Samurai Western
Joining a long list of generically-titled entertainment … like Pulp Fiction!
Tags: Samurai Western Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jun 11th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Samurai Western (title page) | 1-2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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You would think that with the popularity of the Jackie Chan-Owen Wilson movie series, Shanghai Noon/Knights, you’d see more games that combine the culture of the Orient with that of the Old West; but Atlus’ Samurai Western is the first game to do so since, gosh, the PSone era at least; Rising Zan comes to mind but nothing else since. Be that as it may, Atlus has been on an RPG-fueled roll for the last couple years, hitting far more than they miss, and the basic appeal of Samurai Western is spot-on, identifying a niche or neglected genre and delivering appropos game play that fills a void. Developed by Spike and Acquire, Samurai Western looks a lot more at home on PS2 than do many of Atlus’ old-school RPG titles, but the game isn’t exactly cutting edge on graphics – just PS2 standard. Still, for an Atlus title, that’s not bad!
Samurai Western is one of those ’tweener games
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that straddles genres, delivering action-oriented, almost platform-style fighting game play, but tossing in some RPG “elements” as well. The extent of these “elements” are that your character advances in levels as you advance through the game, giving you skill points to distribute to a handful of attributes such as power, life, MP, defense and so on. You also periodically gain new weapons and accessories, each of which carries penalties as well as advantages. The only real problem is that you can only equip one accessory at a time, so it falls well short of the RPG standard of full character customization.
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Another way that Samurai Western falls short of the RPG standard is in the length and vastness of its story and game world. While most great RPGs tell a vast, epic tale spanning a large game universe, Samurai Western tells a focused, linear story spanning one relatively small stretch of the Old West. You play as Gojiro, a samurai who blows into town looking for someone he has “a hankerin’” to kill. It’s a standard revenge plot made all the less personal by the third-person bystander narration and relative mystery of Gojiro’s character overall. Even as his story – all five or so hours of it – unfolds, he remains almost as much of a mystery as he was at the beginning of the game. We learn little about what makes him tick, beyond the standard genre clichés of a revenge plot.
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The game starts promisingly enough with an opening video that shows Gojiro in a showdown, armed with only a sword while his opponents have guns. It seems as lopsided as any scene since the moment Sean Connery grabbed a knife-wielding Capone thug and uttered the famous last words, “It’s that just like a [racially-insensitive slur deleted]? Brings a knife to a gun fight.” Of course, Connery ended up the worse for wear in that famous cinematic moment, and so do Gojiro’s opponents as he SLICES A BULLET IN HALF! You think, “All right! If the game is anything like this, I’m in for some Max Payne-level fun!”
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No such luck. While the cinema is pumped full of adrenaline, the actual game is a far more standard example of action-game fare, with no such special effects to spice up the monotony. As Gijiro makes his way through town, he is confronted by enemies who pretty much “re-spawn” at will until the game decides you’ve fought long enough and ends the sequence. It wouldn’t be so bad if you saw new enemies running out of buildings onto the street to join in the fight, but that’s not the case; you literally can kill someone, take a few steps, turn around, and there’s a new, almost-identical enemy replacing the one you just offed. Keep in mind that the near-ghost town Gojiro wanders into appears to be just large enough to hold maybe 150 souls and you begin to wonder where the 50 or so enemies per battle segment are coming from.
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The boss battles are far more challenging – and satisfying. Each is a unique threat that requires a different approach or strategy. This would be helped if the control scheme were a bit more spot-on, but even the new moves that the in-game tutorial teaches you along the way don’t always work when you trigger them. Oh well. You can still pull off plenty of fun stuff, even if the controls aren’t as flawless and crisp as one might wish. With a little practice, you can pull off plenty enough to take care of most challenges the game tosses at you.
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Even though the game is PS2 first-wave title short – again, about five hours long in story mode – the replay value is increased by a series of unlockable features, such as new characters, cooperative play and such. Due to its story deficiencies and short length, it’s hard to recommend Samurai Western as a full-priced buy. But if you like action with an RPG flavor, the mix of the Orient and the Old West is compelling enough stuff to make it game-rental worthy. If you’re set on purchasing it, wait till it drops to a $20 bargain bin title at your local trading outpost.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Mixing Oriental sword play with Old West gunfights is fun! + RPG elements add some customization (though not enough). + Unlockable extras, including two-player coop mode, extend shelf-life. |
6.1 |
| What Doesn't | |
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— It can be beaten in about five hours – maybe less. — Generic revenge plot featuring a fairly generic – and largely unsympathetic – main character. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| With Samurai Western, Atlus fills a genre void, but while the game isn’t really a flop, it is a rare example of Atlus delivering less than expected – less game play, less playing time, less plot… the list goes on. Rent, don’t buy. | |
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Tags: Samurai Western
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jun 11th, 2005 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
