Soul of the Samurai

PlayStation

Review by Matt Paprocki

Capcom

Action

Graphics: 5

Sound: 6

Gameplay: 4

Overall: 4.5


soulsamurai1ps1.jpg (20509 bytes)It's amazing that same company that brought us Metal Gear Solid, a game that redefined the action/adventure genre, could fail so miserably with their take on survival horror. While it doesn't actually feature any zombies, the pre-rendered backgrounds and buckets 'o blood make it all too similar to a certain franchise from Capcom.

With the great pre-rendered backgrounds, the characters should be heavy on polygons. They're not. Square legs and arms are the order of the day here. The resolution is higher than usual, but it can't save the low polygon counts. The oriental soundtrack is appropriate to set the tone of the game, but the lack of voice acting is a major loss.

Two characters are available to tackle the rather long adventure, but only the female character is actually usable. The males slow attacks coupled with some unresponsive controls make the addition of an extra characters worthless. The females attacks are much quicker and easier to get off when surrounded, but the control is still not precise enough.

soulsamurai2ps1.jpg (25710 bytes)Konami really had a great idea here. It's a shame the entire thing is lost on shoddy gameplay. Voice acting would've been appreciated as would some better control. The game turns out to be an extreme disappointment in nearly every department. It's just a shame the game was wasted.

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Last updated: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:51 AM