In the case of Samurai Western, don't judge a book by its cover. While the story of a Samurai in the old west may sound a tad strange, it'll be instantly forgotten once you get immersed into the frantic and stylish action the game has to offer. While the gameplay is enjoyable for a good amount of time, it's not without its flaws, however, as a disagreeable camera, some questionable voice acting, and clunky controls can't help but hinder an otherwise enjoyable game.

It's the 1800's, the heyday of shootouts at the corral, gun fights at high noon, and bar brawls at the saloon. Samurai Western puts you into the sandals of Gojiro Kiryu, a mysterious samurai who finds his way into a small town in the middle of the desert in search of a man on a wanted poster that he's carrying. The people who run the town don't have much tolerance of Gojiro's meddling and they send out their goons to make sure they put a stop to the otherwise nosey Samurai.

The game's story mode is divided into multiple stages where you have to complete an objective which is pretty much always “kill all of the people in the level”. Once you complete a level, you're graded on your performance such as time completed, and number of kills just to name a few, while a score based off of all damage inflicted on you which is subtracted from your overall score. You're then awarded experience points based off of your kills and skill. You'll also be awarded with weapons and accessories based off of your score and the weapon you use. You'll also get bonuses for not being knocked down and style.

The gameplay is where Samurai Western really shines and falters at the same time. Gojiro has twenty weapons at his disposal, all with varying stances, different attacks and abilities. One-handed swords will allow him to pick up items such as tables and baddies and use them as cover as well as make you run faster and double jump. Two-handed weapons have more power and can deflect bullets back at enemies. There are also dual wielding weapons which pack even more power and make it harder to knock Gojiro down. You can power your weapons up by snagging coins from fallen baddies as you play (or replay) each stage. You'll gain a level for every ten coins you pick up. All the weapons are balanced nicely which makes it hard to choose just one favorite out of them all and you'll find yourself replaying earlier levels to power up new weapons only to win more new, cooler weapons. It's a vicious circle and really adds some value to the story mode as a whole.

As mentioned before, each weapon has its own ability and move set. Every weapon has its own combo, with different animations for each one. While you're chopping cowboys down, your master meter fills up. Once the meter is ? full, you can use each weapon's special ability which varies from extra speed, to invulnerability, etc. Abilities can be cancelled once the meter runs out or if Gojiro is knocked down. If the master meter is full, you can get into samurai master mode which will render Gojiro invincible and able to cut baddies in half with one hit. The faster you kill enemies in master mode, the longer it lasts. When you go into master mode on a boss, you'll be able to perform super combos that can almost exceed one hundred hits. Needless to say, this is the fastest and most over the top action RPG you've ever played. You'll be able to link your combos from baddie to baddie, keep it going with a series of dodges, and then continue linking on another group of baddies. It all translates into an exhibition of speed, skill, and style which can almost rival any of the other over-the-top action games on the shelves today.

In addition to weapons, you'll also earn accessories that will increase and decrease your abilities. Accessories are usually represented as normal items like hats, masks, guitars, etc. While you're able to equip up to three at a time, you'll constantly juggle between accessories to get the right balance going, as certain accessories will add big bonuses to certain attributes and take away from others. One really neat feature is when you equip an accessory, you'll see it on Gojiro at all times which turns it into a matter of fashion – do you want to trade abilities and make him stylish or focus on abilities and make him walk around with a mask and cowboy hat on his head? You decide.

The great equalizer between samurai and his gun-wielding foes is his ability to dodge and deflect bullets. With a press of the circle button while running, Gojiro will dodge his way through hails of gunfire while gaining points for skill. If you stand still and repeatedly press the circle button, you'll deflect oncoming bullets with varying degrees of success.

You'll find yourself going back and replaying earlier stages a lot during the course of the story mode. If you make an attempt to play straight through, you'll eventually hit a dead end by the time you get to the game's first boss a few stages in. This isn't a bad thing if you don't mind it as such, as you'll hopefully be enthralled with testing out the new weapons and accessories you've earned in those stages. Not to mention attempting to beat the previous records you've set is always satisfying to an extent.

You can't really talk about the Samurai Western's gameplay without mentioning the veritable “camera from hell” the game possesses. The camera's manual controls are slow; it gets trapped behind walls and objects during gameplay, and is just stubborn all together. The worst example of the camera is in samurai master mode where the camera will center on the baddie that's cleaved in half leaving you to wonder where the next baddie is at so you can keep your meter full. Instead, you'll be blindly slashing looking for another baddie to kill. It's also almost impossible to look at what's coming behind you unless you're standing in one place since the camera will always center when you start running which can make things frustrating, especially during boss battles.

Luckily, the controls are intuitive and simple to pick up, though jumping seems to be broken. With as quick and nimble as Gojiro seems to be, he jumps like he weighs a ton, which makes reaching those hard to reach enemies a chore at times. Luckily, you'll be able to knock their platforms down most of the time.

Samurai Western has some decent visuals going for it. As mentioned earlier, you're able to see any accessory Gojiro is wearing, no matter how outlandish it is. Animations for combos are also great as no two weapons seem to have the same set of moves which is really cool. Gojiro will put a lot of oomph into the more powerful weapons or he will swing the lighter one-handed sword around after completing a combo with seamless transition. There's also a decent amount of bloodshed with the trademark spraying blood fountain when enemies die. The characters all look great, though some are obviously better than others, but overall they all look great for the amount of enemies the game puts onscreen at once. Enemies aren't too varied as you'll be fighting the same generic gunslingers, knife throwers, and pudgy bombers that you fought in the first level in later levels, but the game is nice enough to introduce a new addition to the mix every so often.

Environments also look nice as they all have the gritty look and feel that a game set in the old west should have. It's not as stylish as say, Red Dead Revolver, but they have more of a cleaner grit to them. Some levels are revisited or have a similar look and layout, which might get on the nerves of some people.

Sound doesn't fare as well as the visuals, however. While most voice acting is done well, some of the western accents sound like they were done by players from a high school production of Oklahoma . Gojiro's dialog is passable, though his accent sounds almost stereotypical of a person from the Far East . Then again, I could just be wrong here so don't take it at face value. You'll also get heckled by the waves of baddies you'll be going up against. While the voice acting is a mix between good and horrid, each type of baddie only has three lines of dialog that's repeated over and over. Needless to say, it gets very old by level two. It won't replace the werewolf in your nightmares, but its howl will be replaced with screams of “stand still!” and “take that!” The worst example of voice acting has to be the bombers that look like they're female and sound like they're being done by a man imitating a female and that's just wrong.

There is a soundtrack that accompanies this voice acting madness, though the tracks aren't too memorable and unobtrusive.

Despite the simple level objectives, occasionally bad voice acting, and some issues with the camera, Samurai Western is one of the most enjoyable action RPGs to have come out in recent memory, though the action can be as repetitive after about ten hours of play as it is addictive in the first few hours, Samurai Western is a fun game that could have been better if the nagging glitches would have been fixed and more variety were thrown in. If you were disappointed in Musashi Samurai Legend and are in the market for a new action RPG, Samurai Western will at least stave away the cravings for a week or two.

 

- Brad Hicks (Dr. Swank), SwankWorld Media