Hidden is not a diamond. Afro Samurai Retro Review.

The era of PS3 and Xbox 360 lasted unacceptably long. During this time they released many undisputed hits. But there were even more so-called hidden gems, games that went under the radar of the mass consumer and did not receive very high ratings. And only after a while they received well-deserved fame and recognition, albeit in not very wide circles. When it comes to such games, the name Afro Samurai comes up very often.

The plot was not included in the deal

The plot of the game is based on the comic book of the same name, which has a rather interestingly written world with unusual characters. It would be logical to expect some of this in the game, but Afro Samurai manages to masterfully ignore all of its background. History is told in loosely connected passages. It’s quite normal for a game to transport a character in space and time beyond the loading cutscene and not even think about saying so. The characters live on average for one chapter and it’s almost impossible to find out anything about them. They don’t spoil us with beautifully directed videos either. In addition, 70% of them represent a variation on the theme “enemies run up, jump out and materialize from God knows where” and have zero semantic load, and you can’t skip them, which is why they begin to tire you already at the second level, and by the fourth it really gets annoying.

The fact that we are allowed to play as a young hero is generally good, it makes it clear how the hero came to live like this. But due to the sudden transition there with a double flashback, the integrity of the game’s plot breaks down at the very beginning.

The strengths are the voice https://primespielhalle-casino.co.uk acting, music and the atmosphere they create. The actors sound colorful, and Samuel L. Jackson is well worth his fee. And RZA’s tracks perfectly convey the atmosphere and feeling of the moment. Despite the rather primitive graphics and generally silly narrative style, the game manages to convey the despair and loneliness of the hero, who lost everything he had on the way to his goal. The absence of an interface adds points to the atmosphere. Information about the duration of a combo or accumulated energy should not be read from a standard counter, but, for example, from blood stains on the screen or, say, the color of the main character’s pendant. It’s a little unusual at first, but you quickly get used to it and it doesn’t cause any discomfort.

Figured cutting

The game is quite fun to play at first. Presenting itself as a rather simple slasher, it immediately gives you a fairly large list of techniques, which gradually grows along with the hero’s levels. The game also has its own analogue of time dilation, which allows you to chop up enemies almost like Metal Gear Rising. The thing is quite useful and has not the most primitive mechanics. In addition to this, the main character can enter a rage mode, in which he tears apart enemies with one blow. Well, in order to somehow diversify the endless battles, the game has sections with acrobatics. True, they work a little crookedly, but there are no additional mechanics.

Best boss in the game. It can be won without any special tactics, but the battle looks beautiful and doesn’t get boring.

And in general, all this interacts quite well until about the middle of the game, when the realization comes that the game is not developing in any way, and from arena to arena we do absolutely the same thing. There are criminally few types of enemies, and all the game can come up with with them is to send them at the player in different orders. Moreover, the hero begins to be driven around already completed locations in circles, only intensifying the feeling of Groundhog Day. And rare new features are not particularly explained, which can stall the passage in a couple of places. The bosses also don’t bring fresh impressions – they are either very simple or simply crooked. The apogee of sadness is reached in the penultimate level, when the game simply spams you with endless crowds of enemies. You even begin to doubt whether you are doing everything right. But no, everything is ok, the developers just decided that 5 more identical packs of enemies in a row after already 10 others in one arena is the variety that players dream of. Add here 3 more dull bosses, one of which is just another crowd of standard mobs. And polish the parkour with the largest sections, and at the same time the most crooked ones. And you’re already looking forward to the end of the game, and this is with a duration of 4-5 hours.

The character has a ton of screen time (relative to everyone else), but he has very little plot benefit. But it adds color to the game.

Problems of the past

Finally, it’s worth kicking the game a little for technical flaws. The game has two problems here. The first one is the camera. It creates ideal conditions for getting punched by an invisible enemy from behind the edge of the screen, and carefully makes it difficult to control the arena. And the second is optimization. In general, the game runs smoothly, but when she uses her favorite picture-in-picture effect, the FPS drops noticeably allowing you to enjoy the next enemy running out in slow-mo. I don’t see much point in talking about the poor scenery, the times were wild – the developers squeezed out frames as best they could.

The game begins as a curious and atmospheric adventure, but ends as a dull drag. During its running time, it does not have time to tell an interesting story, surprise with interesting situations, or develop its combat system. But she manages to tire her out very well with endless waves of the same opponents and crooked mechanics. And only one conclusion can be drawn: an interesting style, good voice acting and a catchy soundtrack cannot fix a mediocre game. Afro Samurai is just a mediocre game.

P.S. Actually, the game has a second part. Or rather, the third part is the second. Only a third because the developers managed to create such a lopsided monster that the publisher had to close sales and recall it from stores. As a result, you can get acquainted with Afro Samurai 2 only with the help of valiant filibusters. And frankly, it’s not worth it, the game managed to ruin all the few bright moments that there were, and make the problematic ones even worse. In addition, the technical condition is depressing – there is no mouse support or settings for anything on the PC. And the laziness of the developers is visible at least in the fact that the story video consists entirely of the text of the first part, during which the camera simply spins around the character. In general, it’s better to just forget about the existence of a sequel.