WAY OF THE SAMURAI
Original Release: Spike, 2002, PlayStation 2
Other Releases: PSP (2008)
Acquire does for samurai with this series what they did for ninja with Tenchu, though this first entry is somewhat rough and uneven
Way of the Samurai (PS2, Spike, 2002)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Developer Acquire, they of the (good) original Tenchu "ninja sim" games, launched right into similarly taking on the world of samurai under their new relationship with Spike in the early PS2 era. Though it came out in 2002, Way Of The Samurai actually has visual and structural resemblances to the later Kenka Banchou games (also published by Spike, but from a different developer made up of Data East refugees). It's fundamentally a beat-em-up, but one with a short story in a small environment that you're meant to replay numerous times in "loops" as you gradually power up your character and explore a plethora of branching paths through the events.
Tenchu vets will notice some immediate similarities in the combat control, but you're now at the helm of a clunky robed samurai who can barely jump successfully let alone bust out grappling hooks and ninjer tricks. Way of the Samurai is about two things: your ability to duel it out with other swordsmen, and your choices in conversation and how you handle events.
Each new "loop" you play begins with you cobbling together a samurai from a small assortment of faces, robes and swords - all of these elements expand in choice as you play and find/unlock stuff. Your samurai then meanders into Rokkotsu Pass, a small village noteworthy mostly for its train station and iron foundry. This sets up a rather Zelda: Majora's Mask type situation, except without the annoying time travel. You soon learn that the Japanese government is moving in to take control of the iron foundry, deeming it necessary to supply the current administration's ambitious plans of foreign wars. And if you survive and stick around for two days, you'll also find that this development REALLY does not end up going well for the Pass's current residents.
The story is also in the obvious lineage of Yojimbo. The Pass is contested by two squabbling families: Kurou and Akadama. Kurou are the traditional rulers of the area, but they are ready to hand the Pass over the the government and are employing a bunch of rapey shitheels to force the remaining citizens out. Akadama is a breakaway clan that wants to restore the fading glory of the samurai, starting with pushing Kurou and the government out and building to an eventual march on Tokyo. To some degree you can jump back and forth in working for them, and in fact doing this is part of the path to actually securing a good outcome for the residents of the Pass.
One of the game's big problems is that the appeal of the whole Yojimbo / Man With No Name canon is that it centers on a highly clever and skilled character with great combat ability. As Way of the Samurai begins, you're a crumby gimp who will get offed by all but the most common goons. And the only real answer to that is new swords, the only way to improve your character's various stats. And the only answer to new swords is limited opportunities at random drops, which at first pretty much just means mugging and murdering random people at certain intervals. Then you have to use the swords to learn new moves randomly, but also try not to get killed, because if you don't walk out of the Pass on your own power you lose whatever you're carrying (and a roguelike snap save prevents you from cheating the system without emulator save states).
There is some skill involved in the combat system, but it's at least kinda crummy, don't expect the refinement of like a Bushido Blade here. Tutorials you gradually unlock teach you some advanced moves, like pressing the block button at just the right time to "learn" enemy special moves and start auto-parrying them, but good luck actually pulling any of that off with any consistency. Between the fussy timing and it being hard to switch focus when fighting multiple enemies (which happens a lot), the best option is usually just bulldozing right at the foe and hoping your stats > their stats. The Resident Evil-esque fixed camera angles that jump around suddenly as you move also really do not help the combat situation at all.
Speaking of the camera, the graphics seemed to be heavily criticized even during the early PS2 years ... they have some nice qualities, though, particularly the design of the backgrounds. This also has the unintended bonus of making it quite lightweight for emulation purposes; the typical PS2 game is closer to 2 GB, this is only a little over 500 MB uncompressed and won't choke suboptimal devices with its resource needs.
To "finish" the game, which you can apparently do in six different ways, you basically have to survive a chain of tough combat events (for which you'll need a stock of two or three good swords with moves unlocked on them). Getting to the point where you can survive to an ending is basically a long, slow, repetitive grind of playing the same events multiple times, at least unless you become some kind of savant at the game's clunky combat.
The game has a lot to enjoy. The late 1800s Japan setting, the period where the old samurai order was gradually being replaced by the new empire, is very interesting and underused in gaming (at least in games that make it to the West). The setting is great, it has a very nice soundtrack by Tenchu composer Noriyuki Asakura in that same style. But after a few hours of fooling around I found it increasingly unplayable due to the hyper-focus on grinding sword drops, grinding up said swords, and trying not to get all your work suddenly erased by an unexpected battle you're not allowed to run from (or just plain camera jank). They ended up making like five of these games though, maybe later entries are more refined and plotted out better.
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Way of the Samurai (PSP, Spike, 2008)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
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