WAY OF THE SAMURAI 2
Original Release: Capcom, 2003, PlayStation 2
Another adventure in the dying days of the samurai that focuses as much (or more) on story as it does on its fighting elements
Way of the Samurai 2 (PS2, Capcom, 2003)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Way of the Samurai 2 is another interesting sandbox-ish tale of a town out of the late Edo (waning age of the samurai) period in which you play as a drifting ronin who drifts right into the middle of a tense situation. But this one doesn't really address the things that made the prequel rough to play, and actually makes them worse in some ways.
It retains the "roguelike without the random environments" structure, as you can only snap-save at select points and will have to walk out of town and quit your quest (or make it all the way to one of the endings) to keep hold of any new swords and booty you've acquired for the next playthrough. Die, and anything you're carrying is lost.
The first game opened with virtually no exposition, as your samurai sauntered up to a bridge leading into town. An attempted sexual assault was about to take place, but you were free to totally ignore it and wander wherever you pleased. This game instead opens with a long cutscene of our drifting samurai passing out at the town gates, and being revived by a little ragamuffin who shares her modest lunch. You're then forced to make some important dialogue choices and watch even more cutscene, as the little girl is then harassed by some local goons.
This is done every single time you restart the game, and it's an early warning that this game is much more cutscene- and dialogue-heavy than the prequel. The thing is, it's a good story with interesting characters. It looks a lot nicer than the prequel, too. It still suffers from rudimentary "budget" animations in everything but the combat, but there is much more detail to the backgrounds and vibrant use of color, and the character models definitely look more modern.
I just wish it was in a packaging that was more fun to play. You're virtually forced to watch the same extended cutscene sequence over and over again with each new playthrough, as you'll need to follow the little girl to her home to get the free room and board you need to pass time and recover your health. Breaking free of this early essentially requires you to be very mean to the kindhearted little mute girl :(. But you'll still always have to at least watch the first string of cutscenes. And while you can mash X through the dialogue, if the cutscene has any kind of text choice in it (which most do, even if meaningless) you'll still have to watch it all play out.
But outside of all this story stuff, it turns out there isn't a whole lot to do. Combat is the main feature, sporting the same basic engine from the previous game. You don't get the nice tutorial mode, I guess they assumed that you played the prequel and already know what all the buttons are. It's almost not necessary, however, as it has been simplified a bit and made even easier. Holding R1 to parry makes you virtually impregnable to anything from any direction, save for little bitty attacks like ankle kicks and throws. You can have your guard broken, but that generally takes a string of big hits. While turtling, you simply need to push the stick in the cardinal direction of the enemy's incoming swing (ie push Up for an overhand chop) and you'll stun them and can execute a very damaging auto-counter with the Triangle button. Deep into the game you can unlock some exotic ninja weapons and such that vary combat up a bit, but for the most part there's no point in fighting any other way as it's ineffective and will just get you killed if you're being poked at by more than one guy (which often happens).
Besides the brawls you can get into, the only other thing to do is take odd jobs and random tasks from a couple of brokers. Most of these involve pecking around a particular area for an item that is obnoxiously hidden, and are very tedious.
The sequel also carries over the time system of the prior game, which can be obnoxious and unfair. Time only passes when you bumble into an event, but that can happen without warning simply entering a new area or walking into the wrong part of a place while exploring. You really have no way of knowing about these events on an initial playthrough, for the most part.
But this game actually takes a step back in terms of story quest flags and progression, which seem to have become much more disjointed. My very first playthrough was a great example of this. After the opening fight with the Aoto Gang members, I went to go beat them up some more and try out the combat engine, but was warmly welcomed instead. My first quest as a fledgling yakuza was to kidnap a girl named Kasumi, but when you go to the area you're told to, some other mooks have done it already. I'm not sure if that was actually scripted intentionally, but they badmouth and provoke you like you're not supposed to be with them? So that sent me over to the other major faction in the story, the peace-keeping Magistrate, whose meatheaded captain immediately attacks you because he's a big tard. Between that and their leader getting fruity fresh with me, I decided to wipe them out for their impudence. I quickly found the leader at the back of the compound and attacked him, expecting everyone to come running as in the first game ... but no, everyone ignored the ruckus and let me slay him in an easy but lengthy battle. Then they let me stroll right out of the compound with his clothes and sword with no one objecting. The Aoto gang didn't seem to care about my major accomplishment, so I just fled the city with my booty. Something else I noticed during this time is that your relationship with a faction doesn't seem to register with its mooks walking around, like while working for Aoto you can still get attacked by its random thugs walking the streets if you walk too close to them with the same dialogue you get as a civilian.
All of this adds up to an experience that has aesthetic and narrative appeal, but arguably is just better to watch on a video site rather than actually play. It's very tedious to actually navigate the story as intended, and only becomes really fun when you're pushing the boundaries and wrecking everything nihilistically. A shame as the game has the same sly sense of humor I loved about the first one, that and the quality of the story/characters points to the same writing team. It also has another very nice Noriyuki Asakura soundtrack, a reason to check out a game all by itself. But it almost seems like two different teams were working on the game independently, with those handling the narrative not understanding what they were doing was at odds with gameplay set up to emphasize frequent replays (often triggered by making just one little unfair mistake) and free-roaming exploration.
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