Way of the Samurai

Developed by Spike/ACQUIRE

Published by BAM! Entertainment

Review by Shane Milner


Me and my friends were just hanging out, looking for games to rent and our local video store. We where about to leave, but my friends took it upon themselves to act like big jack asses and ask annoying questions to the people working there. Well the people at the store were actually cool about it, and didn’t kick us out immediately! So we were just chatting and being dumb, when the lady asked if we would like to rest this new game they just got. That game was Way of the Samurai. I had been waiting for a couple months sense I first heard about this game, so I anxiously got out my money and membership card and rented the hell out of that bastard. The thing about me is that I love the idea of Samurais wandering about Japan, getting in tense sword fights. So I would have loved this game if I opened up the case and found a bunch of shit where the CD should be. I would excitedly pop that shit into my PS2 and go into a hallucination like it was the best game ever. What I’m trying to get across in this long, drawn out narrative, is that it is difficult to review games like this, when I am so obviously biased towards the genre. But, I played the hell out of this game in the 5 days I rented it, and I believe that I have reviewed this game fairly. So let’s get on with it, damn it!

The first cool thing you will notice (besides the awesome introduction) is that you get to customize the way your character looks. You get to choose his face and kimono. More faces and kimonos become available as you progress through the game. So with your character selected, you start out into Rokkotu Pass and you find trouble almost immediately. You stumble across a girl being attacked, and you are given several choices. You can choose to fight the gang, ask to join, or just walk by minding your business, the choice is yours and that’s the best part about this game, you get so many choices! Some choices yield funny responses, while others will change the story completely! I’m sure that you have all encountered choices in games before (any RPG, pretty much) but I have never seen it done like this.

The fights in this game are awesome as well. It is easy enough for beginners, but it still offers plenty of challenges each time you play. When you block or your opponent does, you can hit forward or back at the same time and knock them off balance. This will leave them open for a more powerful, devastating attack. You also learn new moves the more you use a certain sword, and there are A LOT of swords in this game. You can obtain new swords from your fallen foes. Each sword also has its own unique stance, which is also a cool addition. The swords also have individual stats in attack, defense, endurance, and life. Once you beat the game, you can keep the sword’s you currently have in your possession (up to three). This is very cool because you need to play the game several times to get the best swords.

All of this innovation comes at a price though, this game is short. I beat it about 3 times in the first 2 days of renting it. However, the nature of the game itself, its okay that it is short, at least in my opinion because with all the branching paths swords and bonus’ to obtain, it would take forever to get anywhere if the game was longer. They tried to give it some more replay with a battle mode. This is kind of like a fighting game, and you can unlock pretty much every character from the game in it. The other downer is that like the game itself (and Japan), the world of Rokkotu Pass is very small. It’s easy to explore and can get kind of repetitive.

All and all, though, this game does so much shit right that it would be a shame to miss it because you are afraid of the length. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in Samurai or sword fights at all. I can see this game become a big sleeper hit.


Sum Up

Pro: Branching story, sword battles
Con: Too short
Graphics: 7/10 The Graphics are good, not great, but they are indeed above average. There are some rough polygons here and there, but not horrible. The blood is there, but is not over done.
Music: 5/10 The opening music is fantastic! But the in-game music gets very repetitive, especially during battles.
Sound FX: 7/10 The sound is very well done, from swords hitting swords, to swords slashing flesh, it's very good. This did not score higher because sound effects as charecter "voices" are weak and repetitive.
Story: 7/10 The story starts out good, and with multiple paths to take, it's even better! To get the full story and understand everything in the game, you need to play all of the paths. However, the story really starts to lose it at the end, when the Meiji Gov't comes out of no where, it gets ridiculous.
Controls: 9/10 This is where the game really stands out! The controls are easy to learn, but still lend you much to learn over each play. The only downside is when the camera changes running becomes kind of awkward, but this is easy to overlook when battles are so fun!
Ingenuity: 8/10 The whole multi-branching story is brilliant! Plus the way you can customize your characters appearance is great! Plus, customizing your swords over several plays is very rewarding. I was very impressed.
Replay: 6/10 This is kind of a downer, the game is short, REAL SHORT! I beat it about 3 times in 2 days. For me, I could keep playing forever because I love the whole Samurai scene in general, but for other players, they might not see it the same way. They add a battle mode, but this seems to be a last thought, not a real "mode". It's really to bad because to unlock the cooler stuff in the game, you have to play multiple times, and some gamers may not get to see that.
Overall: 7/10 Overall, I found this game very enjoyable, and I'd love to play it more. Yes, it is short, but that is almost a good thing with the branching story. Battles are very well done, except near the end where it gets repeditive (stupid gov't soldiers, coming out of nowhere!) I would sudjest a rental, to see if you could stick it out for the long haul.
Average: 7/10


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