My First 3D Camera
Games based on existing properties are typically below the bar, and are glorified advertisements. Afro Samurai is a hack & slash gore fest Ninja Gaiden wannabe showing a lot of potential, and eventually crumbles under stupid mechanical issues. You play as Afro (appropriate name), in an obligatory “boy avenging his father’s murder” adventure.
Throughout your six hour quest traveling around futuristic feudal Japan, you’ll be spending most of your time cutting fools up while listening to The RZA, yeah; it’s totally a hip-hop themed atmosphere. From heads, to arms, to legs & toes, your objective seems to be ruining the days of random ninjas. The game best represents Ninja Gaiden II in the sense of the over the top gore, and limb cutting.
Although they give you the potential of combos, Surge designed it for the mainstream anime fan. This means you can walk through the game mashing light and heavy attacks. Afro Samurai does capture a good middle ground between stupid button mashers like Dynasty Warriors, and more hardcore games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. This doesn’t help from the combat being painfully repetitive, fighting the same generic ninjas over and over in arena styled kill rooms.
If the monotonous combat wasn’t enough, Afro Samurai shoehorns half-assed platforming sections. Considering Surge incorporated a “my first 3D camera” tool, platforming is near impossible. Blind jumps, wall clipping, and random death traps truly hinder what could have been a good experience. Even if the platforming didn’t’ exist, the camera did enough to ruin the stylish bloody combat.
At least the environments are beautifully rendered, but are reused to often. The graphic style Afro Samurai utilizes is beautiful and I hope to see again in another form. Regardless of how the Afro Samurai anime is received, the game is utter crap. I truly wanted it to work and be fun, but the game shares too many gaming cliché’s, from invisible walls, to repetitive “bad guys”, and non interactive environments. The game does contain a fair share of amazing moments, like when your falling from space sword fighting an android version of yourself, or walking into a room to see naked strippers slide down a pole and challenge you to battle, yes, totally over the top.
Afro Samurai falls into the trappings of having a totally rad concept, and amazing ideas, but falls due to stupid problems. Hopefully Surge will put out a sequel after Afro Samurai’s second season airs, but with this game I can only recommend a decent weekend rental.
SURGE!
-Steve
