Genji: Dawn of the Samurai

"The best demo of all time, but where is the game?"

Let me start out by saying that I love this game; it is utterly fantastic, but it is also the shortest game I have ever seen, and it goes beyond just being short in being even shorter than it may seem, but more about that later. Let us start with the good stuff:

GRAPHICS: 10/10 I have seen very few games that even approach the beauty of this one. Everything from scenery to sets to animations are as good as it gets. Of course, when one considers how few places that there are in this game, it becomes easy to see how such painstaking detail can be accomplished. This is feudal Japan in all its glorious beauty.

MUSIC/SOUND: 10/10 Again, this is as good as it gets. The sound and effects are inspired, but again, there did not have to be that much of it in so short a game, which explains why the music never goes off into total silence like so many other games. You'd be hard pressed to actually recall the music and hum it later, but while you are playing you will love every short second that there is of it. The voice acting appears to be great, I say appears to be, because it all is in Japanese, with English subtitles.

CAMERA/CONTROL: 9/10 In actuality, this would be a 10 out of 10, except for the fact that you can not control the camera with the right stick, which is not being used for anything. No matter, though, because the camera follows the action almost flawlessly. The controls are spot on and very easy to learn, what more can I say?

GAME PLAY: 8/10 This is very basic hack and slash, with some leveling up and exploring; the difference, though, is in how this concept is realized. Killing enemies is so much fun, and the brutality of it all has not been toned down in the least. You play as two different heroes in the game, Yoshitsune and Benkei. The main character, Yoshitsune, is very fast and nimble and you will want to use him most of the time. Benkei is big and powerful, with a much larger health gauge, more defense, and more attack power; but he is also very slow and not so graceful, and can barely jump at all. As you progress through the game you will gain essences of amahegne which can be used to increase defense etc., and you will also be leveling up, but with no control over placing stats. You have a powerful move in Kamui, and it is vey easy to pull off, just press the L1 button when the gauge is full, then hit the square button as soon as it shows. This move makes a pretty easy game even easier. You can also find and buy items and weapons and armor. Now, this description may make this game sound a lot bigger than it is, but read on.

VALUE: 1/10 Let's start with how many areas are in this game. There are only three chapters. The first chapter has six small areas, the second chapter, which initially looks to be longer, only has two areas, and now for the final insult, the third chapter is the first chapter revisited, and the only thing different is the destruction. Initially you can finish the game in 3-5 hours, if you do not try to get everything in it. If you continually switch characters and insist on getting everything, you would still be hard pressed to be playing for 10 hours; and that is being said from someone who always takes their time, and makes every game last as long as possible. After finishing the game once you can then use continue mode which will let you get everything you could not get the first time through, so you can make better weapons and armor to have in the third run through in hard mode. In hard mode, you will not level up or find any good items, nor will finishing the game this way give you anything worth playing for. Even if you love this game more than life itself, and go through it all three times, I doubt you would spend even 15 hours on it. I should also mention here that there is yet another trick the makers employed to make the game seem longer, and that is ,that in order to switch characters, you have to back track to where you can do it. Since the game is so short on areas, this is not as bad as all that, but why not a button press to just change.

FINAL COMMENTS: I actually am hoping for a sequel, but one that is ten times bigger than what is nothing more than a glorified demo, and not a full fledged game. If you are a person who does not care that the game is short, and plan on playing it over and over, and over; than I highly recommend it, but for all others I say wait, for the real game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/16/06