Review #791: Rising Zan - The Samurai Gunman

 Johnny no more.

 Before Dante we had John--I mean Zan. Rising Zan - The Samurai Gunman is a pretty interesting action hack-and-slash game for the PS1 that doesn't get even half the recognition it deserves.

 The plot is as ridiculous as it gets. Johnny was your every-day Sheriff until he got defeated and scarred by Samurai, so he went to Zipang where he learned the way of the Samurai, so now he returns, rechristened as Zan, to defeat the evil Ninja and Samurai that are invading the wild west. The story doesn't take itself seriously, and neither does Zan, who regularly calls himself the ULTRA SUPER SEXY HERO, ZAN. I mean, I'm not sure if I should praise or lambast the premise itself of a Samurai Gunman. Actually, I love it. The game is made up of 9 stages, and each stage has its own colorful boss to defeat. I also really liked the presentation, there's a lot of surprisingly decent voice acting as well as a original intro theme song, 'Johnny No More' which is all kinds of cheesy amazement.

 Zan can jump as well as hover by double tapping the jump button, attack with his sword with X, use his gun with Square, enter Hustle Mode(Super speed) with triangle, sidestep with L2/R2 and block/deflect with R1. The controls work well enough, and the combat itself is easy to understand. Most bosses and enemies have tells that sign you when you need to either sidestep or try to block. Besides his standard 3 hit combo, Zan also has access to multiple energy-consuming super moves by imputing directions on the Dpad and pressing the Slash button. Energy refills over time, so just spam those super moves like there's no tomorrow. Hustle Time uses the Hero Gauge, which fills as you save innocents and defeat enemies, I liked to save it up for bosses. You can also double tap Up and press the gun button to rapid-fire your gun.

 While combat is rather fun, the one big setback is the camera/lock on system. You have to hold L1 to reposition the camera behind you, or tap L1 to toggle a very wonky targetting system that sometimes tracks the enemies and other times it doesn't. It's weird. Having to depend on holding L1 during fights to see what's ahead of you is very cumbersome as well. Mind you, you can work around the camera and learn to tolerate it, but it can be quite a pain. A gimmick I didn't really like are the many "PRESS ALL BUTTONS" segments. Every stage has two of them, one mid stage and another one to finish off the boss. The former are the most annoying, since failing this means you lose a bit of health, and the mashing it requires is too high. Not a fan.

 On a technical level, the game is punching above its weight, so there's a lot of slowdown. It's not unplayable, but it's there. The Saving System is fairly unorthodox, you can only save after you lose. I lost all my progress this way, and then, after I was getting close to where I was.... the game froze. Regardless, I liked the game so much I didn't really care. Speaking of this, if you die, that's it, back to the start of the level. You can find rare precious extra lives, and you should try to amass them, because the game does have a very noticeable but fair difficulty curve. The pace at which it gets harder is quite reasonable, and level 8 will probably cost you a few extra lives. Level 9 is a bit of a boss gauntlet, but if you could finish level 8, you can finish level 9. The final boss is weak to your puny bullets, so don't be ashamed to rely on Devil May Cry 2 tactics. Dying and restarting the level forfeits said extra lives, and the save system makes sure you can't store them.... so be try to play your best until the end. Beating the game unlocks harder difficulty settings, and you can even unlock an alternate character. She's not too different from Zan, but still.

 I know people consider Devil May Cry the father of character-based action games, but I say to hell with that, Rising Zan is the true father of the genre. Or at least its grandfather. But I digress, the game is good, like really good. The camera is awful and the button mashing segments I could do without, but those few sour spots can't outshine how well the rest of the game plays and how much care went into making a very over-the-top, zany action game on a 32-bit console. And this game deserves a belated recognition, because few games did what this one did as WELL as it did nor have they aged as well. Johnny no more? No, Johnny for ever.

 8.0 out of 10