A slice of history
(This
review contains spoilers!)
Warriors
games are some of my ultimate guilty pleasures. Yes, they’re extremely
simplistic and even a little stupid, but I can’t help but enjoy them. It’s just
fun to mow down enemies like you were cutting grass. Spirit of Sanada is no different, being a very enjoyable experience
for fans of the franchise, but one I wish took a few more chances.
Set during ancient Japan, Spirit of Sanada has you playing as
Masayuki Sanada, the head of his family clan and actually a real person from
Japanese history. Despite this, the developers took some liberties with his
appearance. Here he is in the game:
And here’s the real deal:
Yeah, it’s a little different.
The story overall is the weakest part
of the game. I don’t know if it’s based on actual stuff that happened in
ancient Japan, but a lot of it is “go here, take over this kingdom, rinse and
repeat”. The writing doesn’t make it much better. The characters all constantly
state the obvious out loud, often to the point where the dialogue is just
laughable. Maybe it sounds better in the game’s native language of Japanese,
but I have no way of telling.
The frustrating thing is that a good
30% of your time in this game is spent watching cutscenes. Most of them are thankfully
skippable, allowing you to the next bit of action quickly, which I began doing
once I realized this plot was going nowhere fast.
Much better is the actual gameplay
itself. Spirit of Sanada is your
typical Warriors fare: you’re dropped
into a map surrounded by enemies with very little health, and are given a bunch
of fun special abilities to use. Go nuts. There’s obviously objectives and
stuff to do, but easily the most fun part is charging into a group of enemies
and just watching them fly as you one-man army your way around the map.
As for the rest of the game, the
graphics are pretty good considering this game was also released on the PS3 in
Japan. It’s definitely one of the better looking “anime-style” games I’ve
played recently. The music is also passable, but it has a weird problem of
playing the wrong tracks at the wrong time. There’s a scene where Sanada is
talking to a friend about the tragedies of war with epic fight music playing in
the background. It doesn’t exactly fit.
There’s really not much else to say
about Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada.
I think just by watching a video of it you will immediately be able to tell
whether you’ll enjoy it or not. As someone who likes Warriors games I found it to be a very enjoyable experience, albeit
one I won’t exactly be lining up to play again any time soon.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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