Review #794: Contra Rogue Corps

 Contra: The looter shooter.

 A lot has been said about Contra: Rogue Corps, some true, some false, some good, some bad, but I'll just say that it's not bad because it's not really Contra, but rather, it's bad because it's bad. I'm fairly open to change, I like both Devil May Cry and DmC, I enjoyed Dungeon Siege 3 even though it's very unlike the first two Dungeon Siege games, which happen to be some of my favorite RPGs ever, and, heck, I like Silent Hill post Silent Hill 4, so believe me when I say that I wouldn't condemn a game just for being different from what came before.

 The first thing you need to understand is that this is a dungeon crawler but with twin-stick mechanics, which makes it a looter shooter. This is eerily similar to Silent Hill: Book of Memories, when Konami tried to make a dungeon crawler out of a licensed that didn't fit the genre, and it fails just as much. The game is made up of 7 ranks, a few more if you download the free patches, each one made up of about 6 missions. Which sounds like plenty, but a lot of the maps get repeated, although on higher ranks it means meatier enemies and, sometimes, a few alternate, tougher enemies to fight. There is offline co-op, but there are only 4 missions you can play in that mode, and they require a small fee to attempt, which, y'know, lame. Oh, and by the by, you can't pause the game. Even if you're playing offline, the pause menu is a lie, enemies will still harm you and the time counter will still tick, so once you start a mission you are in it for the long haul. And, on what can only be considered a bad taste joke, the Switch version looks very, very blurry. This is easily one of the worst looking games on the system, and even the PS4 version looks pretty bad, although at least not blurry. At least it keeps a steady 30 fps, I guess.

 Left stick moves, right stick aims, ZR shoots, ZL dodges/attacks and A jumps, and that's pretty much all you need to know. The dodge is more like an offensive dodge? It hurts anything in its path, and you're invincible while you use it. And you'll need to use it a lot in order to get away from swarms of enemies or from more elite mooks that will keep you on your toes. Your weapon loadout is made up of two different guns, and you'll need to swap between them because, yes, they overheat. Overheat is a dumb mechanic that makes it so that you can't use your weapon all the time, because.... reasons? There's already an affinity mechanic in place(Fire, Poison, Electricity) that makes some enemies take more or less damage from different elements, so I really don't understand why they need to force you to swap weapons. Some weapons are awful when fighting enemies on higher/lower altitudes, so it's not like it's easy to get a single weapon to cover all your needs. Heck, some levels have 'shooting gallery' sections, in which it turns into a pseudo third person shooter in which you can only move from left to right, as well as some small degree of freedom on the Y axis, and some weapons just won't reach far enough. If you happen to equip two weapons that don't reach far enough the game will warn you that, hey, those two weapons you like? Yeah, neither of them work in that mode. Fun. Honestly, the Overheating mechanic makes no sense in the game other than to annoy the player or to create some fake sense of depth.

 I called the game a looter shooter, because after every mission you'll amass a ton of 'body parts', that can be used to alter any of the four playable characters, and different weapons, weapon blueprints and weapon mods, and yes, every body part, weapon and mod come in rarities: common, rare and epic varieties, because, as said before, this is a looter shooter. Body parts come in four: Brain, Eyes, Skeleton and Organs, they don't change how characters look, but it grants you passive bonuses, like Extra lives, extra shield, extra bombs, longer dashes, stronger dashes when your weapons overheat, etc. Weapon Mods have two distinct functions: Enhance your equipped weapons or as parts to create weapons from their blueprints. Sometimes it's a bit painful having to choose between creating weapons or using them as a resource, but do you really want to grind for parts in this game? Nay! You want to spend the least amount of time possible playing this junk!

 Alright, so onto the positives, I really liked the four heroes. They are all freaks: A Gentleman alien, a dudebro with a drill-arm, a female mercenary with an alien grafted on her abdomen and a panda with the brain of a scientist. As far as gameplay goes, the only thing that sets them apart, besides looks, is their unique R ability, but, hey, they are a weird bunch and I love it. I also enjoyed the comic-book cutscenes, very low budget to be sure, but the art is gorgeous. Also, there's a lot of variety when it comes to weapons.... although, honestly, I hated most of them. I tried out a whole lot of them, but they were either two weird to use, or too useless. For example, the Chainsaw and the 'swords' look cool, but they slow you down to a crawl and you need to get too close for comfort. The incendiary gun shoots in bursts which made it rather useless when it came to swarms. I stuck with the Gatling Gun and the Fire Gun for the rest of the game, because they worked well most of the time. Also, I think it's rather lame how the gun-model your character holds doesn't change for whatever weapon you equip, the chainsaw is just a giant chainsaw that comes out of your gun, and the shotgun is just a shotgun spread that comes out of your rifle-looking weapon. Lame.

 Alright, Konami, you tried it with Castlevania and it kinda worked. Then you tried it with Silent Hill and most decidedly it didn't work. I'm pretty sure you tried it with Metal Gear Solid V and it didn't work. Now it was Contra's turn to get turned into a loot-based dungeon crawler, and guess what, it didn't work. Again. Stop trying to turn everything into a dungeon crawler or a pachinko machine and just make the games people want to play, dammit!
 3.0 out of 10

Review #793: Carebears Care Quest

 Baby's first game.

 I used to watch the Carebears when I was a wee lad, which is why I decided to get CareBears: Care Quest. Obviously, it's pretty bad, even by licensed game standards. It's a 12 mini-game collection that has you playing as a different bear on each.... although most mini games share mechanics in one way or another.

 Most mini games come in two varieties: Flying and walking, with a couple of outliers. The game is clearly made on the cheap, as there are very few assets and animations are very minimalistic. The first game is a memory matching mini game that, I kid you not, starts with four options, very slowly adding new pairs. There's a silly hide and seek mini game in which bears keep popping their heads, and they even reuse hiding spots. There are like six similar flying games in which you must drop things below: Hearts on top of Bears, Rainbows to make trampolines for Starbuddies, Sleeping powder on Bears, Lucky Clovers to make bears jump and, lastly on in which you actually shoot laughing beams horizontally. In this latter one, there's a funny bug on the last level: next to the rightmost elevation there's an opening on the floor on which you can go through.... and get stuck on the environment. There's a Volleyball mini game in which you only need to walk towards the ball, a platformer in which you avoid water droplets, a game in which you must collect the right present for the right Star Buddy... and when successfully delivering a gift the most annoying maraca sound plays and a skater platfomer which happens to be the only game that uses both A and B button, since the other games at most use only the A button. Lastly, there's another gift-giving game, the 12th minigame, in which bears tell you what they want and you have to grab it as it falls. I saved this one for last because it's so poorly made that it's entirely based on luck and sometimes the right gift won't pop in time, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 CareBears: Care Quest is broken at its worst and incredibly boring and its best. Kids will hate this game, fans will hate this game and people who are in it for the nostalgia, like me, will also hate it. Absolutely no redeeming qualities.
 1.5 out of 10

Review #792: Open Season

 If only it played as good as it looks.

 I'm sure I'm not the only one that when asked about gorgeous 2-D sprites usually thinks about Capcom, Konami and SNK, thanks to their beautiful Arcade and Console games. But if I've learned something playing through so many licensed garbage on the Gameboy Advance... is that Ubisoft were on point when it came to 2-D sprites, Open Season is yet another beautiful licensed game from them. Since I'm growing tired of CIMA, and my girlfriend's got the Switch, I decided to play something else on a handheld, and thus I came around this little platform game.

 Usually, this is the part where I say that I never watched the movie or show so I don't know if it's faithful to the source material, however, when playing this game I realized something.... I saw this movie. I don't know how or when, since this isn't and wasn't the type of movie I like, but I know I saw it, and thus, I can tell you that it does follow the plot of the movie, and does an acceptable job at conveying its main arc. The game is made up of about 8 stages, an introduction stage, 6 main levels and a final battle against the hunter Shaw. Hilariously, there's no normal difficulty, it's either Easy or Hard.

 Boog, our main hero, a bear, can jump, roll and hit enemies with his teddy bear-sack. As you clear stages you'll gain the ability to stock up on living ammo: Beavers, Ducks, Skunks, Rabbits and Squirrel, each one having their own travel arc as well as an exclusive melee attack with Up + B. There's no need for them, but they sure make some boss battles much, much easier. And each stage ends with a boss, so it's not a bad idea to see how you fare against them with your furry pals. Clearing levels also rewards Boog with either an extra heart or an extension to his shout ability, which refills as you defeat enemies, and scares hunters, letting you enter a hilarious pseudo-bullet time. Each stage also has about 20 candy bars to collect, which can be used to buy some permanent upgrades to your ammo .

 Sadly, while the game is beautiful, it's also very boring. Stages are very forgettable and not very fun to explore. And that's the game's biggest problem: It's boring. All that said, I think that children and fans of the movie might get a kick out of it.
 4.0 out of 10

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

Review #790: Shadow of Destiny

 Man, I love old Konami.

 I said it before and I'll say it again, I LOVE early PS2 games, and I also love a lot of things oldschool Konami used to developed, before the HD generation hit the scene. Shadow of Destiny is one weird game, think Twin Peaks meets Groundhog Day meets Sun, Flower and Rain and you get this game. It's also weird because it's an adventure game. No fighting, no jumping, just walking around, collecting items and interacting with other characters. It's good.

 The story pits you as Eike Kush, a cross between Raiden and James Sunderland, who wakes up in a Cafe only to get murdered shortly after. But that's 'K, Charles "It's a me Mario' Martinet is here to help, as a mysterious voice that offers Eike the power to travel in time through different eras of the very same town he is living in, albeit not completely freely. And thus begin 10 short chapters in which Eike gets murdered at the start of each, and up to him to prevent his murder each and every time. The game promises '10 massive chapters', but a few chapters last less than 10 minutes. Even less when you are on a New Game+ and can skip dialogue. As with ANY plot involving Time Travelling... there are plot holes. Some story devices even break the established rules of how changing his destiny works. The plot is interesting, and some of the plot twists are delicious, but you have to turn your brain off and not think too hard about the finer details. There are five main endings, and each ending reveals a little more of why it's happening what is happening as well as who really are the people involved and how they are connected, between time and eras. If you get all five endings(My first playthrough took me four hours, the other four between 40-60 minutes each) you get an altered Prologue chapter which lets you get two more endings. The voice acting ranges from passable to so-bad-it's-good, in no small part due to how cringy some of the dialogue is. The bottom line is, the story is enjoyable, but you have to be able to ignore some of the innate failings of Time Travel plots as well as a few details that don't make too much sense once you get the whole picture.

 The game is very simple, the puzzles are very simple. Eike has the ability to travel between four different eras: 2001(Present), 1980, 1902 and 1580, although 1980 barely gets any use, and the game slowly opens up these eras for the player. The game is always very clear with what you have to do, and if you really need a hint you could always check Eike's notes in your inventory, and even then using the Digipad, the device that lets you travel in time, will add some flavor text to the four different eras, most of the time cluing you in to where you need to go. There are two big chapters in the game: Chapter 5 and Chapter 8, they are also the chapters that determine which ending you'll get. The rest of the chapters are pretty easy to figure out, there are two chapters in which you only need to go back in time, talk to an NPC, return to the the present and voila! chapter over. That said, the more involved chapters are certainly more fun, and I wish the rest of the game was like that.

 That said, there are plenty of optional character interactions and mini sidequests that are there just for the sake of it. Like, for example, drinking a cup of joe and then paying with a pocket watch. Or bringing a little girl a kitten from the future. Is it necessary? Does it develop the main characters? Nope, but it's an amusing little detail. That said, don't tarry for too long, as chapters have a time limit. Not that it really matters, since all that happens is that your progress for the chapter is reset and you must do everything again, but at least, since you've seen it already, you can skip every story bit you had done before the reset. That said, there's ample time to finish the puzzle before the limit expires, I only got a reset this one time I was busy talking to everything and everyone that came my way since I was having fun playing in this world. I liked the characters, I even liked the weird NPCs that populated the game's town that spewed the same useless lines of dialogue every chapter. And I liked even more the ones that didn't repeat the same lines, and the ones involved hidden, optional mini sidequests. It's a fun city to explore, and it's nice getting to see how it changed between eras, as well as meeting the ancestors of present-day NPCs.

 The worst part about the game is the Save system, you can only save after finishing a chapter. That said, there is a mid-game save that deletes itself every time you continue the game, and you must exit the game if you want to use it.... assuming you find it. It's hidden in the Time Travelling menu, there's a fifth 'era' or option called 'End Game', which doubles as this temporary save file. Oh, and another thing, during the prologue you can find another Eike sleeping at the cafeteria. If you try to talk to him you'll die-die, which means sitting through the whole opening all over again, and since this is a game over and not a reset... you can't skip it.

 While far from a classic, this is definitely a hidden gem. It doesn't have the best story out there, but the setting is very interesting and the characters are fun to watch. I think the premise could have made for some more interesting puzzles, like the ones found in Chapter 5 and 8, but I'll take what we got. I'll admit that going through the game 4 more times after finishing the game was a bit of a drag, even if by the end I knew the game so well I could clear it in less than 50 minutes, but the reward was almost worth it, since every route gave me a new piece of the puzzle. Not a game for everyone, for sure, but definitely one for me, and anyone who enjoys quirky characters in weird and creepy situations.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #789: DOOM(2016)

 It's like we're back in the 90's.

 After a brief fling with Survival Horror elements in DOOM 3, DOOM(2016) is a throwback to when things were simpler and strafing was the name of the game. That's right, this is a FPS like the 90's used to birth, no reloading your guns, and a whole lotta strafing around waves of monsters coming your way. It's not quite as great as Painkiller I think, but dang it if it isn't close.

 A lot of praise has been given to how little story is in the player's way, from the moment an NPC tries to talk to DOOMGUY and he breaks the monitor away... but that's only during the first moments in the game, don't worry, you get those mandatory exposition monologues during which you can only jump around the room waiting for them to end. Sometimes you can't even move. So... yeah, besides the optional bits of lore you can collect and read at your leisure, you'll get a few story tidbits whether you like them or not. As for the story itself... it's similar to the one in DOOM 3, some human in a space station decided that opening the portals to hell was a good idea, it wasn't, because everything has now gone to hell, and the DOOMGUY isn't too happy about it. Sadly, space stations have a lot of laser-proof, explosion-proof and chainsaw-proof glass forcing you to keep one step behind this person as you try to undo their plans.

 The game runs at 60 fps, most of the time, and it's a very fast-paced, arcadey shooter. There's no thing such as iron sights or regenerating health. Trying to hide behind cover will get you killed quite quickly, as demons will assault you from every direction possible. The world is designed in such a way as to encourage you to move around as you fire all the time. The DOOMGUY's got mobility on his side, besides him being quick fast, you can also climb on platforms by grabbing onto ledges, and later in the game, you get a second jump. Both mobility abilities really add a marked sense of nimbleness to your movement.

 That said, they saw fit to add a few platforming segments every now and then. Look, if you're not Jumping Flash, then first person platforming doesn't work. To be fair, in this game the platforming is as good as it can get in first person, but you'll still overshoot or overestimate your jumps a couple of times, and it kinda sucks, because those deaths don't feel deserved. As a matter of fact, a few times it looked like I should've clung to the edge of the platform instead of falling to my doom, and yet.... I also found a few particular platforms that could only be grabbed onto from a certain angle, which was weird. In other words, I appreciate the new mobility options, but I think they should've added less bottomless pits surrounding them.

 The game is 13 stages long, and trust me, every stage in the game is fairly large. Not only do you get tons of multi-leveled arenas to fight monsters in, but you're also rewarded for exploring with Weapon Mods, Weapon Upgrades, Halcyon Cells, Rune Challenges and Praetor Upgrades. Praetor Upgrades are found from hidden and not-so-hidden fallen Elite soldiers, these keys are used to upgrade your suit with utilities, making your map show collectibles, increasing the ammo you get from pick ups, etc. Weapon mods are more interesting and harder to miss, and they allow you to change how the Alternate Fire of your weapons work. Most weapons have two mods. Weapon Upgrades are easier to get: You get two per level as bonuses for finding every secret, you get about five of them for murdering every monster that comes your way and you can also get three of them from stage-specific challenges, these are used to enhance weapon mods. Rune Challenges are hidden challenge rooms that reward you with a Rune. Lastly, Halcyon Cells are permanent upgrades to your Health, Ammo and/or Armor limits. So... while it is a mindless shooter most of the time, exploration is rewarded with a plethora of different bonuses: The more thorough you are, the stronger you'll be. And it's actually fun figuring out how to get to these bonuses!

 Strafe and shoot, that's the name of the game. You get a fair amount of weapons, no 2-weapon limit unlike most modern shooters, so you are free to rip and tear your enemies a new one. Something I didn't like was how weapons came in pairs as far as ammo consumption goes. This means that the Shotgun and the Super Shotgun share the same ammo, the Heavy Assault Rifle and the Chaingun share ammo, the Pulse Rifle and the Gauss Cannon share ammo and the Rocket Launcher, well, that baby shares ammo with no one. It kinda sucks, because that kinda reduces your weapon options. The Chaingun is SO good that I rarely, if ever, returned to the Assault Rifle. The Pulse Rifle was so good that I saw no reason to use the Gauss Cannon. The Super Shotgun is leagues above the Shotgun. I know that this is how the old games were, but I don't like it. Rounding up your arsenal are a few grenades, the BFG that destroys anything in its path and the Chainsaw. The chainsaw is really useful because it kills anything that isn't a boss instantly, provided you have enough fuel(enemies cost up to five units of fuel depending on its size) and rewards you with a shower of ammo for all your weapons. It counts as a glory kill, so you get limited invulnerability while the animation plays out.

 Glory Kills are something I thought would grow old no time flat, I remember watching gameplay years ago and think how boring it looked. Well, when you play the game they don't slow down the pace of the game one bit. As you hurt enemies, if you don't completely shred them to bits with your onslaught, you might stun them, and they'll start flashing blue or orange(Depends on your range). If they are flashing blue it means you need close, and if you close the distance so that the flash turns orange, you can press R3 to perform a gory finisher, a Gory Kill, which will reward you with health pick ups. Gory Kills are invaluable for staying alive and they feel GOOD. That said, the game is quite generous and you'll notice that when your health is flashing red the game will be more generous with health pick ups, but in a pinch, Gory Kills are the safe way to go.

 Remember the Runes I mentioned before? There are about 10 Runes total, and this are really neat since they let you customize how you'll play. You can equip up to three of them, and they can be used to enhance your play style or maybe cover your weaknesses. Runes are as simple as giving you a second win when you die, letting you initiate Gory Kills from further away, making Gory Kills drop armor pick ups alongside health pick ups, allowing you to pick up items from further away, etc. Plus, each Rune comes with a mini-challenge that once completed will boost the rune's effectiveness. This holds true for Mod Upgrades as well. Once you get every upgrade for a Weapon Mod, you'll unlock the Mastery Challenge, which, once completed, will give said Mod an even better upgrade. These challenges can be completed throughout the course of the game, so there's no rush, and they are quite simple, for example, the Zoom Mod on the Assault Rifle requires you to kill 50 enemies with a headshot, the triple-shot for the Rocket Launcher requires you defeat 5 enemy Summoners using the Mod, etc.

 For as good as the game feels to play, it does have a few technical issues. It was not weird coming across a few graphical bus, a few flickering shadows on ceilings, for example, or a cranny on one level that would make most of the environment disappear into a yellow nothingness. Textures take a while to load, and they load-unload every time you get close and far to an object, so you might run up to a thing, wait a few seconds in real time for the texture to load, back away, and return to the object only to have the textures load again. And those are just the cosmetic issues. In one level, one you have to climb a tower of sorts, I was jumping around and... I got stuck on the environment with no way to get out of it. Another time I performed a gory kill on an enemy and... fell to my death because I clipped through the floor because why not. I also came across a few audio bugs, accessing the map menu while a sound played made the sound get stuck echoing for a while, and I think it happened more than once.

 I quite liked DOOM(2016). I don't think it was AS good as the hype led me to believe, but it was a great game with a few shortcomings here and there. For my part, I think Painkiller does this whole 90's Shooter thing a lot better, but DOOM is quite close.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #788: Soul of the Samurai

 Onimusha before Onimusha.

 Samura protagonist with a Ninja sidekick? Check(It's actually a Ronin, but...). Battle samurai zombies? Check. Pre-rendered backgrounds? Check. No, this ain't Onimusha, this is Konami's Soul of the Samurai, and you wouldn't believe how tough getting a complete copy of this game was, much more one that would ship to Uruguay! Thankfully, it was all worth it, for this as a 3-D action game that's a little bit around the edges, but a whole lotta fun.

 The game sees you playing as either Lin or Kotaro, don't worry, as after finishing the game with either you'll get to pick characters again. And you should really pick the other character, because the only way to fight the true final boss and get a real ending is to play the game with both. Afterwards, each subsequent playthrough on the same file will become a New Game+ in which you keep your goodies. Kotaro is a Ronin that returns to his birth land, only to find out that something is not quite right with the people in the fiefdom, and even his childhood friend is behaving weirdly. Lin is a Shogunate Ninja who finds out about the zombie villagers the hard way, her clansmen being in peril from this threat. The story is pretty underwhelming, but it gets the job done.

 The game is pretty linear, you're always told where you should go. Exploring might yield a few bonus healing items, which come in limited quantities, but sometimes the damage you'd incur on the way might overweight the value of the healing items. That said, both characters can come across an NPC that will grant them 4 bonus costumes each, and their ultimate weapons require a bit of exploring, well, in the case of Kotaro, first you must be able to defeat 300 enemies on chapter 3. Lin, instead, gets Unlimited Kunai should you accomplish the same feat. Contrary to what you might expect from reading that, both characters have completely different storylines, routes and bosses, but they share that one enemy endurance chapter.

 Square is your basic attack, R1 blocks and Circle uses your selected item(Healing herbs or, in the case of Lin, projectile sub weapons too). There's a mana gauge under your health bar that builds up as you deal damage, and you can use super moves with it, you earn super moves by mowing down enemies. Super moves are neat and all, but the best super is the one you start with, mash Square when your health bar is flashing red. Depending on your timing, you can parry attacks or even instantly kill enemies by blocking and pressing attack just before they strike you... like Onimusha.

 Combat rewards waiting. Running towards an enemy and mashing square will probably get you hit before you hit them. The best way to approach combat is to make your way towards your enemies holding down the block button to block most incoming attacks, and after you block counterattack with swipes of your own. Once you get the hang of it and learn to deal with multiple enemies, the game will become much tamer. Bosses, however, will probably murder you until you understand how to battle them. It's a bit annoying how quickly they can deplete your life bar and how much it takes to return to your save file from the Game Over screen, but after you learn how to dodge their attacks and figure out their opening you'll get the hang of it. It probably took me a bit longer than necessary because a lot of times I just had to defeat a boss without using a healing item, I just knew I could manage.

 Lin is probably the easier playthrough, she has 6 chapters instead of 7, and she has an easy to pull off 5 hit combo as well as sub weapons she can shoot from long distance. I mean, you can even unlock unlimited Kunai, which will trivialize most basic enemy encounters as well as her final boss. I just stood rooted to the ground mashing Circle and it could do nothing against me. On the other hand, she unlocks less weapons and a few of her bosses are made up of two-enemy and three-enemy battles that are a bit tougher than Kotaro's man-on-man/creature boss fights. Kotaro is a bit tougher to play as because mashing square won't make his 3-hit combo come out, you actually have to time your presses as soon as each slash ends, and different swords have different timings. But then again, Kotaro can also find a pair of double Katanas, if you fight his optional boss fight in chapter 3, as well as a Iai-striking Katana, so he has a bit more variety.

 My first playthrough with Kotaro took me 1:30 hours to complete, not counting my many deaths, while my second playthrough as Lin only took me 1 hour, once again, not taking into account my deaths. The Final Boss can be beaten in about a minute or less. Needless to say, this is a very, very short game. Thankfully, the game is pretty darn fun.

 Soul of the Samurai is a game barely mentioned nowadays, which is a shame, because it's REALLY fun. I searched around to see how it scored back in the day, because I couldn't fathom why nobody ever mentioned this game, and one of the lowest mainstream reviews I could find was Gamespot's, who disliked the game because....it wasn't Tenchu? Alas, Soul of the Samurai is great because of what it is, and not because of what it isn't: a fine action game that did Onimusha before Onimusha did Onimusha.
 7.5 out of 10