Usually, a fairly simple and repetitive combat loop and saminess of locations and lack of variety in enemies would sink a game for me. But this scores then speaks to the extremely amazing strength of the presentation here and how it overcomes these flaws to still provide an overall wonderful experience.
The quick hitter comparison is that this side-scrolling Ghost of Tsushima, or as my friend Andy called it, "Limbo with swords". You run around with your katana parrying and countering attacks, and that's about it. You do gain some different ranged abilities and they're fun to mix in, but on normal difficulty the game is far from challenging. I'm not "good" at games and I only died a few times, with the final boss taking me maybe 60 seconds to knock down.
What makes this game incredible is the presentation. From the Japanese language (only option available) to the black and white to the supernatural-infused samurai story of duty and honor... this is maybe as close to playing a Kurosawa movie as you can get. The character animations aren't always great and can look a little blurry, but the environmental effect, combat, and wonderfully era-appropriate score make this FEEL epic. While the story may be uncomplicated and hardly memorable, at about 5 hours for a single playthrough, it was short enough to not quite wear out its welcome and be a unique take in the genre well worth playing.
The quick hitter comparison is that this side-scrolling Ghost of Tsushima, or as my friend Andy called it, "Limbo with swords". You run around with your katana parrying and countering attacks, and that's about it. You do gain some different ranged abilities and they're fun to mix in, but on normal difficulty the game is far from challenging. I'm not "good" at games and I only died a few times, with the final boss taking me maybe 60 seconds to knock down.
What makes this game incredible is the presentation. From the Japanese language (only option available) to the black and white to the supernatural-infused samurai story of duty and honor... this is maybe as close to playing a Kurosawa movie as you can get. The character animations aren't always great and can look a little blurry, but the environmental effect, combat, and wonderfully era-appropriate score make this FEEL epic. While the story may be uncomplicated and hardly memorable, at about 5 hours for a single playthrough, it was short enough to not quite wear out its welcome and be a unique take in the genre well worth playing.