Genji: Dawn of the Samurai

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is an action game similar to almost every other samurai action game out there. From its uninspired story, to it's horrendous save system, to it's mundane and repetitive combat, Genji is a disappointing first effort from upstart Japanese developer Game Republic.

You may have heard this story before. It's about a reclusive and wholly innocent warrior with a mysterious past who is thrust into a dire conflict against his will and is eventually recruited by a wise man to save the world from destruction. Yup, it's the story of every action game from here to oblivion and Genji does absolutely nothing to alter it in the slightest. You have the large and brawny sidekick who can move large objects but is as slow as molasses, the young girl who has a massive crush on our handsome lead, Yoshitsune, and even a seductive princess who may or may not spend her nights dressing up as a ninja and defending the land against her father's will. But why stop with just the setup? Genji's story continues down paths previously traveled. You quickly learn that the only way to save the world is by collecting a series of gems from oversized boss monsters (who by the way will appear at least twice apiece) which will theoretically increase your powers to incredible heights but in fact have only minor gameplay implications. And that wise sage I spoke of earlier? He sacrifices himself to protect the ring bearer, err I mean gem bearer, by holding his ground against an overpowered opponent. Yes this game has absolutely nothing new to say.

This wouldn't be the worst knock against most action games, but in most games of this type cutscenes only make up a small portion of the game's total length. Not so in Genji. You'll find that after almost every fight in this six hour game you'll have to sit through a terribly dull monologue by a dry and uninspired character. I would estimate that as much as an hour of this game is spent just watching it. To make matters worse, there is no option of English voiceovers. Most purists would call this an inspired choice. Personally I find the only thing that makes some of these Japanese cheese fests bearable is the atrocious voice acting. At least when playing Onimusha you can pretend that the actors were doing such a terrible job on purpose and treat it like a comedy. Here you know that Game Republic took their story very seriously, so it's a shame they spent so little time actually developing a unique world or likeable characters.

Even getting past the story, very little of Genji is fresh in any way. Most of the game is spent hitting the square button repeatedly, once in a while blocking a particularly powerful attack. There's a strong attack option as well, but it can't be chained into a combo, which makes it completely useless. The only initially interesting aspect of the combat is the special attack that the gems offer our characters. By hitting the left trigger the player can slow down time and enter a sort of quick time event. Each enemy on the screen will attack Yoshitsune individually. At the right moment the player must hit the square button to counter the attack and kill the enemy instantly.

It sounds interesting at first, but two factors hold this mechanic down. The first is that it never changes. You'll still be hitting square against the final boss. The only thing that gets tougher is the timing, and here the true limitations of the system come into light. By the end of the game the window of time the player has to hit the square button has been reduced to mere fractions of a second. This isn't a fighting game, and it's doubtful that frame counters will be playing Genji. Therefore the final couple levels of the game boil down to trial and error. You'll never have fast enough reactions to hit the square button quickly enough the first time around. Your only option is to let the enemy hit you a couple of times, learning his attack patterns. Then you'll know what the enemy does directly before attacking and you can hit the attack button then. The problem is that in later levels, and especially against the final couple of bosses, letting yourself get hit a couple of times essentially translates to dying a terrible death and being returned to your most recent save. And here we see the fundamental error in design that Game Republic has made.

Save points in this game, especially near the end are almost laughably distant. For example, about two thirds of the way through the game I was forced to play through two and a half levels, or about an hour of game without saving. Due to the trial and error nature of these later levels though, I died several times when coming upon new enemies who were too strong to take out in a normal strike, and too quick to take out on the first try with a special attack. So I had to go back and forth several times, replaying huge portions of the game, until I finally got to another save point.

Some players argue that this adds to the difficulty of the game. I argue that save points in general are a relic of an age when save space was limited. Why a PS2 game wouldn't employ a save anywhere system, or even a checkpoint system is beyond me. It's archaic, it's aggravating, and it isn't good game design, plain and simple.

Luckily, most of Genji is laughably easy. It isn't until the final level that the game really presents a challenge. The first half of the game will see you dying only a couple of times, the majority of the second half is only marginally more difficult.

Genji has a strong RPG element to it. Yoshitsune and Benkei (the slow brute I spoke of earlier) each gain levels as they fight enemies. They can also purchase more powerful weapons and armor, and often find some "essence of Amahagane" which are essentially skill points that can be used to boost various attributes. Players can even collect materials from fallen enemies and have the smith use them to create more powerful weapons. The problem with this aspect of Genji is that there is generally one weapon that is the most powerful one available at the time, and making anything but a balanced character can lead to dire results. As such there is no customization of your characters. They merely get more powerful as time progresses. The new weapons and armor do offer cosmetic differences, but Yoshitsune's attacks wont change depending on the weapon he is carrying. Your combos do eventually lengthen, but this seems to happen at arbitrary points in the game and has nothing to do with your characters level or equipped items.

So is there anything noteworthy at all in Genji? One could argue that the visual presentation is above average for a PS2 game in 2005, but that honestly doesn't mean much half a decade later. The art design isn't anything special. You'll see classic Japanese architecture and character design. There's nothing exotic here. Genji goes for majestic realism and the result may have been impressive for the time, but I'm reviewing it now not then, and while other games from this time period easily withstand the test of time, Genji merely looks average. The score is probably the best part of the game. And by best part I mean the only part that isn't resoundly atrocious.

The best thing to be said about Genji is that it isn't broken in any way. The design of this game is terribly flawed, uninspired, and in many ways archaic, but I didn't encounter a single bug during the admittedly short campaign. Once completed, the game asks you to save and continue enjoying the game. The irony. One could conceivably go back and play through the game on a harder difficulty level, and there are several unlockables that I didn't unlock, so there are some minor reasons to go back. But that would mean subjecting yourself to another six hours of boredom and aggravation.

Genji is uninspired in every way. It's run of the mill gameplay is wrapped in a cliché story that a five year old has already heard 100 times, and the once impressive audiovisual presentation don't hold up as well as Genji's contemporaries. If you have yet to enter the new generation of consoles and are desperate for an action game to fill some aching void in your heart then Genji will fit the bill, just don't expect anything that you haven't seen done and done better many, many times before.