Afro Samurai

"The unabashed pleasure this game takes in its bloodlust may make it a little better than the sum of its parts suggests."

For those uninitiated to the brutal world portrayed in the Afro Samurai anime series, from which this game is based, not a whole lot of prior knowledge is necessary to jump in. There's a bit of a story regarding two headbands, one of which bestows godlike power to its wearer, and the other of which enables its wearer to challenge the aforementioned godlike power. There's also a simple but enjoyable plot of revenge, and a main character whose life is plagued by a never-ending chain of misfortunes. All these elements, however, are never as fully explored as one would think they should be, and the overall plot seems to exist for one very simple reason: as an excuse for the characters to fight one another in an unyielding chain of bloody, carnage-ridden battles.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would seem a condemning thing to say, but in the case of Afro Samurai it's this exact spirit of unabashed blood-lust that makes it stand out above the crowd, giving it a degree of quality that somehow surpasses the sum of its parts. You won't be affected in any profound way by the story of Afro Samurai, but you'll almost certainly be entertained, and your eyes won't be bored for a second. In the case of both this game and the series from which it spawned, the setup and premise serve as a rare but still quite enjoyable example of the triumph of style over substance.

If only every other aspect of the Afro Samurai video game spin-off shared the enthusiasm and fun of its premise, then this could have been a truly great game. At the very least, it could have stood at the top of the hack-and-slash market. As it stands, Afro Samurai is a presentable, but not particularly groundbreaking experience.

Since I've already touched upon the story, let's begin there. Afro Samurai more or less perfectly follows the events of the first season of the anime. Of course, since this medium is interactive, there are a number of minute differences here and there. Some elements of the story receive more focus in the game, some are glazed over entirely. The pacing, however, is what makes accessibility difficult for the uninitiated player. The game attempts to throw the plot at you in jumbles of cryptic text, usually given by enemies as you run to kill them. While stylish, they typically make only small allusions to very important details pertaining to who the main character is and why he does what he does; the style making it nearly impossible for those who don't already know the story to catch onto it.

After a very short introductory sequence, players are thrust into the sandals of the game's title character, and a short while later they get their first taste of what will be a moderately long bloodbath. Combat in the game follows a relatively straightforward style, with two buttons dedicated to separate sword strikes, and another for kicks. Pressing the buttons in certain orders chains them together to create combos which do varying amounts of damage. This is all relatively smooth to perform, and always a treat to watch. In addition to damaging enemies, completing combos also charges Afro's "focus" meter, allowing him to enter a state of transcended perception and strike the enemy for much greater damage. When you enter focus state, the color is bled from the background, and the enemies movements are reduced to a crawl, leaving you free to inflict as much pain as you deem necessary. Once the random enemy in question has been bested, he typically falls into pieces in a number of ways as unique as the combos you perform to kill him. If there's one thing Afro Samurai never fails in, it's looking cool.

Boss fights are a mixed bag, some requiring skill to overcome and others being so mindlessly cheap that you'll struggle with them repeatedly before finally finding the one single pattern that seems effective to overcome them. Fortunately, most of them tend toward the former, and it's actually from the boss fights that the game gets the majority of its fun moments.

Unfortunately, neither the style nor the control proves quite as enchanting once the enemies have all died. Afro Samurai has a number of "Prince of Persia"-esque platforming elements partially embedded into it, and it's the task of the player to utilize them in moving from one slaughter to the next. The learning curve in getting the hang of moving Afro during these times is horribly steep, mainly because the game expects very precise circumstances to be met before it will allow you to perform the acrobatics the situation requires. For instance, Afro has the cat-like ability to run across very thin platforms, and is required to do so many times over the course of the game. However, he will only start to run along one if you approach it directly. Make your way to it from the side, or from an angle even slightly different from what the game wants, and you'll immediately plummet to your death... or worse... down to a lower level, and be forced to begin platforming your way back up. Another drawback is the fact that you can only use some moves, such as running on walls, when it's necessary for you to proceed in the game, making it impossible to utilize them in combat. This sharply divides the combat and non-combat portions of the game.

Visually speaking, this game is flawless. This game becomes still another shining example of the wonderful Cel-Shaded graphics that next-gen is capable of, with dark environments contrasting the the brighter images of the characters. Everything about the presentation is hauntingly beautiful, even when it inevitably becomes covered by the gallons of blood you and your enemies will have shed before the adventure comes to a close. It's clear that no expense was spared in making Afro Samurai as easy on the eyes as possible, so I can't help but spare no praise in pointing out that graphics and presentation are one thing this game got very, very right.

There is a problem with the camera, though. It's generally fixed in one position, only rarely giving you limited sway to move it. While the camera angles themselves aren't usually too atrocious, the lack of control can be frustrating at times, especially when your enemy manages to put you in a position partially blinded to the camera.

The sound for the game is another highlight, though also one of the strongest points for complaint the game offers. I'll address each aspect individually:

As I said earlier, Afro Samurai is a franchise of style over substance, and there's little point in looking stylish if you can't sound the part as well. The soundtrack for this game is unbelievably good, and very appropriate for the atmosphere overall. The music played during battles tends to be an adrenaline-rushing mixture of hip-hop beats, with eastern-styled melodies to accommodate the anime-like setting. Outside of battle, the tracks move to meet the emotion of the scene being played, and succeed far more often than they fail. There are likely to be plenty of songs you hear over the course of this game

Voice-acting, too, is splendid. Samuel L. Jackson reprises his roles as Afro and his annoying, omnipresent sidekick, Ninja Ninja, perfectly. The other voice talents, who run a group of diverse backgrounds, from other acclaimed stars to a few well-known in the anime voice-over community, also turn in memorable performances that manage to wonderfully capture the strong, if not always understandable, emotions of the game's characters.

However, the in-game sound effects leave a great deal to be desired. Almost none of the interactions Afro makes with his environment create a sound. No foot falls are heard as he runs, nor is a crash heard should he fall. Even the combat sound effects are limited, with some of the blows you and your enemy connect being similarly mute. This can be jarring, and make it difficult to fully engage one's self in the game. Whether this effect was deliberate, or an oversight by the developers, it's still one of the bigger flaws in the overall quality of the game.

When all is said and done, Afro Samurai is not a bad game. I can't imagine anyone regretting having played it once they started, so long as they know what they're in for before they begin. Afro Samurai is a game that has explicit content for the simple sake of having explicit content. It's crude, violent, at times vulgar, and always brutal... and these things are, ultimately, the whole reason the game (and the franchise) exists in the first place. Those who come looking for depth or involvement will be left wanting, but for those who want to"let loose the beast," or enjoy catering to some of their darker indulgences, Afro Samurai can be a pretty stylish vent.

The design flaws are significant, however, and combine to make the game, at best, an average hack-and-slasher by modern standards. The muddling of the story also makes it a tad inaccessible to those not familiar with the anime series it's based on, and, with a maximum run time of eight hours for a single playthrough, even those who love the franchise may feel cheated in having paid the sixty-five dollar price-tag.

So it is that I give the game a six, overall. Very much worthy of a rent, should you find yourself with a few nights free, but not something you're likely to replay enough to justify buying unless you're already a fan of the Afro Samurai world. Even fans, however, would likely be wise to wait until the price drops a bit, or the game becomes available used, before adding this one to their collection.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/09

Game Release: Afro Samurai (US, 01/27/09)