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Post by Ex on Dec 1, 2020 0:38:17 GMT -5
After spending two hours with Way of the Samurai (2002 PS2), I've had my fill for now. +Choose-Your-Own-Action-Adventure is a solid basic concept for a video game in general.
+Authentic graphical atmosphere to its subject matter. +Excellent and appropriate OST. +Plenty of player agency. +Sword fighting grows in complexity and intricacy the longer you play.
-No way to skip cutscenes which you'll have to watch over and over and over.
-Trial & error progress would have benefited from checkpoints.
-The camera is always your hardest opponent in combat.
-Only eight small areas to explore with backtracking galore.
-Enemies have unrealistic health versus getting chopped by a katana. I absolute respect Way of the Samurai's ambition and base idea. This game captures the "feel" of being a wandering samurai in a small portion of Japan well. There are many decisions to make, which alter the story towards a variety of potential endings. The graphics are often nice even today, with beautiful sunsets or crisp moonlit nights, coupled with peaceful classic Japanese music. Cutscenes are well directed, and depict the plot bits appropriately. Technically speaking graphics and audio-wise, WotS is solid. There's a definite sense of humor interspersed into the dialogues. All that said, the longer I played WotS, the more aggravated I got with it. The developers know the player will die quite often in this game (most characters are aggressive), and thus replays are mandatory. You'd think Acquire would have bothered to let the player skip cutscenes they've already seen, but nope. In the name of artificial longevity, the player must re-watch every cutscene, every time. This is exacerbated by the trial and error gameplay, in which one slowly whittles one's way towards one of the official endings... by replaying the game and choosing the "right" choices, as opposed to dying, in a continuous stream of uncovered linearity. That aggravation, combined with absolutely ridiculous amounts of tedious backtracking, really wore down the fun factor to me. There's also the aspect of the terrible camera, which will ruin the joy of combat often. Well, "joy" is a relative term here, because some enemies are crazy difficult, and without the right sword you won't beat them (your skill be damned).
...and the next time you will die, and the next time, and the next...
I choose to think of the original Way of the Samurai as a decent proof of concept. This game has received three sequels since, and it's my sincere hope that these sequels improve the convenience of mandatory replays. I truly like the "idea" of this game, so I hope these sequels realize that idea in a more ergonomic fashion. All Acquire had to do was fix the annoying camera, allow cutscene skipping, cut down on inane backtracking, give us checkpoints every so often, and make the sword fighting more realistic... and we'd have a much better game. I sincerely hope WotS2/3/4 all realized these things. I'll find out eventually. Ex's time invested: 2 hours Ex's rating: 6/10
- And... that's gonna wrap this month up for me. Games Ex beat for this theme: Ninja Cop (GBA 6/10)
Ninja Gaiden Shadow (GB 6/10) Return of the Ninja (GBC 7/10) Shinobi (SEGA MS 7/10)
Games Ex invested fair time into for this theme (but did not finish): Death of the Samurai (PS2 6/10)
Samurai Kid (GBC 7.5/10)
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Post by toei on Dec 1, 2020 2:33:43 GMT -5
Ex There are no "right answers" to stay alive, actually - you can survive any situation in the game, and most characters aren't actually aggressive if you don't actively provoke them (with words or by unsheathing your sword). I can't say I'm surprised by your take overall, though. Some of those points are true, and I went through that feeling before I really got the game. For instance, did you know there are healing items in most locations, like that little field on the side of the bridge you're coming from when you meet Tsubohachi? You just have to kick them up during battle. Exploring each area well and memorizing where they are makes a huge difference. And it's not really about having the right sword - you can definitely find better than what you start with, but just picking one and upgrading it at the Blacksmith is more important, especially if you carry the upgrades into your next game (either by finishing it, having it Delivered by the blacksmith, or Leaving the Pass from the railroad area). There are multiple ways to make money - you can do so by sparring with the guys at the foundry (also a good way to unlock some moves), but the best is to get hired for jobs. BTW, the moves you unlock aren't long combo strings as you described them earlier - they're all single attacks, usually involving the Triangle button, and you can pull up the move list anytime from the same menu where you can look at your swords. Using the Battle Mode to practice sword fighting is a good way to progress, too - you should be able to beat both Tsubohachi and Shiretoko (the two guys in your screenshots) with the base sword with some practice. The simplest way to go about things would probably be to first go for one of the endings on Easy, try to make as much money as you can and upgrade a decent sword within that game, and then play on Normal from there. Either way, it's not an easy game to really get into, but there's more to it than what you're describing. Oh, and two more things - as long as you don't die, you will get one of the 6 endings regardless. Then once you have a good understanding of what's happening at the Pass over those two days, it's fairly obvious what the factions are and how to get the main endings. There's nothing arcane about any of it. Also, there's no "backtracking". This isn't some side-scroller where you're supposed to move continuously forward. The Rokkotsu Pass is the game's stage, and you can go to any part of it at any point. There are multiple paths to get to most places; once you're familiar with it, it should never take more than a minute or two to get anywhere you want to go.
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Post by Ex on Dec 1, 2020 2:43:20 GMT -5
toei I expected you'd counter my opinion, and I won't argue your take against mine. I really am glad that you took such a liking to WotS, it'd been a while since I saw you enjoy a game as much as it. That said, yes, I knew about the radishes and mushrooms you can eat for HP, I knew about kicking items up and eating them while fighting - I did all the tutorial stuff. The original WotS is really rough around the edges, too rough for my patience this year, but I absolutely can see WotS being a grower for a fan of the game's concept. I also noticed how it's got a bit of roguelike-ness to it, in that you can carry skills/weapons into your next play. Kind of like Shiren I mean. To me that's more of an artificial longevity promotion tool, but hey whatever. I do plan to check out WotS's sequels in time.
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Post by toei on Dec 1, 2020 2:53:14 GMT -5
toei I expected you'd counter my opinion, and I won't argue your take against mine. I really am glad that you took such a liking to WotS, it'd been a while since I saw you enjoy a game as much as it. That said, yes, I knew about the radishes and mushrooms you can eat for HP, I knew about kicking items up and eating them while fighting - I did all the tutorial stuff. The original WotS is really rough around the edges, too rough for my patience this year, but I absolutely can see WotS being a grower for a fan of the game's concept. I also noticed how it's got a bit of roguelike-ness to it, in that you can carry skills/weapons into your next play. Kind of like Shiren I mean. To me that's more of an artificial longevity promotion tool, but hey whatever. I do plan to check out WotS's sequels in time. It sometimes seems like you think everything is about artificial longevity. The point of it is to promote replaying the game to see all the main story paths, which you can do with very little repeating content. Instead of giving you an 8 or 10 hour adventure, they give you 4 to 5 short alternate adventures as commentary on choices and consequences. I agree that it would be nice to be able to skip cutscenes, but to be fair, most cutscenes are literally just a few seconds long, and I doubt if any of them goes over two full minutes. One thing I meant to check out - apparently the original release only had two difficulty modes. It would be a little weird to have Easy and Normal but no Hard, so maybe Easy isn't really supposed to be Easy. It wouldn't be the first time this kind of thing happens during localization.
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Post by Ex on Dec 1, 2020 3:06:55 GMT -5
Man I'm too tired to get into all the various aspects of what I consider artificial longevity in games, versus what I consider constructive longevity. I think you are feeling a tad indignant because you really liked WotS, but my lukewarm opinion of the game might dissuade others from giving WotS a try. That's not my intent! I think anyone who is even mildly interested in WotS, should give it a fair shot. I'd really appreciate additional opinions about this game from other HRG members. Who knows, they might agree with you that WotS is great. And the things that bothered me might not bother them at all. Also, I could totally believe that Easy mode in the USA version of WotS, was actually Normal mode in Japan. Because Normal mode in the USA version felt like it should have been Hard mode to me.
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Post by Sarge on Dec 1, 2020 15:18:35 GMT -5
This actually feels a little similar to King's Field - a game that once you "get it", it's a lot of fun. It definitely sounds like it tries some interesting things, and I'd be down for giving it a go one of these days.
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Post by Ex on Dec 1, 2020 15:31:02 GMT -5
While I won't concede that toei is right about everything he says concerning WotS, I will say the game is absolutely an Acquired taste. And the longer you play it, the more likely you are to start overlooking its design flaws. I'd very much be interested in your opinion of the experience, Sarge .
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Post by Sarge on Dec 7, 2020 14:31:52 GMT -5
I just realized that I didn't recap my month. Let's see what I finished here...
Ninja Crusaders (NES) (6.0) (11/1) (1.25 hours) (*) Ninja Gaiden II (NES) (7.5) (11/1) (2 hours) Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash (NG) (7.0) (11/1) (1 hour) (*) Charlie Ninja (ARC) (7.0) (11/6) (0.4 hours) (*) Ninja Gaiden Shadow (GB) (7.0) (11/6) (0.45 hours) SoulCalibur (DC) (9.0) (11/6) (0.25 hours) Super Ninja-kun (SNES) (6.0) (11/7) (1 hour) (*) Zen: Intergalactic Ninja (GB) (6.5) (11/8) (0.85 hours) (*) Hagane (SNES) (7.5) (11/10) (1.5 hours) (*) The Ninja Warriors (SNES) (8.5) (11/11) (1.5 hours) Alex Kidd in Shinobi World (SMS) (6.0) (11/13) (0.5 hours) (*) Legend of Kage 2 (DS) (6.5) (11/21) (3.1 hours) (*) Revenge of Shinobi (GEN) (7.0) (11/23) (2 hours) Mystical Fighter (GEN) (6.0) (11/23) (0.75 hours) (*) The Last Ninja (C64) (6.0) (11/29) (2 hours) (*)
The best new game to me I finished was Hagane. The best, of course, are SoulCalibur and The Ninja Warriors. The most interesting was probably The Last Ninja.
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Post by Xeogred on Dec 7, 2020 14:43:27 GMT -5
Are we sure toei is still the Shogun Shinobi Master here now?
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Post by Sarge on Dec 7, 2020 14:51:02 GMT -5
Xeogred: Oh, I know he is. I've barely scratched the surface of what he has.
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