In 1878, the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogun Age and the rise of the Meiji Restoration Era brought an end to the Age of Samurai. Way of the Samurai puts you in the role of a wandering samurai who is drawn into a conflict between the Kurofu family and the Akadama Clan over an iron foundry. As you meet with both sides of the dispute, you can use deception, betrayal, or combat to shape the outcome of the conflict. Pick up dozens of different swords, each representing a different fighting style.
Also in series
Reviews View More
One of the weirder games I've played. You're thrown in a village and you're left to figure out what's happening. There are multiple endings and paths, but when you have no idea what to do, where to go, who to talk to, feels like you're just wandering around hoping something will happen.
There is no voice acting, only text.
It's pretty funny at times.
In a way, it feels like playing through a gintama episode. It's fairly light hearted.
I didn't really enjoy the combat, it felt clunky.
I only got one of the endings, but for me that's enough for this game.
Maybe worth a shot, but it feels very rough.
There is no voice acting, only text.
It's pretty funny at times.
In a way, it feels like playing through a gintama episode. It's fairly light hearted.
I didn't really enjoy the combat, it felt clunky.
I only got one of the endings, but for me that's enough for this game.
Maybe worth a shot, but it feels very rough.
First GOTM finished for April 2024. Branching narrative paths and player choice sound compelling and interesting, but the short run time and somewhat aimlessness of the story beats leaves this one ultimately feeling uninteresting and without any meaningful depth. Lots of replayability, and spending time wandering around and finding different dialogue and story options would've tickled my fancy as a one-game-a-year kiddo, but as an adult with much better games around the lack of compelling narrative drivers and the short run time ultimately left this one feeling like an ambitious idea dragged down by poor execution.
Ele tem um conceito incrível, mas por provavelmente ser ambicioso demais pra época esse jogo parece só um protótipo das mecânicas, ainda sim o combate tem uma complexidade interessante, cada tipo de katana muda a postura e as animações do personagem e conforme tu derrota inimigos tu desbloqueia novos golpes.
The following is a transcript of a Youtube review which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/62UVeiLrMIc?si=jNluQ-ZqpGalOlvG
I’ve been thinking about video game progression a lot lately. Way of the Samurai’s odd structure has been a big part of that but the Archipelago multiworld system has also really captured my attention. Both of these gaming experiences require the player to be far more active in seeking relevant progression, be it determining which clue they should follow-up on in Rokkotsu Pass or assessing what their current loadout allows them to achieve within the multiworld. When presented with a choice in either setting, familiarity goes a long way to selecting the best path to follow. I know which locations open up to me whenever I get a hold of the Monarch Wings, but I have no idea if finishing Dona’s haiku with the omelette line actually makes a difference. As far as I can tell it just makes Dona assume Japanese people suck at poetry. Unlike Archipelago, Way of the Samurai isn’t randomised upon game-start - it isn’t a roguelike or anything - instead Acquire have designed a game that revolves around the player making a big decision once an hour, then following that thread to its conclusion. And for some, a branching narrative adventure where small differences in action have a butterfly-effect impact that lead to different outcomes for the story overall is the Platonic ideal of a video game story. For others, Way of the Samurai looks like a cynical attempt at getting the most amount of game for the lowest number of assets. Whichever the case, the game’s structure is totally unique and absolutely makes it worth revisiting today.
Released in 2002 exclusively for the Playstation 2, Way of the Samurai is a 3D action-adventure game that follows a travelling ronin as they stumble into the end of an era. The Rokkotsu Pass is undergoing a rapid change of governance - whether the people present know it or not - and the player is allowed to navigate the upheaval in a broad number of ways. Whenever the player transitions between scenes the day advances slightly and, depending on the time of day, the player can catch and participate in a variety of events that inform how their adventure will end. Will they fight this crew of troublemakers, ignore them, or maybe attempt to get involved in whatever they’re up to? If things don’t quite go to plan, the player might end up helplessly tied to the train tracks or even recruited as cannon fodder in an upcoming battle. The game features three major factions in the Rokkotsu Pass that are all willing to accept the player as a member on a whim. There’s the Kurou Family, the current top of the hierarchy; a de facto dictatorship who shake down the villagers in the valley for protection money and resources, then there’s the Akadama Clan who have recently moved into Rokkotsu Pass with the intent to dethrone the Korou Family and take control of the region for themselves, and finally the villagers who live in the valley; most of whom have been chased away by the two gangs but a handful are still present and trying to scrape out a life amidst the chaos. The player is free to join and oppose any and all of these groups, leading them through a variety of circumstances with compounding effects. Way of the Samurai also boasts a complex sword-fighting system with 40 different weapons and over 200 attacks, which seems ridiculous and kind of difficult to understand, but most aren’t necessary and some might even be exclusive to the PVP fighting mode. Or maybe they are useful on higher difficulties, I don’t know, I just wanted to see the different stories.
At this point I would normally provide some kind of biography for the developers to help set the scene. Something to introduce the real main character to this narrative, because games don’t just emerge from the ether and install themselves onto 2001-gaming compatible hardware - someone had to make them. But I’ve run into a bit of a problem: Acquire’s strange online presence. The company was founded in the late 90’s and quickly made its way onto the Japanese stock exchange, where it was then acquired by a larger company, and then later sold to another media conglomerate while forming partnerships with other game developers along the way. Not only is the history of Acquire obscured behind language barriers and corporate acquisitions, but at some point a bunch of false information made its way into their online profiles throughout various databases, including things like western names being credited for work that was most likely done by a Japanese person, as the credits in the game would suggest. In a similar vein, I would’ve thought it appropriate to write a bio for the Archipelago developers who have done some tremendous technical wizardry to have created such a robust, generation-spanning machine. But much of the project’s early history is mired in sour politics and the egos of people working on a similar but separate computing marvel. Not only that, but the vast majority of game compatibility work within the Archipelago project was done by community members. Talented and determined individuals who just had to bring randomised Landstalker to the masses in a way that also adds cooperative multiplayer. I don’t think I’d be able to do justice briefly covering so many incredible people who have delivered to me my favourite multiplayer gaming experience of all time, but I am going to gush about it all for a bit.
You can only really play your favourite game so many times before you start to forget what made it so special in the first place. The deeper one’s familiarity with a world the more likely exploring becomes routine, most enemies turn into annoyances, and the story eventually grinds to dust. I love Hollow Knight and I’ve played it a lot, but I haven’t really touched the vanilla game in a couple years. I know where to go and where to avoid until later which means Hallownest’s wonder and mystery are gone. Until Silksong comes out. Randomisers help to restore some of that mystery while also requiring creative routing through a part of the world that probably hadn’t been designed for the player’s current mobility tools. Combine all of that with Doom’s items, randomised Minecraft recipes, and a Super Metroid playthrough and suddenly it’s all new again. The Dung Defender’s stinky charm doesn’t drop from the ceiling of the room after he gets Team Rocket blasted into the distance, this time it’s a BFG, or the bucket recipe, or the 80th pack of missiles. The system even saves the multiworld progress so one player can load up a playthrough of all 56 currently supported games and even throw in 15 extra playthroughs of Kingdom Hearts 2 because you just love Donald Duck so god damn much you fuckin’ lunatic Disney-adult maniac- and Archipelago will let you log in and out whenever you want. But it’s also possible to play simultaneous multiplayer too! Colloquially known as “sync games,” a group of players hop into a voice channel and communicate which items they need and when so the other members of the group can go collect them. And with the right settings most groups can get a full multiworld done in around 2 hours, which is crazy! It genuinely breathes new life into some of my most played out games and I seriously cannot recommend it enough. The website has a list of every compatible title and I’ll also put a link to the Discord server in the description in case you want to try it out and craft your own stories. But now, back to drudgery.
Aside from the ronin’s death and the ronin just leaving on their own, there are six endings to find within Way of the Samurai, which itself is a bit of an illusion. I’d argue that there are only two significantly different endings that don’t just change when each major character is killed. Every storyline is only an hour long and none of them are that special or interesting individually, so I’m not spoiling anything of any consequence. The first ending I found and I think the most natural path to follow would be siding with the villagers in the Station. When the player enters the game world the very first event they’ll come across is the attempted kidnapping on the bridge. Stopping to rescue Suzu momentarily swerves the Kurou Family related paths, since Tsubohachi won’t let the player enter their territory after this confrontation. Winning the battle isn’t necessary since Dona will save Suzu if the player fails to, and surrender only detours the player slightly provided they manage to convince the passersby to untie them. After some relatively unimportant posturing between the various clans in the area, the player convinces Suzu, her grandfather, Dojima the blacksmith, and Dona to follow them out of the Station and then the credits play. This is probably the ‘best’ ending where all the sympathetic characters get to live, but it’s massively underwhelming. It takes an hour to convince four people that maybe they should leave the Rokkotsu Pass, and then they do. The other paths all end with the ronin and a buddy from the Kurou Family or the Akadama Clan or both dying honourably at the hands of the Meiji army who have come to annex the pass into the government’s territory. I skimmed over all of that because, despite there being a really easy and obvious way to add depth to the characters the player will meet over and over while seeking out different endings, every single person in this game is paper thin. Dona wants to be a samurai and marry Suzu. Suzu is a damsel in distress and acts only as a prize to be won. Dojima is just some dude who watches stuff happen and that’s basically it. He used to be in the army so he knows there’s a government spy among the Akadama people, which if he didn’t know would mean this entire character lives to be the blacksmith and nothing else. The Akadama Clan wants to take over the valley from the Kurou Family because one of their leaders is the child of Tesshin, the Kurou leader. Like, that’s it. The Akadama have no more motivation or pivotal conflict besides that. Tesshin wants to sell land to the government but the government agent flakes on the deal and decides to take it violently instead. The game holds this stuff back like these are valuable pieces of information that alter how the player is thinking about these people. Like the player is going to become more sympathetic to the Kurou after learning that they want to sell their old steel mill to the government. The Akadama Clan could just want territory with residents to extort, using the word “revenge” hasn’t made that motivation more meaningful. And since the conceit of this whole game is following storylines to their conclusion and then picking up a new one on the next run, I think it’s a huge problem that none of the characters are written all that well and that the stories themselves are bland and forgettable. If this were a roguelike then the weakness of the narrative wouldn’t be such an issue - Way of the Samurai’s combat could be the star of the show instead.
The combat system in Way of the Samurai functions in a similar way to the first Tekken game, of all things. With a drawn sword and an enemy in the ronin’s sights, the player’s movements are restricted almost to a 2D line with the option to sidestep. Different attacks are triggered by specific inputs which not only depend on the type of weapon the player has equipped, but also requires the ronin to “learn” them by trying to do them in battle. They never get more complex than two or three inputs, but that’s still in line with the original Tekken movesets. All these attacks don’t really change how the combat flows which is why I said they weren’t overly necessary earlier. Different attacks don’t combine together so any attack that lands does its damage, then the combat resets to neutral. The more impactful combat mechanic is pushing and pulling the opponent to cause them to stumble. I didn’t notice any visual indicator for the player to tell whether the enemy was susceptible to a push or a pull, but with enough trial and error I was able to figure out which enemies were push and which were pull. Picking the correct option causes the enemy to enter a brief period of vulnerability - allowing the player to get an extra hit in. The defender can also push and pull their opponent, keeping this layer of interaction even throughout the more passive moments in combat. The advantage gained from pushes and pulls can be decisive and it naturally goes both ways, but a problem arises when the player loses too many of these interactions and is killed. The ronin’s death is considered an independent ending, regardless of the tasks the player completed beforehand. And because the game recognises an ending has been reached, any save data from the previous run is deleted to allow the player to start over again. So if the player pursues a thread all the way to the final showdown and gets unlucky or makes a mistake or can’t find enough vegetables to eat to heal up, that entire hour of progress is lost with no way of getting it back. I didn’t die too often, but if I was going to die it’d almost always be right near the ending I was chasing which completely killed my motivation to play and then I’d turn Way of the Samurai off. Eventually I did see all the endings and all of the models in the game, which are okay. It’s a PS2 game but the palette is very bland.
This game was released in 2002, the year of Vice City, Metroid Prime, and Morrowind, and while it lacks the scale of these games, Way of the Samurai’s visuals are at least on par with the top of the pile. Prime does have phenomenal style and direction over Acquire’s game, and I think having Tommy Talerico on board definitely contributed to Prime’s tremendous overall presentation, but I think we should probably stay on topic. Way of the Samurai’s character models are solid and the combat animations are great all around - a genuine achievement. Animation outside of combat is often a bit wooden and sadly never gets as action-figurey as stuff like Rune, so it’s just kind of boring to watch. And most of the environments are plain and boring too. The PS2 can handle much broader palettes and there are even examples of Japanese forests with a greater range of colourful plants and even some totally necessary god-rays. The rest of the Rokkotsu Pass is in decline and generally abandoned so the muted colours are appropriate, but why the Korou Family live in a big pit in a drab little house is very strange considering they’re supposed to be shaking the villagers down for all of their riches. Is the palette being used in a metaphorical way to signify the end of this era of Japanese history, the colours literally holding onto a time that ceases in this very moment? Or did Acquire just go for drab colours because that’s how you make things look more realistic? It makes sense for the Akadama clan to be based in a rickety old barn or something, and their mansion is sort of run down, but it’s hard to even say if that was a deliberate design choice or if the game just looks like that. And don’t get me started on Kitcho’s design. It’s a badass ‘fit but it cannot be historically appropriate. Kitcho standing there in his black jeans, string vest, and killer jacket while the ronin runs around in his kimono is a weird collision of fashion that I’m kind of into. But Kitcho might just be the real time traveller here.
Way of the Samurai was Acquire’s first game on Playstation 2. It was also the third game the company ever released and it was their first not to be specifically focussed on stealth. The video game industry was doing very well during the early 2000s, with Sony’s new console becoming one of the most ubiquitous electronics in homes worldwide. There was plenty of money to be made developing video games, and Acquire had shareholders to satisfy. My cynical brain wants me to say that Way of the Samurai was made to stretch a relatively small budget into a video game with enough content to sate consumers and make out with the highest yield for the company’s shareholders. I think many of the combat animations were either made during Acquire’s time as a motion-capture company or for their Tenchu games. That would explain how the combat can look as smooth and natural as it does, while the conversation scenes have characters’ heads swivel around like they’re owls. All of the environments are small, lacking in detail, and are reused often. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with reusing assets to make a game - I’d encourage it, actually - just something about the way Acquire has done it gets my cynicism going.
Ultimately, I think Way of the Samurai tried something really interesting and unique, but this first attempt doesn’t quite live up to the strength of the idea. RPGs that divide narratively based on whatever choices the player makes are already compelling enough for players to regularly replay games just to see what else they could do - designing an entire game around that should be a recipe for success, but Way of the Samurai lacks compelling events. I don’t need to see the two sides of a dude pushing a pram through the wilderness, neither eventuality is that exciting. And the short runtime makes discerning between events that lead to particular endings difficult. The Meiji government soldiers are always going to show up at the end no matter how effective a negotiator the ronin is. Overall, I don’t think Acquire are happy with how this first game ended up and I’ve seen that the rest of the series expands a lot on this first attempt, which is good. But it’s also a shame, for me I mean, because when do I ever play sequels?
This next game is some wild tactics thing.
I’ve been thinking about video game progression a lot lately. Way of the Samurai’s odd structure has been a big part of that but the Archipelago multiworld system has also really captured my attention. Both of these gaming experiences require the player to be far more active in seeking relevant progression, be it determining which clue they should follow-up on in Rokkotsu Pass or assessing what their current loadout allows them to achieve within the multiworld. When presented with a choice in either setting, familiarity goes a long way to selecting the best path to follow. I know which locations open up to me whenever I get a hold of the Monarch Wings, but I have no idea if finishing Dona’s haiku with the omelette line actually makes a difference. As far as I can tell it just makes Dona assume Japanese people suck at poetry. Unlike Archipelago, Way of the Samurai isn’t randomised upon game-start - it isn’t a roguelike or anything - instead Acquire have designed a game that revolves around the player making a big decision once an hour, then following that thread to its conclusion. And for some, a branching narrative adventure where small differences in action have a butterfly-effect impact that lead to different outcomes for the story overall is the Platonic ideal of a video game story. For others, Way of the Samurai looks like a cynical attempt at getting the most amount of game for the lowest number of assets. Whichever the case, the game’s structure is totally unique and absolutely makes it worth revisiting today.
Released in 2002 exclusively for the Playstation 2, Way of the Samurai is a 3D action-adventure game that follows a travelling ronin as they stumble into the end of an era. The Rokkotsu Pass is undergoing a rapid change of governance - whether the people present know it or not - and the player is allowed to navigate the upheaval in a broad number of ways. Whenever the player transitions between scenes the day advances slightly and, depending on the time of day, the player can catch and participate in a variety of events that inform how their adventure will end. Will they fight this crew of troublemakers, ignore them, or maybe attempt to get involved in whatever they’re up to? If things don’t quite go to plan, the player might end up helplessly tied to the train tracks or even recruited as cannon fodder in an upcoming battle. The game features three major factions in the Rokkotsu Pass that are all willing to accept the player as a member on a whim. There’s the Kurou Family, the current top of the hierarchy; a de facto dictatorship who shake down the villagers in the valley for protection money and resources, then there’s the Akadama Clan who have recently moved into Rokkotsu Pass with the intent to dethrone the Korou Family and take control of the region for themselves, and finally the villagers who live in the valley; most of whom have been chased away by the two gangs but a handful are still present and trying to scrape out a life amidst the chaos. The player is free to join and oppose any and all of these groups, leading them through a variety of circumstances with compounding effects. Way of the Samurai also boasts a complex sword-fighting system with 40 different weapons and over 200 attacks, which seems ridiculous and kind of difficult to understand, but most aren’t necessary and some might even be exclusive to the PVP fighting mode. Or maybe they are useful on higher difficulties, I don’t know, I just wanted to see the different stories.
At this point I would normally provide some kind of biography for the developers to help set the scene. Something to introduce the real main character to this narrative, because games don’t just emerge from the ether and install themselves onto 2001-gaming compatible hardware - someone had to make them. But I’ve run into a bit of a problem: Acquire’s strange online presence. The company was founded in the late 90’s and quickly made its way onto the Japanese stock exchange, where it was then acquired by a larger company, and then later sold to another media conglomerate while forming partnerships with other game developers along the way. Not only is the history of Acquire obscured behind language barriers and corporate acquisitions, but at some point a bunch of false information made its way into their online profiles throughout various databases, including things like western names being credited for work that was most likely done by a Japanese person, as the credits in the game would suggest. In a similar vein, I would’ve thought it appropriate to write a bio for the Archipelago developers who have done some tremendous technical wizardry to have created such a robust, generation-spanning machine. But much of the project’s early history is mired in sour politics and the egos of people working on a similar but separate computing marvel. Not only that, but the vast majority of game compatibility work within the Archipelago project was done by community members. Talented and determined individuals who just had to bring randomised Landstalker to the masses in a way that also adds cooperative multiplayer. I don’t think I’d be able to do justice briefly covering so many incredible people who have delivered to me my favourite multiplayer gaming experience of all time, but I am going to gush about it all for a bit.
You can only really play your favourite game so many times before you start to forget what made it so special in the first place. The deeper one’s familiarity with a world the more likely exploring becomes routine, most enemies turn into annoyances, and the story eventually grinds to dust. I love Hollow Knight and I’ve played it a lot, but I haven’t really touched the vanilla game in a couple years. I know where to go and where to avoid until later which means Hallownest’s wonder and mystery are gone. Until Silksong comes out. Randomisers help to restore some of that mystery while also requiring creative routing through a part of the world that probably hadn’t been designed for the player’s current mobility tools. Combine all of that with Doom’s items, randomised Minecraft recipes, and a Super Metroid playthrough and suddenly it’s all new again. The Dung Defender’s stinky charm doesn’t drop from the ceiling of the room after he gets Team Rocket blasted into the distance, this time it’s a BFG, or the bucket recipe, or the 80th pack of missiles. The system even saves the multiworld progress so one player can load up a playthrough of all 56 currently supported games and even throw in 15 extra playthroughs of Kingdom Hearts 2 because you just love Donald Duck so god damn much you fuckin’ lunatic Disney-adult maniac- and Archipelago will let you log in and out whenever you want. But it’s also possible to play simultaneous multiplayer too! Colloquially known as “sync games,” a group of players hop into a voice channel and communicate which items they need and when so the other members of the group can go collect them. And with the right settings most groups can get a full multiworld done in around 2 hours, which is crazy! It genuinely breathes new life into some of my most played out games and I seriously cannot recommend it enough. The website has a list of every compatible title and I’ll also put a link to the Discord server in the description in case you want to try it out and craft your own stories. But now, back to drudgery.
Aside from the ronin’s death and the ronin just leaving on their own, there are six endings to find within Way of the Samurai, which itself is a bit of an illusion. I’d argue that there are only two significantly different endings that don’t just change when each major character is killed. Every storyline is only an hour long and none of them are that special or interesting individually, so I’m not spoiling anything of any consequence. The first ending I found and I think the most natural path to follow would be siding with the villagers in the Station. When the player enters the game world the very first event they’ll come across is the attempted kidnapping on the bridge. Stopping to rescue Suzu momentarily swerves the Kurou Family related paths, since Tsubohachi won’t let the player enter their territory after this confrontation. Winning the battle isn’t necessary since Dona will save Suzu if the player fails to, and surrender only detours the player slightly provided they manage to convince the passersby to untie them. After some relatively unimportant posturing between the various clans in the area, the player convinces Suzu, her grandfather, Dojima the blacksmith, and Dona to follow them out of the Station and then the credits play. This is probably the ‘best’ ending where all the sympathetic characters get to live, but it’s massively underwhelming. It takes an hour to convince four people that maybe they should leave the Rokkotsu Pass, and then they do. The other paths all end with the ronin and a buddy from the Kurou Family or the Akadama Clan or both dying honourably at the hands of the Meiji army who have come to annex the pass into the government’s territory. I skimmed over all of that because, despite there being a really easy and obvious way to add depth to the characters the player will meet over and over while seeking out different endings, every single person in this game is paper thin. Dona wants to be a samurai and marry Suzu. Suzu is a damsel in distress and acts only as a prize to be won. Dojima is just some dude who watches stuff happen and that’s basically it. He used to be in the army so he knows there’s a government spy among the Akadama people, which if he didn’t know would mean this entire character lives to be the blacksmith and nothing else. The Akadama Clan wants to take over the valley from the Kurou Family because one of their leaders is the child of Tesshin, the Kurou leader. Like, that’s it. The Akadama have no more motivation or pivotal conflict besides that. Tesshin wants to sell land to the government but the government agent flakes on the deal and decides to take it violently instead. The game holds this stuff back like these are valuable pieces of information that alter how the player is thinking about these people. Like the player is going to become more sympathetic to the Kurou after learning that they want to sell their old steel mill to the government. The Akadama Clan could just want territory with residents to extort, using the word “revenge” hasn’t made that motivation more meaningful. And since the conceit of this whole game is following storylines to their conclusion and then picking up a new one on the next run, I think it’s a huge problem that none of the characters are written all that well and that the stories themselves are bland and forgettable. If this were a roguelike then the weakness of the narrative wouldn’t be such an issue - Way of the Samurai’s combat could be the star of the show instead.
The combat system in Way of the Samurai functions in a similar way to the first Tekken game, of all things. With a drawn sword and an enemy in the ronin’s sights, the player’s movements are restricted almost to a 2D line with the option to sidestep. Different attacks are triggered by specific inputs which not only depend on the type of weapon the player has equipped, but also requires the ronin to “learn” them by trying to do them in battle. They never get more complex than two or three inputs, but that’s still in line with the original Tekken movesets. All these attacks don’t really change how the combat flows which is why I said they weren’t overly necessary earlier. Different attacks don’t combine together so any attack that lands does its damage, then the combat resets to neutral. The more impactful combat mechanic is pushing and pulling the opponent to cause them to stumble. I didn’t notice any visual indicator for the player to tell whether the enemy was susceptible to a push or a pull, but with enough trial and error I was able to figure out which enemies were push and which were pull. Picking the correct option causes the enemy to enter a brief period of vulnerability - allowing the player to get an extra hit in. The defender can also push and pull their opponent, keeping this layer of interaction even throughout the more passive moments in combat. The advantage gained from pushes and pulls can be decisive and it naturally goes both ways, but a problem arises when the player loses too many of these interactions and is killed. The ronin’s death is considered an independent ending, regardless of the tasks the player completed beforehand. And because the game recognises an ending has been reached, any save data from the previous run is deleted to allow the player to start over again. So if the player pursues a thread all the way to the final showdown and gets unlucky or makes a mistake or can’t find enough vegetables to eat to heal up, that entire hour of progress is lost with no way of getting it back. I didn’t die too often, but if I was going to die it’d almost always be right near the ending I was chasing which completely killed my motivation to play and then I’d turn Way of the Samurai off. Eventually I did see all the endings and all of the models in the game, which are okay. It’s a PS2 game but the palette is very bland.
This game was released in 2002, the year of Vice City, Metroid Prime, and Morrowind, and while it lacks the scale of these games, Way of the Samurai’s visuals are at least on par with the top of the pile. Prime does have phenomenal style and direction over Acquire’s game, and I think having Tommy Talerico on board definitely contributed to Prime’s tremendous overall presentation, but I think we should probably stay on topic. Way of the Samurai’s character models are solid and the combat animations are great all around - a genuine achievement. Animation outside of combat is often a bit wooden and sadly never gets as action-figurey as stuff like Rune, so it’s just kind of boring to watch. And most of the environments are plain and boring too. The PS2 can handle much broader palettes and there are even examples of Japanese forests with a greater range of colourful plants and even some totally necessary god-rays. The rest of the Rokkotsu Pass is in decline and generally abandoned so the muted colours are appropriate, but why the Korou Family live in a big pit in a drab little house is very strange considering they’re supposed to be shaking the villagers down for all of their riches. Is the palette being used in a metaphorical way to signify the end of this era of Japanese history, the colours literally holding onto a time that ceases in this very moment? Or did Acquire just go for drab colours because that’s how you make things look more realistic? It makes sense for the Akadama clan to be based in a rickety old barn or something, and their mansion is sort of run down, but it’s hard to even say if that was a deliberate design choice or if the game just looks like that. And don’t get me started on Kitcho’s design. It’s a badass ‘fit but it cannot be historically appropriate. Kitcho standing there in his black jeans, string vest, and killer jacket while the ronin runs around in his kimono is a weird collision of fashion that I’m kind of into. But Kitcho might just be the real time traveller here.
Way of the Samurai was Acquire’s first game on Playstation 2. It was also the third game the company ever released and it was their first not to be specifically focussed on stealth. The video game industry was doing very well during the early 2000s, with Sony’s new console becoming one of the most ubiquitous electronics in homes worldwide. There was plenty of money to be made developing video games, and Acquire had shareholders to satisfy. My cynical brain wants me to say that Way of the Samurai was made to stretch a relatively small budget into a video game with enough content to sate consumers and make out with the highest yield for the company’s shareholders. I think many of the combat animations were either made during Acquire’s time as a motion-capture company or for their Tenchu games. That would explain how the combat can look as smooth and natural as it does, while the conversation scenes have characters’ heads swivel around like they’re owls. All of the environments are small, lacking in detail, and are reused often. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with reusing assets to make a game - I’d encourage it, actually - just something about the way Acquire has done it gets my cynicism going.
Ultimately, I think Way of the Samurai tried something really interesting and unique, but this first attempt doesn’t quite live up to the strength of the idea. RPGs that divide narratively based on whatever choices the player makes are already compelling enough for players to regularly replay games just to see what else they could do - designing an entire game around that should be a recipe for success, but Way of the Samurai lacks compelling events. I don’t need to see the two sides of a dude pushing a pram through the wilderness, neither eventuality is that exciting. And the short runtime makes discerning between events that lead to particular endings difficult. The Meiji government soldiers are always going to show up at the end no matter how effective a negotiator the ronin is. Overall, I don’t think Acquire are happy with how this first game ended up and I’ve seen that the rest of the series expands a lot on this first attempt, which is good. But it’s also a shame, for me I mean, because when do I ever play sequels?
This next game is some wild tactics thing.
cowards use this website and give games like this a 3.5 like they are Protectors of videogaminges Honour. they will say things like this game is 'empty' and 'short' but then also say it is 'slow'. these people are full of stuff and nonsense. this game is a 5 STAR PS2 BANGER
the game is an artfully arranged series of story events that can be experienced in sequence, and each plotline can be followed from location to location allowing to to influence it OR NOT. one of the many brilliant facets of this games genius is thst all of these plots will culminate whether you choose to be a part of them OR NOT. there is a genre tag on steam called "choices matter". ostensibly choices matter to gamers, but it seems to me that the silk-bibbed gamer babies would prefer that their choices be presented as options on a dinner menu, chosen and then having the expected outcome served on a plate. WAY OF THE SAMURAI IS BETTER THAN THAT. in this game your choices matter in the way our human life Choices matter: they dont, but we make em anyway and consequences rattle out of the series of boxes and switches we futz with all day. you will fuck around too much and get killed by a bald weirdo. you may end up facing down a line of cannons with this cum-inflated bimbo. you may have to protect an innocent babe on a smoky battlefield.........
the thing is, this game is also super fun to play. the strikes have that weight to them that the modern souls fans love. big chunky sword slaps that send ketchup-thick gouts of blood flying everywhere. and its chock full of weapons all with their own move sets! and you unlock new moves by figuring "hey i bet this works", and sometimes it does! and it has this like, quasiroguelike quality where you can end your run early to store some good swords you found.....because you lose em if you die. you can even do goony shit like having aforementioned blacksmith bbygirl fix up your shit to the next level, not pay him, kill his ass, and restart! with your Next Level $hit!!
the map is small, but easy to memorize. the environments may look a little rudimentary, but they are also easily navigable especially when fights break out. to me, these aspects compliment the core Loop of memorizing where and when different events occur and Yojimbo'ing your way to different endings. i think its fair to criticize the story as being moderately generic and a rip off of a movie.....but all video game stories were rip offs of movies back then. it was the style at the time. i dont think its really fair to knock it for that when people still to this day claim Alan Wake is Good.
ultimately, i think this game is genuinely top 20 on the system. a Legit action classic. future games om the series are worth a look, but to me it never hit the lofty heights of this shit. its the video game equivalent of the best song you ever heard under 2 minutes long. meant to be looped on your tv and In Your Head
the game is an artfully arranged series of story events that can be experienced in sequence, and each plotline can be followed from location to location allowing to to influence it OR NOT. one of the many brilliant facets of this games genius is thst all of these plots will culminate whether you choose to be a part of them OR NOT. there is a genre tag on steam called "choices matter". ostensibly choices matter to gamers, but it seems to me that the silk-bibbed gamer babies would prefer that their choices be presented as options on a dinner menu, chosen and then having the expected outcome served on a plate. WAY OF THE SAMURAI IS BETTER THAN THAT. in this game your choices matter in the way our human life Choices matter: they dont, but we make em anyway and consequences rattle out of the series of boxes and switches we futz with all day. you will fuck around too much and get killed by a bald weirdo. you may end up facing down a line of cannons with this cum-inflated bimbo. you may have to protect an innocent babe on a smoky battlefield.........
the thing is, this game is also super fun to play. the strikes have that weight to them that the modern souls fans love. big chunky sword slaps that send ketchup-thick gouts of blood flying everywhere. and its chock full of weapons all with their own move sets! and you unlock new moves by figuring "hey i bet this works", and sometimes it does! and it has this like, quasiroguelike quality where you can end your run early to store some good swords you found.....because you lose em if you die. you can even do goony shit like having aforementioned blacksmith bbygirl fix up your shit to the next level, not pay him, kill his ass, and restart! with your Next Level $hit!!
the map is small, but easy to memorize. the environments may look a little rudimentary, but they are also easily navigable especially when fights break out. to me, these aspects compliment the core Loop of memorizing where and when different events occur and Yojimbo'ing your way to different endings. i think its fair to criticize the story as being moderately generic and a rip off of a movie.....but all video game stories were rip offs of movies back then. it was the style at the time. i dont think its really fair to knock it for that when people still to this day claim Alan Wake is Good.
ultimately, i think this game is genuinely top 20 on the system. a Legit action classic. future games om the series are worth a look, but to me it never hit the lofty heights of this shit. its the video game equivalent of the best song you ever heard under 2 minutes long. meant to be looped on your tv and In Your Head
its fun but i think it waste the potential it can be. im sure this game can easily be an AAA game back in the day but sadly the story building is too short and there is nothing to explore so u just feel empty playing it , i love the combat system especially after beaten the game in hard mode it gives u a new difficulty called “Finishing Blow” added realistic aspect to the game more since u just need one blow to kill ur enemy (goes the same for u too) , its sad that they only released it in japan not worldwide, worth to try.