Samurai Warriors Katana (Wii) Review

Samurai Warriors Katana. Well, a lot can be assumed from a name so bold. You wouldn't be chastised for expecting some Samurai, the odd bit of warring, maybe even some kind of Katana appearance. The game does exactly what it says on the tin, and manages somehow to disappoint. It plays in the style of an on-rails shooter gone oriental - mixing it up with some controllable sections and even horseback sections. Add in a limited split-screen multiplayer and "Trial mode" and it translates to a pretty diverse gameplay experience, but when your main aim is usually either beating the clock or killing hordes of enemies, you'll never really think to pay much attention to the scenery, which is...well, more on that later.

The aforementioned button-mashing reputation of the Warriors series was never going to translate well to the Wii, and this game is testament to how not to go about the transition. You swipe your sword by pointing at an enemy with a reticule and pressing A. You can also perform a move called a "charge attack", which knocks back your foe at the swish of a hand. Two motions in, however, and there's already something broken. Whenever you go to swing, the reticule has to start in the screen and finish off the screen with a relatively straight line in between, and that completely defeats the object of hacking away at nine enemies all vying for your blood at the same time. Sometimes, a swipe will not be recognised, and it's doubtful that its a flaw of the Wii remote itself. The programming can just feel a bit shoddy from time to time, and you'll often find yourself waggling to no avail.

There are 8 weapons altogether, starting with the sword and ranging from a bow to a cannon, each with its own quirk which determines things like how often you can swing/shoot/block. There is a mode called "Musou" whereby you receive no damage and can unleash a powerful series of attacks in bullet-time, and much like the swinging problems, this mode sometimes feels a little bit broken. It is fun, nonetheless, to get cornered by 10 enemies and push them all away with the jerk of an arm. Shooting is handled with the B trigger and IR targeting, and can be quite frustrating when the screen gets a bit packed. Each enemy has a little marker (a bit like a weak point that can be attacked for massive damage) that you point at to attack and if you fail to hit the marker, you fail to cause any harm. Logic would say that shooting an arrow at a person's head, regardless of whether or not they have a mark on their thigh, will harm them, but apparently not in feudal Japan...which brings us to another slight niggle.

The game just lacks intelligence. AI seems to be absolutely non-existent - an enemy standing right in front of you will happily wait for you to attack it four or five times before it decides to slash back, and whilst different difficulty levels offer slightly different experiences, realism (in a broad sense) shouldn't have to be sacrificed in order to make the game easier. A guilty pleasure which cannot be denied, thus, is merely hacking and hacking in this game until sundown. It is oddly satisfying killing enemy clone #422, even if all of his brothers died and disappeared in exactly the same way, because Omega Force just gets it right. It's nothing explicit - it's more of a style choice. The dying sound effects are generally well done, and even if you will hear the sound forty million times again in the next few sessions, it doesn't detract from the experience.

Voice acting, however, is a little weak, and whilst you should never expect a massive budget for a game so...shallow...you have to giggle at the verbal anachronisms. The generic techno music fits the mood well, as the sheer busyness of the scenarios is reflected in the somewhat lively music. It is suitably modified to fit the setting, too. You'll not walk away humming the tunes and you won't look up the artists on YouTube weeks later - you'll just hear some slightly superfluous sound and nothing more. This is the problem with quite a lot of the game's aspects - nothing is terribly interesting. The story won't have you sitting at the edge of your seat and its unlikely you'll play through the game to see it progress. You'll play through for completion status; to get the high scores on each level; to acquire new weapons. And even still, this isn't really a criticism, but rather a disappointment. The game has its moments, but they're usually over too quickly for you to really care.

Visually, the game performs poorly. A selling point of the Warriors games was never its graphical prowess, but rather showing how much could happen at the same time on one screen. In such a limited, on-rails environment, you'd expect a few breathtaking views or cleverly placed camera angles, but everything looks low-res and muddy - something the N64 was doing quite well 7+ years ago. Even still, the graphics aren't what ruin this game, because frankly it isn't ever ruined. Its mediocrity just surpasses any glimpse of brilliance and eventually causes what could be great to be merely uninspiring.