Archview #49: Way of the Samurai

 Live by the sword, and leave a mark in history. Or not. It's up to you really.

 Way of the Samurai is a third person action-adventure game set in feudal Japan. You take the role of a nameless ronin as he arrives at Rokkotsu Pass, a place which is soon to see itself amidst warring clans and other unpleasantries. You will spend two days in this place, and your actions will determine how it all pans out, want to do nothing and watch it all unfold? You can. Want to fight and kill every NPC that crosses your path? You can. Unless they play a big role later, in which case you'll probably get to fight them later. Or not. You really have a lot of choices and options as how you want to go about each day, and that's really cool.
 As for the game itself, Rokkotsu Pass has about 6 different zones, and you are free to travel anywhere almost any time you want. Zones are big enough as to let you explore at your leisure, although they don't hold many secrets. You'll also get yourself involved in many conversations, and every now and then you get to answer. Answers carry weight here, so answer accordingly! Besides exploring, you'll probably see yourself involved in fights, in which case your Ronin has access to weak attacks, strong attacks, parries, kicking, blocking and jumping. You can also pick up objects like boxes or chairs and throw them, or food and restore your health. Combat is very intuitive, and feels nice. There's about 7 different movesets depending on your sword, which you can carry up to three of, and they are pretty varied.

 When fighting enemies, they will attack you one on one, following their code of honor, so you won't get mobbed upon. When fighting, you must also keep track of the tension on your sword. Having your attacks blocked, specially Strong attacks, makes the tension increase, fill the tension gauge and you lose a point of durability, if the durability drops to zero, your sword breaks. There are dozens of unique swords, each one carried by one of the unique NPCs, and if you want their sword you will have to kill them. There's also a Smithy that can enhance your sword, if you can pay his services(Or kill him if you don't have enough money to pay, he asks for the money after enhancing your sword after all).
 The game is very short, 2 hours or less short, but it's fun comes from it's replayability. There's about 6 different endings, and there are loads upon loads of factors that change the endings, change conversations or even conditions, even after finishing the game 6 times, there's stuff I haven't even seen! There's many unlockables too, from different heads and outfits, to a versus mode and characters for it, but it takes a lot of playthroughs to unlock, and I do mean a lot. It's also pretty unforgiving, while you can beg for your life if a fight isn't going your way, dying means losing all three of the swords you are carrying, and every time you continue your file, it gets deleted, so no save scumming!

 Way of the Samurai is a very old game, and a very plain looking one. It's not ugly, but it's boring. Characters are very simple, and so are the backgrounds themselves. The game also uses a very drab color scheme, so nothing really stands out. There's not a whole lot of music, but it's actually quite good. There's no voice acting, and considering the amount of unskipabble text there is added to how boringly characters flop their lips make for a very boring looking game. Disappoingly, while there are so many endings, all of them are images with text, and many of them share some images. Oh, and typos, there are more than a couple of them.
 As for complaints, the only real issue is the camera. Outdoors is fine, you use the right analog stick and move it around, a bit unwieldy but fine, but on some areas, mostly indoors, the camera switches angles(which you can't change) along the directional imputs, which make for some annoying moment where you try to move to another area, only for the angle and imputs to change and turn around. Very annoying.
 So yeah, it's an ugly, plain looking game. It's also very short, if you are not into replaying, don't even bother, it lasts 2 hours or less. But it's also very fun, combat feels just right, and collecting swords on each playthrough gets addictive.
 7 out of 10.