Afro Samurai – 360 – Review

People have been fascinated with the
Japanese Samurai for a long time. There have been quite a number of movies, TV
shows, books, and even games based on these men of legend. Afro Samurai is based
off of a manga series (comic book) that was recently made into an anime show.
With the sudden surge of popularity, it was only a matter of time before a game
bearing the same name was due to be released. The question remains, will this
game accurately reflect the TV show while remaining run to play?

The story of Afro Samurai is pretty
simple. The most powerful fighter in the world wears the "Number One" headband,
which proves that their skills surpass anything known in the world. The only way
for some to obtain this title is by getting the "Number Two" headband and
challenging the person wearing the Number One headband. The previous person who
had this headband was Afro Samurai’s father. Afro’s father was killed in front
of his eyes by the previous Number Two: Justice. Afro’s main goal in life is to
obtain the Number Two headband so he can obtain his revenge against the person
who killed his father. When the game starts he already has obtained the title of
Number Two, now all he has to do is to take out his revenge upon Justice.

The controls for this game are very
simple yet allow for some depth. The left analog sick will control the players
moments. If players want to block incoming attacks, they can press the right
trigger to block. Pressing the X button allows for a light attack and the Y
button is for a heavy attack. If players press the B button they will perform a
kick and the A button is for jumping. Pressing these four buttons in any given
combination will perform devastating combos. As Afro levels up, players will
gain access to longer combos that do more damage and look very "cool."

The focus attacks is a specialized
"bullet time." When players press the left trigger the screen will turn
everything into a very stylized black-and-white, time shows down, and players
can press and hold either the Y or X button to execute an extremely destructive
attack on an enemy. The last move is the Overfocus move, and that is done by
hitting the LB button. In this mode, once again the screen goes into
black-and-white, and players can hit multiple enemies with just a single slash
and it will kill them.

That’s going to hurt in the morning

The gameplay for Afro Samurai is
pretty straight forward: hack and slash through myriads of enemies who are
trying to take the title of Number Two for themselves. Players will have a lot
of fun taking out as many enemies as possible by showing off the combo moves at
their disposal. To help break up any repetition, the developers threw in some
platforming elements. It is extremely evident that the developers never finely
tuned these elements as later on in the game it is very hard to actually pass
certain obstacles. It is always a good thing to break up some of the action in
the game to give players thumbs a break; but it becomes a problem when these new
elements are not up to the same quality as the rest of the game. Many times it
feels like these elements were put here as nothing more than agitating
placeholders that will have to be done over and over again.

One of the biggest complaints people
will have with this game is the camera control. This is one of the worst camera
positioning jobs that has been in a game in quite a long time. Many times the
camera is gives the worst possible viewpoint and will cause players to come
close to dying before they can see what is going on. This is easy to deal with
when players are out in the open, but once players enter a castle, the camera
goes haywire. Many times players will die due to poor controls; this is
especially true during boss battles. Camera control is an extremely important
aspect to any game, and it hurts a game when it does more harm than good.

Afro Samurai is an extremely violent
game. Many people complained about the gore level in Ninja Gaiden II, but this
game takes the gore and violence level up threefold. Players will constantly
dismember and disembowel enemies and will see fountains of blood shoot off in
the air. Many times after a battle the ground will be filled with hands, feet,
arms, heads, and more body parts than players will care to view. The violence is
then stepped up a notch when players go into focus mode. In there the screen
turns black-and-white, and players will cut through enemies like a hot knife
through warm butter, with huge pools of blood left over. Needless to say this is
not a game for the feint of heart.

Everyone needs a sidekick

The visuals to this game are a sight
to behold. The game uses a stylized cel-shading that looks great in action. The
character models are very highly detailed, even the lower level scrubs that are
constantly getting their blood spilled all over the place. The developers
definitely understood the gore ratio when a human is cut in pieces, as it is
proudly displayed with each enemy killed. The various environments are very
great to look at, but players have to be conscience not to look to long or else
they might die by an enemy sword.

The sound for this game is a mixed
bag. First off players have the treat of hearing the same voice work from the
anime series. This means that while gamers are slicing and dicing enemies they
will get to hear remarks made by Samuel L Jackson. He really made the character
of Afro come alive, and it is seem with each line of dialog spoken. The music
also taken from the show and features a heavy amount of hip-hop that will have
the bass on the gamer’s stereos going berserk. Strangely the sound effects for
this game are very poor. With the high end music and voiceovers, it was
depressing to hear low end (and at times no) sound effects.

Afro Samurai is rated Mature.

Gameplay: 6.7
The fighting engine for this game is really
great. Players will have fun fighting against the myriads of "lower level"
enemies all throughout the game. The platforming sections, camera, and the boss
battles ruin this game.

Graphics: 8.3
Afro Samurai looks great while in motion. The character models are extremely
well detailed as well as the various environments that players will do battle
in.

Sound: 8.0
The voiceover’s and music for this game are great; unfortunately the
sound effects are very subpar and do not have the same quality as the rest of
the sound category.

Difficulty: Medium
The game tends to lean on the "easy" side until players reach the
"unbalanced" boss battles. Players will scream in frustration as they take on
near impossible odds.

Concept: 7.5
Even though this game is based off the popular anime series, it is a
very unique spin on the normal samurai stories.

Overall: 7.0
Afro Samurai is a good game that could have been a lot more. What this
game needed was another month or two in order to squish all of the bugs, poor
interior camera control, and weak bosses. If this was done, this game would have
been one of the first "must have" games" of the New Year.