Game Story

• You play as the legendary swordsman Musashi, who has been summoned into an unknown world by Princess Mycella (shortly thereafter kidnapped), who is determined to rid the world of Gandrake Enterprises, a heartless corporation expoliting the people and resources of the world.
• Basically, you’re on a mission to rescue the princess, retrieve all the maidens and mystics (magic users, rare in this day & age), retrieve the 5 elemental swords, and bring an end to the evil Gandrake’s grasp on the world.
• This game clearly isn’t meant to be taken seriously (that’s the feeling I got, anyways), but even so, the writing is really poor, and all the jokes fall flat on their faces.
• A pretty bland storyline overall, it can’t possibly hold the interest of more seasoned RPG veterans.

Gameplay

• Something new, and a seemingly larger aspect of the game is the ability to learn your enemy’s moves using the ‘Focus’ feature.
• It’s really nothing to be excited about. The abilities aren’t required to complete the game, and they don’t hold any value.
• You’ll find it much easier, faster, and more convenient to cut through your enemies with a regular attack.
• Another negative is the very odd ‘surfer dude’ direction they took the game in.
• All the voiceovers reflect this laughably bad style (which I’ll get into later), and it’s just downright annoying sometimes.
• There isn’t much of a variation between enemy designs...in each area you might find one or two new monsters, along with a bucket load of re-used designs.
• Another frustrating thing about enemies is your virtual inability to dodge anything.
• Some attacks are fairly easy to avoid, but with most others, you’ll take the hit no matter what.
• The bosses in the game are, for the most part, very challenging.
• Taking the leap between the simple cronies and the big bad boss dudes (just taking a hint from the surfer dude style) can be a handful.
• There are only a few areas you play through during the game, but they are all large and fairly well designed.
• Most of the time you’re hacking and slashing, but there are some very light puzzle-ish elements to them.
• One of my major complaints would be the feeling that some parts or areas are FAR too non-linear.
• Sometimes you’re given no hints or clues as to what to do next, or how to solve a puzzle, and you’ll be walking around in circles for what seems like ages.
• Usually, the solutions are so simple-minded that you’ll be banging your head against a wall for over-estimating the ability of Square to make an intricate game.
• The RPG elements don’t play a major role in the game. Once in awhile, you’ll level up, and then you chose in which direction you’d like the character to progress.
• (Stronger, more magic, etc)
• Unfortunately, your choice doesn’t make much of a change. There aren’t really any noticeable differences.
• Musashi: Samurai Legend is a pretty generic action-RPG, not really bringing anything interesting to the genre.

Graphics

• Samurai Legend employs the cel-shading technique (or ‘manga-shading’, as they refer to it as), and does a nice job with it.
• The environments are nice, the animations for the special moves are great, and the character models are very well done too.
• Overall, graphics aren’t spectacular or innovative, but they’re not bad either.

Sound

• The ‘surfer dude’ style brings the game to a whole new low in terms of sound.
• The voiceovers in the game are terrible, and it’s difficult to tell if they’re supposed to be funny, or taken semi-seriously.
• Unfortunately, they don’t work well either way.
• The soundtrack is very plain and simple, with absolutely nothing that stands out or is even the slightest bit memorable.
• The developers tried to market the so called “distinct surf guitar style”, but it’s no good at all.
• The sound effects aren’t bad, and they never get old or feel really over-used.

Captivation

• From the moment you turn on the game it feels very stale and is completely uninteresting.
• There are some nice mini-games, and a card collection system.
• You unlock ‘Hard Mode’ after finishing the game once, but you probably won’t want to trek though Samurai Legend again.
• It takes about 10-15 hours to complete the entire game, and that’s certainly enough for me.
• Unless you want to go back through the game and collect all the “Imagicards”.

Final Thoughts

• Positives:
• Very nice graphics, luscious environments, and a great use of the cel-shading technique.
• Gameplay takes awhile to get boring.
• Nice sound effects.
• Negatives:
• Voiceovers are really bad. Unfortunately, that’s common for RPGs.
• Storyline is very generic and stereotypical.
• Hack & Slash gameplay does get old after some more extended playing.

Bottom Line

• Even though its bargain priced, it doesn’t warrant a purchase, unless you really have a desire to play it, but to the average gamer or RPGer, it might be worth a rental.