REVIEW – What if Kurosawa’s movies were turned into a game using modern technology? Something like The Spirit of the Samurai would be the result, with a little rotoscoping stop motion thrown in for good measure. It all screams that it’s not following the titles of the day, but rather trying to go against them… but of course it’s questionable how successful Digital Mind Games’ game was in achieving this.

It’s nice to see that a game doesn’t have extra monetization or online options – instead we get good storytelling, a good atmosphere and detailed art direction.

Visuals, not quality?

The problem is that developers have sacrificed gameplay for looks. Oh, how often this has happened over the decades. But more about that later. The story is that a spirit fox warns us that danger is coming. Takeshi, the samurai, is knocked out and the village around him is burning. And the Oni and the dead are threatening the villagers, so Takeshi and his cat (Chisai) go on a journey to set things right. Besides them, the spirit of a Kodama tree is also controlled during the story. The story is quite dark, but it fits well, except that the Chisai and Kodama parts were underdeveloped and felt rather unimportant. The same goes for Takeshi, who is definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time in this 2D metroidvania where our patience is tested by the combat. The platforming sections seemed very imprecise. There are more than a few times when it seems like we should land on the platform, but we don’t.

The other, more annoying element is when we jump, but we don’t see where we’re supposed to jump. Maybe if the game was called Assassin’s Creed, this would be acceptable, but this is not a Ubisoft product. As for Chisai’s segments, it’s hard to figure out what to do when you’re stealthing, it’s hard to distinguish between foreground and background (and this becomes very annoying, especially with the flames). The interface can be described as retro, as can the fact that you have to pick up almost all items, and the items are of little use. If it wasn’t clear enough, the game is difficult. It tests your patience from the very beginning. It’s become a kind of 2D Souls clone with a slight Mortal Kombat influence, but it’s a really strange idea that HP and stamina are on the same bar, although the latter is more for defense. You can attack as much as you want because you’re slow, but when you take a hit, the bar goes down and then reappears after a second or so. If it runs out, you lose one of your three lives. When we sprint, it acts as a stamina bar and we just run out of breath after a few seconds. It doesn’t make much sense in this form because it’s absolutely not logical… it would have been better to use a more traditional system.

When it’s both good and not good

This split is almost everywhere, even in combat. There are a few basic combos, you can roll, run, and parry the attack, and it’s the parry that’s worth mastering right away because it makes your opponent lose their balance for a few moments, so it’s an opportunity to get your combo going. Chisai can also be used to jump on our opponent’s jab, but this is very limited as it is story related. In the beginning we are attacked mainly by undead samurai, later we get the Oni (spider-like creatures and Tengu). In any case, a little practice is needed to defeat them all reliably, but the game’s weaknesses make this difficult, as the stop-motion style is not sophisticated enough.

The archers are the most annoying, and more than once you’ll lose a life before you get close enough to them, unless you hit them back with a missile or two. Otherwise, the visuals aren’t too bad, as it’s hard to tell where CGI and where stop-motion, and that’s why the game has such a great atmosphere, which is also helped by how good the voice acting is (especially the voice of the fox, as it’s the one who narrates the story). But that doesn’t make up for the fact that there are few checkpoints, and you often find yourself playing more than once for about ten minutes due to the difficulties just mentioned. At least there were no glitches, because after that it wouldn’t have been a big surprise, because you could find flaws in almost every aspect…

Half-finished meal

The Spirit of the Samurai is best described by the two words just used. The combat and platforming are a bit underdeveloped, and this cannot be hid by good audiovisuals and atmosphere. This makes the game feel unfinished, which is why the 7/10 rating is rather optimistic. Had it offered a more precise experience, it would have easily earned a rating of 8.5/10 without any exaggeration. So I have to say: it’s a pretty good game, but it could have been much better…

-V-

Publisher: Kvalee
Developer: Digital Mind Games
Style: 2D metroidvania
Release date: December 12, 2024