I'm so sick of all the other games on the TG-16 that I've resorted to playing Samurai Ghost. That's not a very good start. Do over.
You play the hallucinogenic ghost of a samurai sent on a mission of death. In the opening sequence, the player runs to the right, and slashes the head off some holy dragon. The blood sacrifice teleports the Samurai from heaven into a dimension on the outskirts of hell. From their the player has to battle demons into the real world and assassinate some other samurai.
You have nifty control over your sword, and your warrior has a "ragdoll" feel. Your sword kind of flails around, and all your limbs are animated separately. At first this might seem off-putting, but honestly it's really fluid and I've grown to appreciate the feel of the game because its unique and offers a lot of swordfighting moves.
Everything was going fine until level 2-2, a Volcanic level in which lava chases the player. Standardard gaming device, except this lava is almost as fast as the player and the slightest misstep will allow the lava to damage the player. As you try to run away from this wall of death, the game spawns skull-spider demons which shoot webs and entangle your feet. This level will test every ounce of platforming strength and endurance in the player. Luckily this game is fun enough to warrant the difficulty, and the difficulty helps to make it worth playing.
The players receives unlimited continues, and 3 lives per credit, but using a continue will warp the player back to the beginning of the 3-part stage.
Once I tackled the lava stage, things went a little smoother, but the difficulty remained intense. Several times I was forced to replay the first 6 stages. Getting a Game Over after that usually means it's time to play something else, but Samurai Ghosts does possess the much-desired addictive quality of some games. Almost inexplicably, I find myself returning for more action when I could be playing "better" games.
One particularly cool effect is that the background color shifts and transitions form night to day or vice-versa. You can even see the moon rising or setting, and attention to detail like that doesn't go unnoticed. Ultimately, the game is just too fucking hard. Your character is huge, clunky, and slow, and the enemies are small, fast, and agile. It's so hard, even abusing savestates is difficult. For example, in "Hurting Zone" (wtf I know) the regular trash mob is a frog that drains all of your health in--not kidding--about 1 second.
Thankfully the stages aren't that long, and sometimes you might manage to hobble through to the end. It's one of the best platformers on the Wii VC, and certainly it's worth 6 bucks. However, if you haven't played some other classics like New Adventure Island or The Dynastic Hero, then maybe Samurai Ghosts isn't for you--yet. One day you'll be bored with Bonk and look to this malnourished Thundercat for some hardcore platforming action.
Check out this gallery of screenshots!
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