Game Story

• It’s a very historically-based Japanese tale of samurai and magical powers.
• Like Onimusha, but not really.
• You start off at the end of the Heishi rebellion, after the Heishi clan has pretty much taken over the inner workings of  Japan.
• Many clans, including the remnants of your father’s clan (the Genji) are battling to take down the Heishi, and end their tyranny.
• Over the years, the Heishi have collected mysterious glowing crystals called ‘Amahagane’.
• These stones endow the holder with a special power called ‘Kamui’, which can be used for either good, or evil.
• The Heishi are using them to summon demons and give their warriors incredible power, increasing their hold on Japan.
• Of course, your character (Yoshitsune Minamoto) has an Amahagane, and the Heishi are after him to retrieve it.
• Basically, you need to defend your Amahagane, and steal back ones that the Heishi have taken.
• The storyline doesn’t take the spotlight in Genji, but what elements you do get are very interesting.
• The story is told mostly through beautiful CG cutscenes, that are not dubbed, but instead subtitled in English.

Gameplay

• Being a samurai game, you know there’s going to be lots of hacking, slashing, and all things of the sort.
• The fighting system is so fluid and easy to master that you’ll have no problem just picking up the controller and instantly enjoying the game.
• Making the pick-up-and-play aspect even better is the very short load times, which are surprising for such a wonderful looking game.
• The enemies aren’t too difficult, so you don’t need to spend much time fighting each batch that comes at you.
• However, most of the enemies do respawn, which can be a little tedious.
• Your Kamui power slows enemies in the area, and enables you to take down any enemy in the game with a single blow.
• With the exception of bosses, although it drains their health bars significantly.
• Knowing that battles were meant to be kept fun and easy is nice.
• There are also some RPG elements to the game –
• As you collect certain items (Essence of Amahagane), you are able to level up your strength, stamina, or defense.
• There are tons of these items that you’ll find throughout the game.
• Along with leveling up specific stats using the items, you gain experience as you finish off enemies.
• The larger or more intricate the combo, or the more visually pleasing your attack, the more experience points you gain.
• You can play as one of two characters, Yoshitsune Minamoto (the quick and powerful samurai), and Benkei Musashibo (the slow, hulking, club-wielding guy).
• You can switch between the two using the intermission-like time gaps between levels.
• Both have very different fighting styles, and the game really changes when you play as one or the other.
• They both go through the same stages and storyline, but there are some zones you may or may not be able to get into depending on the character you’re playing as, and you could miss valuable items or extras.
• The camera system doesn’t pose any problems at all, which is pretty surprising for an action game.
• For the most part, the angles are fixed, but enable you to see the entire area you’re fighting in, never conveniently leaving out parts where enemies might get you from behind.

Graphics

• The character models and animations are seamless and very realistic.
• The environments are very lush, filled with things to look at.
• There’s also an excellent use and variation of color among the environments.
• Not everything is green or brown like in most games.
• The story progresses mainly in CG cutscenes that are wonderfully animated and are really well-directed.
• The graphics in this game are wonderful, and it definitely lives up to the PS2’s capabilities.
• Even for a game released near the end of the system’s life-cycle it looks amazing.

Sound

• I really like how the localization team opted to keep the game in the original Japanese language, along with English subtitles, instead of doing a poor dubbing job.
• Helps in keeping the integrity of the story, style, and setting of the game.
• It supports Dolby Pro Logic II as well as Dolby Digital Pro Logic II.
• Also has three ‘listening position’ settings.
• The sound effects are well done, and never feel over-used or repetitive.
• The music is well composed, and really fits the style and setting of the game.

Captivation

• When you finish the game, you unlock a ‘New Game+’ type mode, where you retain all your equipment from the previous play through.
• This allows you to tower over the now hilariously weak enemies.
• This really speeds up the game, cutting the average finishing time to only a few hours.
• You also unlock a number of extra features depending how fast/well you play, like CG movies viewable at any time, original artwork, etc.
• There are some bonus areas available after you finish, giving you some extra items or weapons.
• The enemy AI works well in the game – it isn’t too smart or too dumb.
• The final boss has a great AI system that makes the battle very difficult.
• The game is very short, even for an action game.
• At 5-10 hours, you’ll be wondering, “Was that really it?”, but there is definitely some replay value here.
• I personally played through 3 times, and still had fun with the game.
• The graphics, sound, and gameplay, all really add to the immersion factor of the game.

Final Thoughts

• Positives:
• Great looking game!
• Excellent sound design, with some really nice background music.
• The fighting system feels like second-nature once you get a handle on it. Everything is very fluid and simple.
• Many reasons to play again.
• Negatives:
• Too short, even for a game like this.
• Story could’ve been deeper (even though some people may have already been bored to death with all the history stuff).

Bottom Line

• Some people would say that it’s too short to warrant a purchase, but now that it’s bargain priced ($20), I’d say that it does.