ARTICLE

Seven Samurai 20XX

By Spencer . September 27, 2005 . 8:58pm

Sammy took up a highly ambitious task trying to recreate the legendary Seven Samurai movie into a video game. Many people consider the epic struggle of the Kambei and his ronin to be the hallmark of Japanese cinema. Some dare to say that the Seven Samurai is the founder of modern action movies. When Sammy took on the project, fans of the movie were eager to see the angle that they were going to take on the game. With so much anticipation and such an ambitious game, could Sammy ever please fans of the movies and gamers alike?

While the original Seven Samurai story took place in feudal Japan, Seven Samurai 20XX takes place far in the future. You play Natoe a lone warrior who is fighting to defend his village from an onslaught of mutant humans who are trying to destroy it. Eventually the source of evil is revealed and Natoe must not just save his village, but his world. Of course this sounds familiar, plots like these have been around since the days of Asteroids. While the game attempts to show some epic struggle of good and evil, it falls flat and fast. When you jump right in you don’t really get an explanation of why the village is being attacked, it just is. Simple questions arise in the first few minutes of gameplay and make what was intended to be epic, campy.

To add to the campy feel of the game is the shallow voice acting. The actors who did the voice acting read like they were reading the script from the House of the Dead. If you’re going to make an epic tale you need emotional voices, not flat dialogue. If you are an importer one thing good to know is that all the voices are done in English with Japanese subtitles.

Games don’t need to have a great story to be fun, even though a great story helps a lot. The Seven Samurai 20XX would still be a decent game if had some good gameplay. The gameplay can be summed up in two words "hit square". The bulk of the game has you hacking and slashing your way though one faceless enemy to the next. Hitting the square button unleashes a strike from your sword. You can do special moves by doing "hadoken" type movements or by holding a direction while you press square. Some of the special moves are mildly entertaining such as doing a light speed dash towards the nearest enemy or going into slow motion for a matrix effect. Since most of the moves will come out just by button mashing, most people will opt to do so. Even when you’re trying to execute specific moves the controls don’t seem responsive enough. The problem gets worse when you’re surrounded by a group of enemies who aren’t going to wait for you to perform you’re cool looking attack. Button mashing is further promoted in the special musou attack mode. You can activate this anytime by pressing L1 and R1 together. This gives Natoe extra power for about a minute. During this time you’ll want to mash the attack button all you can to get as many hits out as possible. While attacking you’ll do extra flashy sword slices and a little more damage. Natoe also has the ability to block by pressing triangle. When you successfully time your button press you will not take any damage, but lose a little bit of energy from your blue block meter. If you miss the block you’ll still lose energy from your block meter. Your block meter will fill up over time, but this mechanic exists so you can’t defend forever. After you fight your way to the end of a level you are treated to an increase in your statistics i.e. life, attack and so forth. Instead of having a true mechanic for how to develop your character it happens pretty much out of your control. You don’t have options to pick from or hidden secrets to find. Instead the computer decides what attributes to alter and leaves the player out of the loop.

With so many excellent action games out there the Seven Samurai’s system seems a bit dull. Special attacks happen almost haphazardly and the combos are as innovative as Dynasty Warriors. After many action gamers have been exposed to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or the recent Bujingai the Seven Samurai’s "action" feels like a kids game. The Seven Samurai’s problems increase with its slow moving camera. In an action game, especially a fast paced one you need a camera that can follow a character around. You’ll find that when you’re doing special moves like the dash attack the camera pans away from Natoe while it is trying to catch up. This can be problematic when running into a group of enemies or at a sharp angle. The camera needs to take a few seconds to catch up with Natoe and you may be left with a less than adequate view of what is going on screen. Why the Seven Samurai opted for a slow moving camera is anyone’s guess, but the camera system doesn’t benefit the game at all.

The textures and background graphics aren’t good enough to warrant a slow camera. The backgrounds are mostly drab colored ad boring textures. You’ll see your variety of multi colored walls and more multi colored walls. None of the enemies are particularly impressive either. The faceless ninjas that attack the village look like the wood monsters from ninja scroll and there is even a boss that has a striking resemblance to Big O. If the Seven Samurai is trying to mimic other characters it is doing a poor job of it. None of the figures seem detailed and there isn’t enough graphical variety to allow such poor textures. There still is some neat visual effects when you use special attacks, these are nothing great, but they show that the game isn’t all bad.

"It isn’t all bad" is one way to look at the Seven Samurai 20XX. For what its worth the Seven Samurai 20XX plays a lot like Dynasty Warriors and other 3D brawlers. If this is your style of gameplay the Seven Samurai 20XX will appeal to you. However, the Seven Samurai 20XX is based after a movie that redefined action movies. Many gamers expect that the Seven Samurai 20XX would at least invent or add something to the action game genre. Some fans of the movie may have even expected an epic story. Instead the Seven Samurai 20XX delivers neither and disappoints on many levels.

Import Friendly?

The voice acting is in English with Japanese subtitles, which allows you to hear the campy acting. The menus are also in English, making this game high on the import friendly scale.

US Bound?

Sammy is bringing this game to the states at the end of March.

+ Pros: Easy to jump into, simple to learn, decent special effects

- Cons: Button mashing, merely hack and slash gameplay, doesn’t live up to its "name"

Overall: If you loved Dynasty Warriors you might like Seven Samurai 20XX. If you’re looking for an epic action game, pass this one up.

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