Bushido Ball Help?

[Robots]

Hi, I'd like some advice on how to Cherry Bushido Ball. I always find myself struggling on the final opponent (which usually tends to be Kotaro or Yamada).
For context, my mains are Tomoe and Ayumi, but I've taken to playing as Tomoe.

[benjymlewis]

Go into the settings and turn penalties off, set the wins to as few as possible.
Play in Co-op mode, and you'll only have to win two matches in order to eliminate every opponent and get the cherry.
Winning two matches with a dead-weight doubles partner is easier than winning five matches in singles imo. (But if you actually have a player 2, then even better.)

[Robots]

Thanks for the tips!

[The Letter F]

Yeah, the cherry for this kinda blows, as you're just throwing yourself against the wall until you break through. Here's another strategy, if the one above isn't working for you:
Play as the spear dude (was it yamada?) with the penalties turned off.
When the ball is served, quickly roll towards the other player and attack them rather than striking the ball.
Do this for every turn and you'll win.

If by chance you goof up and the AI scores a point, which causes you to get the serve, just play normally until you have a power shot - the AI's seem awful at dealing with the spear dude's power shot.
Then just go back to the 'wailing on them' strategy.

[Songbird]

The strat to win with the default ruleset is generally to pick Raizo and time his projectile to hit immediately after the opponent returns a shot (such as the serve). With perfect timing, it will hit the ball and the opponent together and score a point.

But if all you care about is the cherry, just attempting to murder your opponent as they're trying to hit the ball, with penalties off, works fine.

[Groversoup]

Seconding Raizo projectile technique, although I actually picked him because his charge attack is the one I'm the worst at dealing with

[Hesti]

Originally posted by Robots:

Hi, I'd like some advice on how to Cherry Bushido Ball. I always find myself struggling on the final opponent (which usually tends to be Kotaro or Yamada).
For context, my mains are Tomoe and Ayumi, but I've taken to playing as Tomoe.

Tomoe is the best character to use IMO if you don't want to change the rules or cheese. Her normal attack has the control you need and enough power.

You need to use the lob shot constantly, because the AI in this game returns shots almost perfectly and if you volley with them it will just continue until the ball gets too fast for you to handle. Yamada in particular gets confused by lob shots as well, and will sometimes be unable to defend them if he gets caught close enough to the center.
You want to lead them to the top or bottom of the arena with lobs, and then try to create the right distance for a shot with a favourable angle that they won't be able to react to. If you can make it a roll shot, even better, although you have to be ready in case they do hit it back.

That's pretty much the main way you're going to score. Abusing your special attacks is great too, but I can't really get Tomoe's grappling hook to do what I want consistently although it can be used to neutralize the opponent's charge shots. Tomoe's own charge shot does fool the AI sometimes as well.

Other than that, it's about learning the different characters' abilities. If they're going to hit a charge attack, you should know where you need defend. If you're fighting Yamada, you need to be prepared to attack his bombs before he can hit the ball into them, and not get too close to them either since the stun from that guarantees a goal against you.

[Hesti]

I've cherried the game legit with 4/6 characters now. I'd be able to do it with Yamada too if I bothered to learn him cause he has broken stuff.

Chiyome though, I don't know what the strat would be. She can't roll, so she has no power shot. That should be okay, cause power shots are a liability when the cpu can hit them back, but she just has no speed on her shots at all.
Another problem is that her ninja dodge which replaces her roll seems to travel a fixed distance, which makes it really hard to body block.
Maybe if you got really good with the shuriken it could be done (one time I've managed to time it right so that it hits the ball back over the opponent a fraction of a second after they serve it).

[Robots]

Nevermind, I cherried the game. I casually booted it up with no expectation of winning and then beat it without continues without using any of these tricks. Thanks for the tips, though!

[Hesti]

Originally posted by Robots:

Nevermind, I cherried the game. I casually booted it up with no expectation of winning and then beat it without continues without using any of these tricks. Thanks for the tips, though!

Good job. After this thread got me thinking about the game again, I've now gone back and cherried it with every character, even the ninja. It's interesting and speaks to the depth of the game how the characters match up; she actually walks all over Yamada and his stupid bombs.