Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Way of the Samurai

Written by Matt Partington on July 15, 2002

Full Review: Hey, now you can pretend that you're important!

You are a samurai. A lost soul, who's come across Rokkotsu Pass. The area is torn with disaster. Samurai clans have turned against each other, and the government is pressing for all their land, even if it means the extermination of the ancient samurai culture. Samurai have lost their use and need in this evolving country, only you can decide your future. Will you become a legendary master of the blade, or just be known as a wandering psychotic? Can you go down in history?

Way of the Samurai is an open-ended game. You play as a mysterious samurai (not a ninja), who happens to wander into Rokkotsu Pass, a small area of land that's under siege by two battling samurai clans. The Kurou Family is an ancient organization that's been residing in Rokkotsu for some time. Since they're in dire straights, selling the Iron Foundry to the government is the easiest solution. The Akadama Clan is a group of rebellious sword fighters. The Akadama are out to take over the Kurou, steal the foundry, and defeat the Meiji government. (The leader of the Akadama also happens to be the son of the Kurou Family ruler.) Who you kill, who you side with, who you backstab, and everything done solely depends on you. This aspect makes Samurai a unique title with limitless potential. Read on to see if the game uses that potential.

Each quest takes about two to three hours. Too short for you? Don't be so shallow. With a wide arrangement of endings, and millions of activities to do in totally different orders makes this game playable for at least six or seven times before it becomes dull. And believe me, you'll play it that many times, if you like fun games. It'll take two or three times through before you'll start to grip what's really happening in Rokkotsu Pass. You'll soon realize the ailments, the treacheries, the backstabbing, the fighting, the blood, the revenge...all the things play into the intertwining storyline, which is beautifully setup. A single thing you do could change the entire outcome of your journey. One time, you might be attacked by a Kurou posse. Another time, you might be in that posse, attacking someone else. Now are you interested?

The first thing you'll do is choose a difficulty setting, then Уcreate-a-samurai.Ф Choose an outfit, choose a face, choose two swords, and you'll be out the door (you can equip three total swords in-game). The more you play, the more things you unlock. Not only will you unlock robes and faces, but you'll also uncover a Battle Mode, where you can fight different characters that you meet throughout your adventure. To get all this though, you're going to have to get good ratings at the end of your quest. The rating system is simply the Samurai Index (points, kills) and Title (rating name). A good Title would be Samurai Legend or Samurai Master; a bad Title would be Heretic or Punk. The Samurai Index determines what kind of samurai you were. A samurai that walks around and kills everything in his/her path isn't a good samurai. While the game doesn't always rate you on being Уgood or evil,Ф that is what mainly comes into play. If you were a negotiator between the two clans, save the samurai culture, and defeat the real villains (I won't tell you who), you'll get a good rating. If you kill tons and tons of Kurou warriors senselessly, you'll get a bad rating. Get it? Got it? Good.

Way of the Samurai first raised a lot of heads when it was announced that it was being developed by Acquire, the great design team behind the first Tenchu games (Tenchu 3 will be developed by a different developer). Surprisingly, Way of the Samurai is much different from Tenchu. But the real question for Tenchu fans was "Is this game the next Tenchu?" While Way of the Samurai is equally as fun, it just isn't as polished of a game. (I just figured that I'd clear that up with anyone who is...interested...ok...anyone listening?...damn...hey, where are you going?)

Way of the Samurai boasts an utterly comprehensive fighting system. It's so deep and complex, you're probably better off just hacking and slashing to your fancy. What really makes the fighting system so broad is all the techniques. If you want to successfully move your way up the three difficulty settings, there's several you must perfect. First, you have the push/pull technique. Basically, this is just moving towards and away from your opponent to set them off-balance. Once you do this, you'll be able to pull off a strong or weak attack on them. You'll have to use these at the correct times, or they will become ineffective. Throwing tons of strong attacks isn't effective either, your sword will simply break. There's also Уjuggling,Ф which is basically just what the name suggests. You'll have to use a combination of weak hits, strong hits, and kicks to keep that sinister enemy in the air. If you do it long enough, their life meter will literally disappear.

Blocking is a major part in squaring off with someone, and it will require precise timing to work properly. If you do it at the right moment, your enemy will go off-balance, which will open up a series of opportunities for you (even running if you wish). The better that you perfect these techniques, the more tutorials that you get to learn much more. But like I mentioned before, the combat system is utterly deep. So deep, that it's almost not even worth bothering. You can get the same outcome with some skilled blocking, and good timing with the blade. Overall, there are more than 200 techniques, and 40 swords.

As good as the gameplay equation is, it's cursed with a very few, but horrendous flaws. Probably the biggest one is the camera. Outside, the camera will tag behind you with no problems whatsoever. Occasionally, you might have to rotate it. But the real problem comes indoors. The camera goes into still mode, and locks onto one area, as if it were pre-rendered. This becomes a true problem in combat, when the camera turns into the cause of your death. The transitions are a real drag also (indoors). The controls become a bit faulty, and will reverse then go back when you walk from one area to the next and the camera has to shift places. Once again, this is a pain when you're in battle.

Another problem is the horrid save system. You get two opportunities to save during your quest. About one-third through, and about two-thirds through. Acquire took a more realistic approach, only lending you one precious life. If you get killed, it's over, say bye-bye. Not only that, but you lose all your weapons that you've earned and upgraded, which is very costly and frusterating. Beside these two things, there are no real major flaws or problems in the gameplay. It's surprising how aggrivating these two things can be, and they result in a series of more minor gameplay faults.

The visuals are blocky, jaggy, and overall ugly. And what might be the biggest problem is how bland the grahics are, but don't let that depress you. The game has captured 1878 in Japan with great accomplishment. But the fact remains the same: the graphics just aren't that good. The textures definitely aren't a treat either. They're flat and look more like they belong on a PlayStation game rather than a PlayStation 2. Most of the organic textures are just reused over and over again, as if we wouldn't notice. This might come to a surprise considering Tenchu had such great looks. Regardless, some of the objects in the area do look good, such as the fences and certain buildings. Certain times of the day make everything look better for some reason. The whole world just seems more dimensional during dusk. The introduction movie is also amazing! It has to be one of the best CG's I've ever been pleased to witness outside of a Square EA game.

I honestly wish the soundtrack was more like Tenchu's. That unmistakable mixture of ancient Asian instruments and modern day effects sounds so good, I'm disappointed that not very many of the songs are like that on the Samurai soundtrack. Most of the music is orchestral, and usually sets the mood for that time of day or that particular moment. A battle song will be played when you get attacked, a screeching sound will occur when something dramatic happens, and so forth. The idea is good, but there simply isn't enough songs. They are played over and over again to no mercy. Whether this starts to bug you or not depends on how easily you get irritated...

You might be turned off by the fact that there's no voice acting in Samurai. Instead, it's replaced by word bubbles and grunts. I can honestly say without a doubt that the word bubbles are a hundred times better than voice acting for this particular title. I'm not sure why, but the grunts are occasionally funny, and with such a large amount of script, the text instead of voicing had to save a lot of time and money. The sound effects are good also, even though they seem to be recycled.