Posted on: May 30, 2014

Sinke

Games: 142 Reviews: 5

The Archaic Perfection

Sword of the Samurai is a fantastic mixture of strategy and action elements, which can teach a lot of lessons to modern gaming titles. Basically, you lead a lineage of noble Japanese lords as they ascend from simple local leader to conqueror of entire realm. During this voyage, you will have to preform numerous feats- from leading your armies in combat to sneaking in kidnapper hideouts, wishing to rescue the maiden worhty of your family's name. You will also enter in furious duels, and take part in court intrigues which never cease to threat your position in game. Sword of Samurai is remarkable at giving you the impression of really "being there". Despite old graphics and rudimentary sound, it somehow manages to immerse you in its fascinating world, as you anxiously think of your next move. Also, the game is very unforgiving on higher difficulties, but never frustrating. You always blame yourself for failures, angry that you succumbed to your greed or agression. The drawbacks? Sometimes you build your character to a very high level, only to die in a duel or lose prestige due to a bad choice. Then you are put in position of your character's own son, whose stats might annoy you at first. But luckily, thanks to quick progression the game doesn't bore you too much with this. In any case, I highly suggest this game to everyone, especiallly those who value gameplay and immersion in a title.

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Posted on: May 30, 2019

beleester

Games: 18 Reviews: 2

Great flavor, decent gameplay

Say what you like about this game, but it has style. Every loading screen and intro sequence has a lovely bit of art and some flavor text. The loading screen tells you to wait calmly and with discipline. A successful battle describes how the enemies fall before your flashing blade. Even losing the game is tempered by a dramatic line describing how you valiantly attempt to impale your opponent as you fall. This game is just dripping with feudal Japanese flavor. However, the actual gameplay is showing its age. The graphics are... well, you can't expect much from a 256-color DOS game. The one-on-one swordfights have clunky controls and slow movement, and the army battle minigame (a sort of Total War-ish RTS battle) is just crying out for mouse controls instead of the numpad they saddle you with. The only minigame that really holds up is the one-vs-many melees. The random environments, and varied enemies and objectives mean that there's some decent depth to the gameplay, and you really do feel like a badass as you tear through an enemy fortress with your sword and bow. The overarching "try to become shogun" system that frames these mechanics works pretty well - boosting your stats makes the minigames easier, beating the minigames lets you boost your stats, making for a nice loop - but there are a couple of frustrating parts. Your lowest-ranked rival will basically do nothing except try to assassinate you over and over, and killing him just means his son takes over at the same low rank and you have the same problem. And while adventuring to seek honor and glory can be fun, once you're the top-ranked samurai you can't really do much to advance. Either you wait for the current leader to die (boring) or assassinate him to speed things along (risky). In short, the gameplay has some flaws, but the style and presentation might be enough to make you overlook them.

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Posted on: September 4, 2022

WDCastAld

Verified owner

Games: 702 Reviews: 2

We need a remake

Excellent video game. Very very difficult, which is the part I don't like. The gameplay is great, it has so many features: solo adventuring, army commanding, clan management, and even country government. It includes marriage and family in a very nice way, if the player dies and has children, one of them take the place. We need a remake. A 3D remake with nice fighting mechanics. :D

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Posted on: March 7, 2014

Busukaba

Verified owner

Games: 141 Reviews: 6

One of the best games from the 90s

I played this game a million times as a teenager. I was one of the few who had a Tandy PC back in the day. There was a graphical glitch on the Tandy which made for odd rice paddy battles but that's not an issue in this version. I love this game still! There is so much to do, dueling, battle scenes in castles, villages, and rice paddies which are all randomly generated. There is intrigue, kidnapping, rescuing and, of course, battles. Actually, the battles are my least favorite part as the AI for the military battles is pretty bad. If you know what you're doing until hatemoto level you can defeat very large forces with very small ones and not lose a single samurai. But all in all, an excellent game that captures the imagination.

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Posted on: July 8, 2018

romana03

Verified owner

Games: 65 Reviews: 1

As enthralling as ever

I was growing in influence when a rival without honour attempted to blackmail me. I rejected his threats, but when I and my samurai army were attending to a request from my daimo, my rival sneaked into my estate and kidnapped my child heir. I disguised myself as a ronin and sneaked into his estate to get my kid back, but was caught and forced to pay a ransom for myself. Enraged, I gathered my forces and attacked, but my daimyo decared my attack unjust and my rival murdered my son in retaliation. Two moves later, my rival begged permission to marry my daughter. Good times. I spent countless hours on this game as a kid, and it's just as entertaining as ever--except that, unfortunately, the battles are just as slow and dull as ever. If it wasn't for the unbearable tedium of battles, I'd give this a full five stars. Melee, on the other hand, is great--picking a defensive spot to hang out with good maneuverability and picking off my opponents, or sneaking through a houseintent on liberating a bride or committing dark deeds. It's amazing that this game stands up so well after nearly three decades.

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