests with trees to cut down and tear apart, along with the enemies. The animation is fantastic, showing a lot of detail in the motion capture and allowing for fluidity all over the place. The music and sound effects also seem to hit the spot, setting the mood for the blazing action.

The game is single player only (too bad - a game like this would've begged for an epic versus mode), but it's got tons of unlockable items, including new costumes, techniques, difficulty levels (to challenge those who feel that Ninja Gaiden was a "pushover", all two of you), and video footage showing the producers of the game exhaustingly motion capture for just the right movements. This was fun to watch.

Bujingai: The Forsaken City may appear to be just another action game at first glance, but take another look. Between its impressive gameplay, its slick looks and sounds, and its bountiful extras, it looks to really be a startling discovery, a diamond in the rough. Leave it to Taito to make us stare in disbelief again, just like they did in the old-school days. Bujingai looks to absolutely rock.