Samurai Western

"Silly samurai, bringing a sword into a gunfight..."

As I said in my Way of the Samurai 2 preview, I was immensely disappointed with it. Being a fan of the original Way of the Samurai, Acquire's latest game sure did a good job into turning what was a good game full of "feeling" in a mess populated by ignorant morons and irritating loading times. So it was with with a little fear in mind that I decided to buy the latest game from Acquire, Samurai Western.

And what was once disappointment became joy: this one is actually pretty damn good!

Despite being a fast-paced action game, which is completely different from the previews Way of the Samurai games, Samurai Western does take place in the same "universe", per say. In fact, chronologically speaking, this adventure takes place before the first Way of the Samurai and even shares a character with it, a character that I will not reveal for the sake of being a spoiler-free review, even if the story here is neglected to a secondary role (not necessarily a bad thing for an action, mind you).

The premise is simple, but it works: you are Gojiro Kiryu, a samurai who travels to the USA to find his brother and discover why he decided to abandon the Bushido, the way of the warrior, the samurai's code of honor. Upon arriving on a small town taken by corruption, Gojiro finds one of those "WANTED" posts with the picture of his brother and does everything to achieve his goal... which means killing every bad guy he encounters on the way. Of course, being a righteous samurai as Gojiro, he will also help the poor townspeople along the path.

Thankfully, character design here returned to the serious tone of the first Way of the Samurai, avoiding colorful and stupid characters like those of it's sequel. The young and adorable Anne Barret; the hot, big-breasted bartender who owns the saloon, Claudia; the mysterious gunman, Ralph Norman; the nefarious Franklin Goldberg, and so on. No Aoto Gang stooges this time, thank God. The strong character design is also helped by a surprinsingly strong voice work (contrary to that abortion that Capcom did in Way of the Samurai 2). It's genius the way they did the voice of Gojiro, for instance. Instead of putting a corny-sounding voice like most samurai games when they are released in the US (Onimusha 2 and 3, for example), Gojiro speaks japanese, like a samurai would do. When he has to speak in english, he does so in a very primitive manner, with a heavy accent and simple sentences. Just brilliant. Atlus should be commended for giving such thought in an area that most north-american publishers tend to neglect.

The music is also very good, blending typical japanese tones with the kind of western themes derived from Enio Morricone works (hell, he practically invented it). Fits perfectly within the game and also deserves praise, even if there isn't one particular song that will keep you from sleeping at night.

But Samurai Western is really about gameplay. The most acceptable comparison I've found for this game are the beat'em ups of yore, due to the simplicity that reigns over Samurai Western from the beginning to the end. See those bad buys there? Kill'em. That's all you'll ever do here, and it's fine with me because the gameplay is very good, very fast and with precise controls.

A nice feature, that makes all the difference here, is the way Gojiro dodges or reflects the bullets/knifes/whatever the enemies will shoot at him. By pressing a button while running, Gojiro will dodge anything that might be coming at him. If you time it right, you can counter-attack enemies for maximum damage and even make combos with it. It's very easy and cool to do. He can also reflect stuff by swinging the sword (which will send whatever they shot at you right back at them) or by standing still and pressing the same button that you use to dodge. Other than that, Gojiro attacks with basic combos, jumps, can grab objects and enemies to use as shields, and has a special move that resembles the Limit Breaks of Final Fantasy: once the bar is full, you can unleash a hidden power. In this case, Gojiro will go berserk, you will be able to kill enemies with 1 hit while moving very fast and taking no damage. While in this mode, the more enemies you kill, the more the bar will remain active. Against bosses, you can unleash huge-ass combos that will most of them in seconds (though most bosses use their heads and will RUN from you when you use this, so you have to time your actions so you will not waste your special bar).

Gojiro also has an evolution system reminiscent of RPGs, and can equip different accessories (that will change the way you look and vary from the obvious to the absurd) and different swords. Each sword has it own style. For example, a one-handed short sword will allow you to move faster and do a double jump; while the two-sword sets that you hold in each hand will not let you grab objects or enemies, but will allow for more powerful combos. There are many sword with many styles that help bring a bit of variety to the game, but the basic core is still the same: just kill everything that appears on the screen.

The game also has a reward system that gives you points for playing "nice", i.e. dodging lots of bullets, killing enemies easily, not taking too much damage, being fast, and all. The better you play, the more points you gain and the more you will get stronger, find better stuff and unlock hidden bonuses like extra stages.

However, after some time, Samurai Western will start to show how repetitive it is when it comes to the stages you fight in. In the beginning it's all nice and good, but after some stages you'll begin to realize that a lot more of work could have gone into this part. Instead of putting stuff like killing bandits on a moving train, or riding horses, facing north-american natives and all, the game really keeps things way too simple on this matter. Most stages are the same thing as before, and sometimes you will even visit the same place twice (or THREE TIMES, like Claudia's saloon). The game is short, but by the end this kind of repetitiveness really starts to get annoying and is this game's greatest weakness. If only Acquire did a better job on this, Samurai Western could be a serious contender to more polished action games out there. For what it is though, it's still a hell lot of fun a definitely worth a look.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/05