Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3009 Joined: 7 Oct 2008     | |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3009 Joined: 7 Oct 2008 | I told myself I wasn't gonna double post in order to bump this, but... Where's my feedback? Did I do a good job? Bad job? This is my first review, I'd really appreciate some criticism/praise. Man... Guess people really don't like Genji. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2901 Joined: 3 Jan 2008     | I just got my new PS2, the moment I head out to the shops I am finding this and buying it, I liked Days of the Blade, but this is just so much better in my opinion. It was a great review Samurai, don't get crestfallen because people ignore it, it's all thats stopping me from posting my SRWZ Review (That and I need to find time) |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 861 Joined: 2 Apr 2008    | I must admit, I am intrigued. I will keep an eye out for this game. With a bit of luck, I'll find it somewhere. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1077 Joined: 26 Apr 2008    |
Oh alright. We're suckers for people with cool avatars. But really, I know how you feel. Writing for hours on end for no recognition can be a kick to the face, and it's happened to me a fair bit. Recently, it looks like everyone's more interested in flaming the bad reviews rather than providing constructive feedback, or indeed, paying attention to the better reviews such as this one. This pisses me off to no end as I'd really like critique on my own work as well, and I should stop ranting before I de-rail this thread in it's infancy. So, your review. It's quite well written and flows nicely. Each section's been put into a nice edible chunks and your pictures communicate what the game looks like well. However, the fact that this is your first review does show through the cracks, and I think you could improve your writing in great strides with some stylistic changes. Allow me to point out a couple of things to look out for:
This is something I'd try and avoid; making the reader guess. It comes across as a little
Next up:
Your attempts are neither redundant nor irrelevant. Indeed, you're showing an overlooked gem to the world (or at least it sounds that way) and providing backed up opinion and critique. Putting yourself down is never a good thing to do.
Here's another thing to look out for. Your writing should convey how the game looks rather than just tell us to go and look for ourselves. This often can be quite hard, but it'll sound more credible if you can pull it off. Simlies, adjectives and comparisons are your friends.
While this may be a slightly more personal thing, I think you'd do well to be rid of a list and instead rework it into a couple more paragraphs. It'll look and read a lot better as a result. I also noticed that two of your three points are about the game's length, which is a little confusing. In summary, it's a pretty good review, but it would read out better if you evolved your style a little. Don't fret, as this is something you'll probably see happening if you heed good advice and keep practising your writing, reading things back to yourself and learning from others. Nice work, and I look forward to future work by you. Long post is long and full of quotes. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3009 Joined: 7 Oct 2008 | Thanks for the advice, everyone! I'm a little too busy right now to do anything major with regards to a rewrite or second review, but I'll keep your helpful criticism in mind. I made a couple of quick fixes, but I might just leave the rest as it is. For the next review... Probably either the PS2 Ghost in the Shell game, or the PS2-exclusive Transformers game. Look forward to more reviews of games nobody gives a hoot about! |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 383 Joined: 18 Jan 2008     | I remember the game, it really was that awesome, the coolest part I remember is doing a kamui to a giant boss bird in front of you, what's the problem you ask? You need to do it with 4 kamui stacked to hope to land a hit, and it will give you an awesome weapon and instant kill the boss. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 625 Joined: 12 Jul 2008  |
You could start an entire series of reviews on that idea, games nobody gives a hoot about. Imagine: "Samurai Goomba ventures into the dark and secret corners of the video game world to bring you reviews of games you never knew existed." |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3009 Joined: 7 Oct 2008 |
At the moment that's probably going to be the plan. "Samurai Goomba reviews a game nobody cares about: -insert obscure game title here-" or something. My games library is absolutely chock full of obscure titles, so it'd be quite easy to do something like that. Genji is very likely my favorite obscure PS2 title, so the other games might not get such glowing reviews. Still, there are quite a few unknown gems floating around in the mists of time, especially for PS2. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2901 Joined: 3 Jan 2008 |
I might do one for Alpha Gaiden, since it's in english now (Thanks to AGTP) and it is a fun game, but I have to actually beat it first! |
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There are games that everyone loves, games everyone loves to hate, and games that nobody has ever played. Of course there are more types of games than just those three, but my opening sentence would have been really obtuse if I had tried to list them all. Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is instantly recognizable as being in the third category. Odds are that if you've ever heard of Genji, you've probably played it. It's really a shame just how little publicity this game received. As far as I know, Genji was the very first game made by Game Republic, a company that would go on to make such smash hits as Genji: Days of the Blade (also known as "that game with Giant Enemy Crabs.") But Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is not like the sequel. No, this game is actually good. Intrigued? Good, you should be.
Spoiler: Click to View
There are a lot of place I could start, but why not begin with the most obvious point in Genji's favor? I'm talking, of course, about the graphics. As you'll see by checking out the various pictures, Genji is a beautiful game. The true beauty of Genji lies not in polygon counts or perfect texture work, but in the amazing visual style and artistry. There are only a few PS2 games I can think of that match Genji in sheer visual poetry. Certain areas of the game are so gorgeous, I often visit them simply to gape and stare. Screenshots do not do Genji justice-you must see these environments in all their living, vibrant beauty.
On the downside, the in-game cutscenes are easily the ugliest thing about Genji. Considering this is when the average player will have set down his or her controller to watch the story unfold, it's sad that he or she will be treated to some less-than-stellar texture work. Genji looks best when everything is moving and flowing around you, and analyzing individual cutscenes or screenshots makes the minor blemishes in Genji's presentation somewhat more obvious. Genji isn't a pixel-perfect masterwork a la Black or Tekken 5, and the limited budget that Game Republic was surely constrained by is obvious in some cases. FMV quality in particular is very iffy. Some sequences are impossibly gorgeous, while others are noticeably lower-budget, with low-poly textures and rough edges.
Spoiler: Click to View
While the graphics in Genji are perhaps a bit less than they could possibly have been, the sound is nothing if not perfection personified. The soundtrack to Genji is easily better than that of most other PS2 games I've played, and fits perfectly (there's that word again) with the overall setting. "Battle" themes feature Japanese war drums and whistling wooden flutes, while peaceful woodwinds and chimes play in the background as you stroll through a peasant village. The voice acting is also top notch. There's no English track present, but that's entirely a welcome thing in this case. Genji is probably one of the least "western" games I've ever seen, and dubbing this would be like reading Great Expectations in Swahili. Kagekiyo, Benkei and Yoshitsune are the standout Japanese performers here (in my opinion), but all of the cast is at least tolerable, even the plucky (yet useless) Japanese shrine maiden.
I could go on, but about what? The music is so good that I listen to it even when I'm not playing the game.
Spoiler: Click to View
As far as gameplay goes, it's both instantly familiar and completely new. The combat has a lot in common with the battle systems of the Onimusha games, Devil May Cry and even Bujingai: The Forsaken City. The main character, Yoshitsune, fights with two swords, which he uses to take apart his foes. The button layout is simple enough: Triangle is your heavy attack, Square is your weak combo, X is jump and Circle interacts with things. There's a bit of a create-a-combo system, and the pace of battle is generally fast. The controls feel appropriately tight for this type of game, and it's entirely possible to leap out of the way or block most attacks.
...But that would be taking all the fun out of the game. Why block or dodge a single sword slash when you can slow time down and enter a series of Issen-style scripted events in which you dismember every single enemy on screen while dodging, whirling, and generally looking awesome? See, that's the Kamui system. Kamui is simple enough to use, but becomes progressively more difficult as you go up against tougher enemies. It works like this: You beat up enemies to raise your Kamui gauge. Once it fills up, you press L1 to slow time down a bit. Now you wait. Yes, that's right. Kamui, you see, baits enemies to attack with specific moves (often moves that would be impossible to dodge or block if you hadn't been using Kamui) and moving around changes the timing of the button you'll need to press. Anyway, once enemies start to attack, the Square icon should show up at some point. Press it and you'll see a beautiful sequence of carnage as your character mangles the opponent viciously.
This is only the beginning, however. You see, Kamui stays in effect until you either get hit, finish the "string", or time it out. You can string Kamui (take out multiple guys in succession) in order to get more experience, instantly kill all enemies on screen, simply look cool or all three. It's amazingly fun, but also becomes tougher (as it should) when one attempts to take on Bosses with Kamui. Benkei, the massive monk (and second character) has his own particular fighting style based around power that I won't really get into, but suffice it to say that both characters play very differently while still sharing the Kamui mechanic between them.
Spoiler: Click to View
Speaking of bosses, they're all really well designed. I can't get into them too much without spoiling the game, but a couple of the bosses sit in my list of "absolute favorite video game bosses of all time." Their Kamui counters (the moves they do when you initiate Kamui on them) tend to be much more difficult to counter and also several orders of magnitude more awesome than their standard attacks.
I guess no review would be complete without some complaining, so I'll list the most common complaints (and whether or not I think they're valid.)
1. "The game is too short."
While it's true the game ends just when a lot of other games would be really getting into the swing of things, it's also true that my main file has 30+ hours in it. The game features full New Game+, and also contains several substantial post-game side missions. Besides, as long as the core game is brilliant, it shouldn't matter too much how long it is. This seems like a common complaint leveled at good games, and I'll put my response this way:
"I'd rather have the game end on a high note than stumble off into a ditch for another ten hours of pointless meandering."
And notes don't come much higher than the final boss fight.
2. "It's too much like Onimusha! Waaah! I don't like it when good games are like other games that were also good!"
Again, I'll admit there's some truth in this (I'll also admit there's some mocking going on here), but it's an inherent flaw with any traditional or ancestral Japanese game. Genji actually tells a story about a much older Japan than the one of Onimusha... Um... Fame? Yeah. Anyway, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is based on a really old book about Yoshitsune Minamoto and the monk Benkei, and takes place in the era prior to the age of the Samurai. You know, like the title says.
From a gameplay standpoint, I see a lot more Devil May Cry than Onimusha in the combat. Also, Onimusha pretty much never had controls as good as this. The Onimusha game that Genji seems to be most like is Onimusha 2, anyway. And considering how much that game rocked, would that really be such a bad thing even if such accusations of similarity were completely true?
Now if you don't mind, I'd like to go back to gripe #1, as this is the major criticism I see leveled at Genji time and time again:
"This game is too short, so I'm going to rate it a 3/10 even though everything else was perfect."
This is the saddest complaint. I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much. Professional reviewers will heap praise all over Genji, proclaiming its beauty and fluid grace to the heavens, only to say, "but it's too short" and rate the game down quite a bit solely on that point. Considering the supposed similarity to Onimusha and the length of the game are about the only complaints I keep consistently hearing, it's disheartening to see the sort of scores that Genji got back in the day. There's even a case to be made that the horribleness of the sequel, Days of the Blade, is because Game Republic took those criticisms to heart, padding the game out with absurdly tough bosses, as well as needlessly obtuse and unnecessary weapon and character switching.
Spoiler: Click to View
In conclusion, Genji is an amazing game (one of my all-time favorites) that has fallen victim to poor advertising and an unsympathetic, overly cynical audience. In today's world of Halo, Half-Life and God of War, a quiet and melancholy hack and slash title doesn't exactly catch the eye of consumers. I'll always consider it a real shame that such a quality game (especially for a first showing by a new developer) was ignored.
Please excuse the rantings of a Genji fanboy. There aren't many of us, I know. Obviously, I think you should buy this game right away. It's very cheap, so pick it up and try it out. You might not like it... But you may love it.