Review #298: Samurai Champloo - Sidetracked

 Suda 51's worst game?

 It's no secret that I consider Goichi Suda my favorite videogame director. He's got an impossibly unique writing style, and does things with videogames nobody else would dare to. His games have an almost David Lynch-like weirdness and surrealism to them, that I just adore. That said, they tend to be technically clunky, a bit rough around the edges, but they make up for it by having both style and substance, usually hiding a surprising amount of depth behind their rather simple mechanics. Samurai Champloo Sidetracked is clunky, with a ton of style but nothing of substance, and it pains me having to write this about a game from my favorite developer.

 The game follows an entirely original story, that takes place sometime before the anime's end. You can either play as Mugen or Jin, and they follow different, but connected, storylines. Mugen deals with the enigmatic new character, Worso, directly, while having to deal with a witch's poison, while Jin meets Worso's sister and her attendant. The story feels very Samurai Champloo-ish, even if it veers into the supernatural... although the anime did acknowledge 'ki', so it's not all that out of place, but what's even better, it also reeks of Suda 51. From the screen transitions, to the dialogue(Even Jin breaks the 4th wall once!), to how enemies disappear when killed, to the weird characters(Talking Yakuza Monkeys with colored hairdos!) it's all very Suda 51, and it's amazing. Both Jin and Mugen have different stages and bosses, eight chapters each, and finishing the game with either unlocks Worso as a playable character, with 4 chapters to his story. It should be said that character models are a bit... off, and it doesn't help that the game only offers English voices, which are fine on their own, but they don't match the mouth movements at all, so it comes off as very off putting.

 Gameplay is when things start falling apart. Mugen and Worso play a bit similarly, but Jin is fairly different from both of them. There's weak attacks and strong attacks that can be used after certain weak attacks, and while Worso and Mugen jump with the X button, Jin enters an alternate stance. You can buy different weapons and 'tracks' inside shops, these tracks not only alter the sound that's playing, but also how your character attacks and even when you can end a combo with a strong attack, and sometimes they come with side effects, like boosting defense. You can only bring two tracks with you, and can only equip them at stores. Successfully landing many attacks, without being hit, rises Tension, and once maxed your combo strings increase, which vary from track to track, and performing a certain attack string, shown on screen, will make you enter Hyper Mode for a short while, which makes you faster and stronger. There's two different forms of counters as well, pressing an attack button without being hit will do a weak counter, while pressing circle will let you use an even stronger counterattack, but it's riskier since circle does nothing for Mugen or Worso, but makes Jin dash forward, putting them in harm's way. Lastly, after maxing tension, you might come across enemies with stars on their heads, killing them will let you enter 'trance mode', where you have to kill 100 enemies before being hit 3 times, in order to receive rewards. Trance Mode is very stylish, but it's also a drag. Later in the game you'll try to avoid entering Trance Mode since it's so damn boring, and wastes so much time.

 And the game loves to waste your time. Most of the time, enemies respawn infinitely and constantly, which is just annoying. So you'd think to yourself 'I'll just avoid them once I get bored of cutting them down', which would be viable, if only there weren't tollbooths. Tollbooths are the game's way of forcing you to kill enemies, but these don't charge you money, which is rather plentiful, but instead require Kobans. Kobans fall at random from killing enemies, so it might take you anywhere from a few minutes to more than half an hour to get the Kobans you need. What were they thinking? D'you know what the solution for this was? HAVING A FIXED NUMBER OF ENEMIES PER STAGE, LIKE ANY OTHER NORMAL ACTION GAME. The last level for both Jin and Mugen is an absolute nightmare, it's long, repetitive, poorly designed and filled with tollbooths. Oh, and I didn't mention it, but you can only save your game upon finishing a chapter! There was this one time, during the last stage, that I spent 30 minutes wandering aimlessly killing enemies because the goddamn Koban didn't want to fall. Fun times.

 Then there's the subweapons, you can carry up to two of them, but they will break if you use them too much, and only the rare 'herb' item will repair them mid level. And if they break, you have to pay a fee to repair them at a shop. The best part about these weapons, is that they are sometimes stronger than you basic weapon, but they have different durability levels... of course the game doesn't tell you how strong or durable a weapon is, so you have to find out by yourself. And the load times, hot damn, they might not be long, but they are very frequent. Some bosses have various cutscenes mid battle, and it has to load each and every one of them, which really takes you out of the game. And if you access a shop from a level, instead of from the town, the load time will be rather long. And the camera, jesus christ, the camera is terrible, because there're fixed camera angles. Basically, you'll have to use the map on the lower right of the screen(Or press R2 to make it appear) in order to navigate levels. It's not unusual to get hit by enemies hidden by the camera.

 But what surprises me the most is how many positive reviews this game got. Maybe this was acceptable at the time of its release? I dunno, but I swear to god, I couldn't enjoy this game at all. I tried, I wanted to, specially since it was made by my favorite developer, who both wrote and directed this game! That said, for a Suda 51 fan, I'd say it's worth a look. You will find the game has a lot in common with No More Heroes, heck, I'd say this game feels like a sort of a prototype of No More Heroes, but fans of Samurai Champloo'd do better to altogether skip this game. It might feel like an episode from the show, but it's not even half as fun to play as it is to watch an episode of the series.
 3.5 out of 10