Way of the Samurai 3 - Xbox 360 Reviews

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I've been waiting for this game for a while and this game was near impossible to find, but I finally found a copy and got to play for the first time last night. It follows the along the same model of the original The Way of the Samurai. There are tons of swords and fighting styles, that will keep you enthralled for hours upon hours, and once you find that certain sword/style that fits you, you can learn new techniques and level the sword so you can become the ultimate assassin, protector, or just plain ole bad a**. This game is full of action around every turn, and the best concept is that you can choose which path you want to take, if you want to become a rich samurai you can join the fujimori clan, or you can be a sole wanderer a ronin,or you can protect the citizens of a poor city who are being heavily taxed, or you can plot against the fujimori clan and join the ouika clan who are a bunch of thieves and robbers, and the beauty of it is it's all up to you which path you choose. The fighting in this game is superb, depending on which sword you use that is the fighting style used, or you can fight bare handed which is pretty fun as well. I thoroughly enjoyed and am still enjoying this game, if this game sounds like something you might like, or if your like me, I really enjoy old samurai movies especially Akira Kurosawa films, you'll love this game. One of my favorite things about this game is one of the faces you can choose for your samurai looks almost exactly like Toshiro Mifune. In all I give this game a 5 out of 5. Maybe more, this is possibly one of my favorite games of the year.

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I'm reviewing this game after putting in about 30 hours so far into it. I'm also reviewing from the perspective of someone who has not played the previous installments in the series, so my comments will be based mostly on the merits of the WOTS3 alone.

I bought the game based on the mostly positive reviews I saw here on Amazon (the decent price point also helped). I too did not see this game in any of my local video game stores or big box retailers so it was nice, being able to find it here.

As for the gameplay you start off as a samurai who wakes up in a village and over the course of the game you can opt to choose to help one (or both, or none) of 2 major samurai factions/clans, or choose to help the village you woke up in, or pretty much do whatever you want and help nobody as well. One great aspect of the game has been the freedom to choose your destiny, and one of the big selling points of this game is the fact there are so many different endings you can choose from.

It is helpful to note that after you achieve one ending, you can carry over your stats and weapons into a new save, so that you don't have to start all over again in terms of accumulating items. Given the deep weapons creation system in this game and the huge number and variety of weapons you can make or choose from, it makes sense that you carry over items in each incarnation of the game you subsequently start.

Gameplay is relatively fun, with the combat mechanics being very deep and fulfilling. You can learn many different moves and combined that with the variety of weapons and stances you choose from, it definitely caters to both the experts who like deep combat, or even button mashers who like to hit X 100 times a minute to slog through a fight. In this respect I give the game props.

How you finish the game is up to you, with all sorts of storylines and decisions presented to the player at many stages of the game. It is nice to see how your choices really do ultimately affect your outcome.

In short, the game plays relatively well and the variety of endings is also very good. But there are also several shortcomings to the game that I noticed as well.

First, even though the game is technically 'open ended', there is a very limited amount of places you can actually go in the game. You're pretty much cycling through all sorts of jobs and tasks and event driven things in those same areas. Mercifully there is a quick hop option you can select to each area, otherwise you'll notice that you're pretty much running around the same stages over, and over and over again.

Also animations in the game are at times stiff and clunky. Someone above mentioned it was a characteristic of previous games as well and has been improved for the current gen version. However, given how far we are in the current gen, the characters shouldn't be moving around this poorly. The graphics also look relatively weak. It isn't as bad as a late stage PS2 game, but it does come pretty close. The animated scenes do look good, and facial models there are decent. The sound effects are not bad, though I recommend you use the Japanese voices with English subtitles. The English voices sound dorky and some of those guys sound like people in a Chinese restaurant. You're better off using Japanese to stay true to the 'feel' of the game.

One last note, much of how you gain favor in the game is related to the jobs that you are entrusted with by whatever faction you choose to serve. Keep in mind a lot of these missions repeat, and some of them can be frustrating or boring (like those 'find and fetch' or 'hide and seek' kind of missions, which get old after the 10th try if you're playing a prolonged session). Not all of them are bad. In fact some of them are pretty fun and exciting to play. But there is just enough repetition that I'm not sure every player will be devoted enough to try and get all of those 20 or 30 or whatever endings in the game.

That said, it's not a terrible game by any means. The cool storyline, exotic setting and fun combat is definitely a major pro. I just think there are other games out there that provide more action and less repetition than this. But if you're into samurai or ninja style games, or if you are too overwhelmed by the chaos of Dynasty Warriors or turned off by the overly deep strategy sessions of Nobunaga's Ambition ... this game might be a good middle ground for people like you. Just be ready to do a lot of jobs, like fetching underwear or apologizing to townspeople who kick you in the head a lot.

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If you like samurai games, this one is pretty cool. There are many different avenues of gameplay. You can hack and slash your way through the game, or try for the many different endings given. The combat system is pretty simple. There are various attacks that you can use...and each weapon has a different set of attacks and stances. The weapon creation system is new and pretty cool. You can make either swords or spears with various different parts you pick up throughout the game. The game has both English and Japanese dialogue for everyone's enjoyment. There are a lot of unlockables, and they stay unlocked for future playthroughs. The graphics are pretty basic, nothing fancy. There's not much audio in the game, but then again you don't really need it. So, feel free to have your own background soundtrack going while playing. Overall, dope game.

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I loved this game. This is a combination of the best features for each of the other games. So far I have spend about 40 hours playing and have several endings that I have not unlocked yet. Due to work, I have not played it much lately but when things chill out, it has quite a bit of replay value left. I encourage anyone who enjoyed the previous games to try this out. If you haven't played the others, you should play this anyway. Though the graphics are not mind blowing, the gameplay makes up for it. You should look up a couple of gameplay videos and if you find the graphics acceptable, pick it up. I'm not saying they are terrible but some people place a super high priority on graphics.

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As a preface, I have never played Way of the Samurai 1 or 2, so this was my first experience with the franchise. I downloaded the title from the X-Box Live Arcade games on demand. I was drawn to it because of my fascination with Japanese culture and my love of sandbox-type games, but it ultimately failed to deliver. Honestly, I was reminded of the Fable games: you are promised open-ended gameplay with limitless choices, but given a linear experience in which none of your "choices" alter the game in the slightest.

I'll break it down, as people seem to do with these reviews:

Graphics The graphics are pretty basic. I'm not the sort of person who will ever disregard a game because it is ugly, but if that sort of things bothers you, definitely avoid this title. The characters are acceptable, but the environments are bland and forgettable. Honestly, I think I played games that were more polished than this on the previous generation of consoles.

Sound Turn it off. The game cycles through a short list of tracks that get annoying really quickly. The songs are at least in an appropriate style and theme, just very limited. The Japanese voice-acting is fine (I think. I don't speak Japanese, so it isn't fair for me to judge), but the English dubs are pretty bad. You are better off listening to your own music while playing this game.

Gameplay The fighting is the best part of this game. You can play through it like a simple hack-and-slash (I found that most enemies are pretty easy to defeat by just mashing the attack button over and over), but there are layers of depth to the mechanics, as well. You have different styles and different weapons to deploy, and timing counter-attacks and combos well can feel very satisfying. The swordplay is the only reason I have yet to delete this game from my hard drive.

Story I'm really, really confused as to how so many people are complimenting the story of this game in the other reviews. I was so completely disappointed. I mean... maybe I'm playing a different game? Here is the sad truth: this is not a sand-box game. You do not have an open world to explore. Each playing field is limited in size and accessibility, and the entire map consists of, like, twelve of these fields. There are several different factions you can serve, but your choice between them doesn't matter. Your actions don't affect the world you're in, and even though you have the option of making different moral decisions, the only thing they change is your score at the end of the game. You could easily play through this entire story in a couple of hours, and every quest you're given is a basic "fetch" or "kill" quest. Go here and kill him, or go there and find these. It makes World of Warcraft look innovative and original in comparison. There are several characters in the world that you can converse with, which I thought meant that you would be able to pursue side quests, but I found that each one of these conversations eventually hit a dead-end in which the NPC would just repeat the same statement over and over. There just isn't enough content to make this game worth a $27 price tag. If they were to take the gameplay which is genuinely enjoyable and put it into a fleshed out world, I would love this game. As it is, the whole world feels sloppy and thrown together, and the story was clearly an afterthought.