Having never played the first one, I was a little surprised when I first came upon Way of the Samurai 2 during this year’s E3. Since I only got a few minutes to check it out before my next appointment I was eager to get another shot at it once it hit the shelves. The concept of playing the wandering samurai at the turn of the century instantly got me thinking about watching Rurouni Kenshin again. Sadly, no Kenshin here folks. The game does have some interesting elements, but largely falls short of my initial expectations.
Way of the Samurai 2 drops you into the role of a masterless samurai wandering the countryside and trying to make ends meet in 19th Century Japan. For you non history buffs, this was the time when Japan began assimilating concepts of western culture and putting an end to the feudal times which you see depicted in more movies then I can remember. Ninjas, Samurai Warriors, bloodshed and chaos…now we’re talking. In this third person “Choose your own Adventure” style of game, your nameless character arrives at the town of Amahara in an attempt to save himself from starvation. Upon entering the gates you encounter a mute girl who answers your prayers with some rice balls. Once you’re back on your feet, your first set of choices presents itself through the course of your dialogue with your savior. Though now that I think about it, this wasn’t much of a conversation considering she was mute. Anyway, Will you ask the child her name? Thank her kindly or tell her to step off (Finger snap is not required folks). How you answer in this situation and the number of others following is how you determine your path in the game and which one of the 14 endings you get to see.
As you explore the other 10 areas of Amahara over the course of the next 10 days, every action or choice you make dictates your destiny. I enjoyed the fact that each area within the town was available to be explored in any order I desired. You’d be surprised at the amount of freedom you have available upon startup. The only problem is that there are several occasions where you have absolutely no direction on how to proceed. To be fair, this is where the “choose your adventure” segment of this game comes to play. Unfortunately, this resulted in me wandering around the town until something relevant happened that allowed me to make that choice. Sure I love the freedom, but throw me a bone every once in a while guys.
When you do manage to find your way, it will mostly involve taking someone out, collecting items or searching for lost people. You’d be surprised how many people lose babies in Amahara but that’s another story. Sounds easy enough, but the difficulty and mainly the lack of information in some of these missions can be a little frustrating. For example, when you are on one of these search missions you may have to actually convince the person to come back. However, if you pick the wrong thing to say you’re stuck wasting the rest of the day until you can try again tomorrow. Yes I admit it; there were a few times that I found myself cursing at the screen over the outcome of some of these situations. But hey even the most patient person can only go so far.
Pushing that aside, anyone who picks up a samurai game of any kind wants to kick some ass. Whether it is some local jerk claiming that his prowess with a sword exceeds yours or some unfortunate citizen who bumps you after a failed scenario. Combat within Way of the Samurai 2 has some interesting aspects. First of all, you can fight anyone in this game, and I do mean anyone. Everyone you see around town is fair game. But be warned, drawing out your sword on every sucker on the block will have some negative effects on your image. In other words people will refuse to help you or they may simply run away from your character in fear. Not cool if you want one of those good endings but very enjoyable if your inclinations toward evil take over your gameplay.
When it comes to actual combat, the best way I can describe it would be to think Soul Calibur 2. You have the normal horizontal and vertical slash. Not to mention blocks, parries, and even a touch of the combo juggling if you can pull it off. The only thing you have to worry about here other then taking hits is the strength of your weapon. I’m not sure of the final count, but there are at least 50 different swords you can collect. All with varying degrees of damage and strengths. Not to mention you can visit the local blacksmith to strengthen them should you desire. But as you’re fighting, there is a small meter which measures the durability of your weapon. As you block sword strikes, this meter will fill up depending on the degree of the hit. Should the meter hit the top then your sword will break and you’re in for a world of pain if you don’t flee. Thankfully the counter-attack system in this game is extremely useful. Performing a decent parry followed by a quick slash can deal an instant kill in most situations. Very handy in skirmishes with multiple people but it can drop the fun level down a notch when you perfect this skill. To tell you the truth, once you get this move down it won’t matter what weapon you select. Even the weakest weapon will make you almost unstoppable.
Even without the one hit kill, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble when it comes to combat during this game. There are times when the enemy AI can be downright stupid when it comes to combat. I don’t know how many times I saw guys running into trees or walls or even attacking their own comrades. But the kicker is that most of them will never deviate from their attack patterns or even try to mix up for the purpose of a challenge. This is a pretty big hit when it comes to the replay factor of this game in my opinion. Anyone trying to earn everything and enjoy the multiple endings will see what I mean after the third or fourth run through. Makes you wonder if all your efforts to completely beat the game are worth the boredom.
Regardless of the flaws I mentioned earlier, this is one to check out if you have the time. There isn’t a whole lot of lasting entertainment for you action fans out there but it does have its moments. I loved the idea of being to interact with everyone in the game. Whether it is major characters in the story or the common citizen going about their business. As well as having the ability to kill everyone in my path should the desire hit me. Not to mention I enjoyed the use of mature subject matter such as sex and drugs. Feudal Japan didn’t have any sort of fun for the whole family aspects to it. So I’m glad the developers didn’t find the need to dumb it down for the purpose of appealing to a wider audience. I like my samurai flicks bloody and filled with mature themes thank you very much.
The traditional Japanese music did a great job in setting the mood but became a little dull as the game progressed. The clings and clangs of the swords sounded great with the occasional miss fire here and there. Hey everything can’t be perfect all the time. While the voice acting had moments of quality, there wasn’t anything too spectacular that would be worth mentioning. With the right amount of experience you could easily finish this game in about an hour if you could manage to figure out where to go or if you score a guide. Way of the Samurai 2 is definitely a great game in theory, but let’s hope that if a third one manages to see the light of day, we’ll see these flaws corrected.
