i'm so glad the most-liked reviews on this site tear into just how fucking bland and generic the game's entire structure and core is. for all it's talk about being faithful or like a kurosawa film, it's so.. cookie cutter AAA ubisoft. i mean the kurosawa mode itself just being a black and white filter, some grain, and shitty audio is so fucking funny to me. it sucks because when this game was first announced, i really was expecting this like REALLY realistic samurai simulator, where a lot of it was mundane and fights would end with two strikes at max and.. man that would've been a sick PS2 game. it's really funny how weirdly racist this game feels with all the talk about killing the mongols (ik ik they're the invaders here), but the central theme of the game being "ermm bushido sucks amirite" is so fucking stupid and overdone and god can we fucking retire that imperial era propaganda already holy shit. mishima didn't literally kill himself for it for y'all to keep using it (ok, he would want us to, but shush)

so wait why does this get 3.5 stars if i think its so mediocre? two things: Ilan Eshkeri & Shigeru Umebayashi's INCREDIBLE score that still tugs at my heartstrings (the latter is forever goated to me for composing Yumeji's Theme; featured in Wong Kar-Wai's In The Mood For Love), and the photo-mode. yes. no, seriously. if you saw the photos i took from this game, the sheer insane shots i got out of it, the roleplaying and story ideas i could act out with this stupid fucking but beautiful looking game, you'd get it. it's GORGEOUS, and it's so, so "alright" as like an actual game, but as like a pretty environment with a SHIT TON of sliders and effects and filters and options to take shots of a samurai, or a broken husk of a man turned killing machine, or of a shirtless dude with a straw container covering his head, this is literally the best fucking game to ever exist.

oh also i can't lie i did fuck with the ending kinda got me a little choked up idk