Samurai’s Revenge seems to be a game born of a love for classic Samurai action. The game appears to be heavily influenced by the golden age of 80’s Samurai action movies in story with a more modern art style. With that said though, Samurai’s Revenge may be a game for a smaller audience than you would expect.
Samurai’s Revenge is game that does focus on classic Samurai action, meaning high intensity battles, but not exactly overflowing with action. To explain, the game begins with the Samurai you control, Takeshi, explaining that his family has been murdered and he intends to take his revenge. This leads into the first fight almost instantly without an explanation for controls or exactly why you’re fighting this particular individual. There is a help button that explains the controls, but unfortunately most people probably don’t notice it immediately so the game does fail in the tutorial department. However, the game does work with rules that really drives up the tension for the player. You have to wait through a “ready, set, go” type system before quickly slashing on your screen to attack your opponent faster than they attack you. Note this is not a slash until they’re down system, each enemy you face will be in a first to win five rounds format, and each round you only have to slash once, just be the faster Samurai to win. Also, for those of you that may try to beat the timer and go early, Takeshi will actually attack himself and forfeit the round if you slash too early, or if you happen to slip and hit your screen by accident, so make sure you’ve got a comfortable place to play the game.
As for the games appearance and sounds it is phenomenal. A simplistic color scheme with silhouette characters captures a very Japanese style that feels completely authentic, and combined with Classical Japanese music it is a perfect fit. The music also keeps up the tension with highs and lows for waiting for your chance to strike and after the rounds.
Although Samurai’s Revenge is not exactly action packed like most other games in the market, it has really good tension and dramatic effect and really tests your reflexes once you get through the first couple of enemies. While it does have that great tension, each enemy has to be defeated at least five times, leaving chances for facing each for up to nine times before finally gaining victory. Having to face each enemy so many times does slow down the pacing and it does hurt the game overall that each enemy is so dragged out. But for fans of classic Samurai films, Japanese culture, or just reflex games Samurai’s Revenge is a great choice to pass some time. It’s also worth mentioning that it does have multiplayer, you and a friend can test your reflexes together on the same screen and you can even play as any enemy from the main story in this mode.
Overall, Samurai’s Revenge is an interesting game that while I wouldn’t recommend to everybody, has an audience that can really enjoy it. So if you’re a fan of all things Samurai go grab it from the App Store for free and slash away at all those bad guys!
