REVIEW – Samurai G

Game – Samurai G

Developer/Publisher - UFO Interactive

Version – eShop

Price - $1.99

Obtained – Review Copy courtesy of UFO Interactive

Tengu’s Gold are sacred coins, rumored to hold the power of Tengu, the Harbinger of War.  Players take control of Tetsuo, a Samurai who must stop the power of Tengu’s Gold from falling into the wrong hands.  You will fight off several types of enemies, avoiding traps, and projectiles along the way.  Activate Gold Mode to harness the power of Tengu and to speed up gameplay and become invincible for a brief amount of time.  There is no end to Samurai G, you will span across 6 different environments that seamlessly meld into each other.  Other than the visual difference that you are in a new area, there will also be coins that spell out “L 01″ or “L02″.  Your goal is to  try and beat your best score and earn all 24 in-game achievements.  The gameplay, while not perfect, is quite fun and at times almost addictive.  There would be times my run might only last for 10 seconds, others near two minutes.  The screen automatically scrolls from left to right, but you control Tetsuo’s movement within the screen.  Enemies and projectiles will almost come from the right.

So far, I have made it to Level 04 and I have run across ninjas who throw shurikens, ninjas in some sort of aerial device throwing projectiles, ninjas who flip onto the screen and slice at you with their swords, and warriors on horseback.    The enemies don’t come after you, you have to come after them.  This is where the challenge lies, as you are trying to dodge or deflect the projectiles, you also must jump over bamboo spikes that pop up from holes in the ground, sharp wood spears stuck in the ground which kill you instantly and then catch up to the enemies and slice them down.  It’s all about reflexes, so you’ll have to be good to get far.

The screen moves at a set speed, so you’ll be using the circle pad to move Tetsuo left and right.  You use your sword by pressing Y and jump by pressing B.  Gold mode can be activated either by collecting a certain amount of coins, which will activate Gold mode automatically.  Or you can press L to activate Gold mode.  The moment you activate Gold Mode, Tetsuo changes into an all gold samurai and the screen scrolls by even faster.  More enemies will assault you, but seeing as how you are invincible it really doesn’t matter, does it?  Gold mode will wear off after roughly 5-7 seconds, so cut down as many as you can, but be careful not to stay in the right corner of the screen, you never know what trap will be next.  I found myself getting impaled on sharp sticks immediately after Gold mode wore off due to me hugging that right corner.

As I mentioned, there are 24 in-game achievements to unlock.  These range from killing a certain amount of enemies, running a certain distance, collecting a certain amount of coins, and activating Gold Mode a certain amount of times.  Each of these 4 types have six different levels to them, three of which are recorded in one run and the other 3 are recorded overall.

The visuals look great and are hand-drawn.  The death animations for Tetsuo and the enemies look great, each enemy type has a unique death animation.  The speed in which the levels pass by really looks good, and overall the visuals look great.  The audio is about just as good as the visuals.  The music has an oriental sound to it and the sound effects of the swords, the deaths, and the coins all sound very good.  The visuals and audio work very well together to help contribute to a fun experience.

 

Final Score: 4.5 out of 5