"Uhh, I'm sure I can give them credit where its due... right?"

Here we are, Musashi on his second outing. How does he fair? Well, to say the least, he did alright... but that doesn't mean its not worth seeing him again. What we have here is a decent action adventure game but not without its flaws of course.

Story- Musashi's story this time around, is sort of a rehash of its predecessor. He's on a quest to save maidens. Five to be exact, each having a specific role they play. Along with that he is also trying to stop... well I won't mention names, but a bad guy and his minions. Its not necessarily a strong story but it does serve its purpose as a reason to finish the game. You start out being summoned by a princess from another dimension. But in the process she gets kidnapped and the story takes on from there. To be honest, I wasn't to interested in the story but, because it came after such an awesome game it gave me incentive to keep playing.

Gameplay- Well I have to say the game is very simple. Its an action adventure with light platforming elements. Its also an RPG, but you never truly feel like your getting that much stronger. You have Hp and Mp and there's attributes to fill, but thats about it. You can equip different equipment but, you don't really see any difference in how much damage Musashi will cause when its equipped. Its level layout feels a bit like Zelda in the sense that every level has a particular elemental theme. One level will have a main focus on fire with fire-based enemies and another level will focus on water. Each level has a boss and some bosses will require you to use certain things to exploit there weakpoint... just like Zelda. Also the levels seemed to be dragged on for no apparent reason. They felt long with no real goal in mind. Theres a town for you to buy items for healing and equipment. The town is nothing special, kinda of bland in my opinion. The people in town are... kinda wierd. They are there just to take up space pretty much. As for the platforming element... I say its light because, though its there, its not a big part of the game. You may fall off a cliff every once and a while but you can't die from doing so. You only means of death is an enemy beating the crap out of you. The action is pretty light hearted as well. There are plenty of enemies, but this game is a button masher pretty much. You'll spend most of you time mashing the square button will the occasional wiggle of the analog stick to pull off special moves. Oh, you do pick up swords along the way that are elemental based, and each has a special move attached to it as well. I thought that was pretty cool. You'll have to use a particular sword for a particular situation. But you won't really need them for anything else beside that an maybe spamming the moves on enemies. As for the adventuring, there's pretty much the quest to save the five maidens and defeat the main boss. So its a simple yet somewhat fun game in my opinion.

Sounds- Hmmm... its has sounds. This games music is alright and strange seeing that this game came from Square- enix. They usually have beautiful music, but the music in this game is easily forgettable at best. The only music I can really remember is the towns music and thats because you'll spend quite a bit of time there. Thats where you'll hear parts of the story from. The theme music for this game to me felt really out of place. Its music from The Surf Coasters. Its not bad music, but for a game about a samurai, its really out of place. I can't really comment on the music for the simple fact that I can't really remember it. Sorry. But the voice acting in this game... ugh! I don't know who though it would be cool to give Musashi a "surfer dude" kind of vibe, but its definitely not working for this game. Most heroes, you know, for the most part sound really cool. You grow up as a kid wishing you had their voice. This hero, no... NO! His voice simply make you want to cut the voice acting off, which you can't by the way. He sounds like a dweeb. The times when he does look heroic, its ruined by his voice. So I won't say the games sounds are necessarily bad, because they aren't. They just are very forgettable.

Graphics- I liked the graphics. This game takes on an anime look. And its works... for the most part. I love the look, but the areas can be a little bland at time. Each area, beside the elemental look, doesn't really stand out from the next. Even when the last level may have had metal supports everywhere then your next is completely rock... its doesn't look that much different. The enemy start to get a rehash feel after awhile. You'll fight the same enemy throughout the game and the only thing that changes it their color. One thing I must comment on though is the look of Musashi. One question... Why? Why? Thats all I have to ask. Why did they change the look of Musashi. In the first one, he had that awesome white samurai looking costume. In this its looks like he's going to the mall, or maybe even to spend a day at the beach. He doesn't look like a samurai in the slightest... except maybe his hair. Which brings me to another point, why change the color of his hair? The blue hair was great, it gave him a sense of uniqueness. Now his hair is brown. So generic, unoriginal except that it is ridiculously long. His hair is like 15ft. long. I'll get off of Musashi case, because he does look cool, but he's not as epic as he used to be. All in all, the graphics are nice, but a little on the bland side.


Lasting appeal- You've gotta pretty basic game here. The extra things you can do... well you'll probably finish them before the game is over. There are no true side quest. From the start of the game, the town that acts as your safe haven has about 5 people in it. You need to find the others. I guess it can be counted as a side quest. You'll more than likely find them all before the games end. They are hard to point out, because they are usually right in you face. They have no true hiding spots. You may have to do a little jumping around to get to them but that about it. No real need to search them out either... only to populate the town. You can also collect card. No real logic in this either. Its like the action figures from the first one, but not nearly as cool. There are about 200 of them, and I felt no need to collect them. You get a majority of them on your travels. Theres a place to battle for items as well. If you've played Final Fantasy VII and did the battle arena, you have an idea of what I'm talking about. The items you get... well nothing special about them seeing that you have no reason to equip anything if you read all this review. After you beat the game, you can reload your data to start in hard mode, but the game doesn't feel that much harder, nor will you really feel like playing it again. So theres really nothing to do in this game beside the quest.

Overall- So your probably wondering why I gave this game a 7 if all I did was pretty much bash it throughout the entire review. Well actually I'm giving it a 6.5 but I have to round it. That because its a pretty solid game on its own terms. Its not terrible but it won't go down in the books as one of the greats. If you do decide to play it, its definitely only a rental. I made the mistake of buying it, but I'm gonna keep it because its not worth getting ripped off by Gamestop. I'm gonna say give it a try. Not saying you'll fall in love with it, because you won't, but its a decent game for 20 bucks now. But you must play the first one if you haven't done so. That one goes down in the books as one of the greats.

Score- 6.5

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/08

Game Release: Musashi: Samurai Legend (US, 03/15/05)