Finally, finally, finally. I've been at this one for months. Difficult samurai game from Team Ninja. I was really hesitant to play this one because of the intimidating difficulty factor, but after doing the Fromsoft gauntlet, I had no excuse. Luckily, it was a fun, polished game. When it comes to the story, I honestly had no clue what was going on. They introduced so many characters so rapidly that it felt impossible to keep track of who was who. My character was a pretty generic Japanese-style hero. Meaning he had an iron resolve and stoicism and no personality but was a white guy named William for some reason. William McWhiteface somehow managed to get wrapped up in the Japanese civil wars of the 16th century in search of his guardian spirit with an unpronounceable Irish name, Saoirse, which is pronounced "Betty" probably. The gameplay is vicious. Absolutely fantastic variety. Ton of weapons, fighting styles and postures, techniques, magics, combat items and enhancements. Prominently featured fast-paced combat with constantly shifting tides of battle that can be decided in a heartbeat rules the day. The RPG elements are really thorough and user-friendly. I'm not usually the insatiable type to master a game and make a character with an unstoppable cyclone moveset, but if you are, then you have an infinite amount of options and customizations (including aesthetics). I wouldn't say that it's EXPERTLY balanced though. I figured out what the exploitable mechanics were pretty early on. Your current Guardian Spirit has a meter that, when filled, just wreaks devastation on everything around you. The final, epilogue boss was this recharging-health chump and once I got that meter up, it was done dinner. That's one complaint I have. The bosses felt really off-kilter. The difficulty seemed front-loaded, as if to shake off the new players without that "no-matter-what" mindset. But, towards the end, there were plenty that I beat first try. Including the three-boss run as the finale. As if they knew that, they seemed to focus the post-game content on this. A bunch of missions unlocked after the last one, but they were mostly boss gauntlets. Like, "okay, you beat this one and this one, but now fight them at the same time". And I'm not nearly masochistic enough at this point to be willing. The sheer amount of time I spent on it and the pacing of the game burnt me out. Unlike other adventure games, this one has individual, start-and-stop chapters unlike the open-world seamlessness so popular today. They padded out the game with a shit-ton of repetitive objectives and fights and it got really tiresome. Just, "oh this guy again" and "back here, huh?". It wasn't optimal, but it wasn't bad enough to deter me from ever playing again. And I definitely will, this and the sequel. Best of all, it's dirt-cheap nowadays if you eBay shop. If you're a fan of fast-paced fighters and RPGS then nosedive here. Just be patient with it because the difficulty can spike on you.