Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD for iPad. Bloody, Fun Hack and Slash Fest

Samurai Way of the Warrior HD 5

Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD [rating: 4/5]

If you want to travel back in time to the peace and beauty of ancient Japan then you have come to the wrong place as while the beauty can be achieved in this game peace is not one of them as you hack, slash and slice your way through a blood bath of killing as you aim to rescue the people of a 16th century Japanese village from their evil masters.

The first thing you will notice about Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD for iPad is it’s beautiful and stylish sound and graphics. The in-game graphics which take the form of a top-down view of your character as it navigates the unique environments are rich and colorful in their cartoon style and perfectly represent 16th century Japan while the story between each level is told via graphic novel style interface which is arguably strong enough to stand up in it’s own right.

This is all wrapped in a soundtrack that encapsulates it’s oriental theme perfectly, switch on the game, close your eyes and the music itself will create the oriental atmosphere by itself.

The story that is told through the beautiful graphic novel between each of the levels is that of Daisuke Shimada a wandering Samurai who stumbles upon a village where he meets the beautiful Daimyo. Subsequently Daisuke finds himself facing the evil of Daimyo Hattoro and his many, many henchmen as he battles for the freedom of the area.

The game play is simple and the basics will be picked up quickly and easily. As mentioned previously the view of the playing area is a top-down view and your character Daisuke stands proudly in the center of the screen. Moving him around is down by simple touching the screen and he’ll move their. While navigating long distances you can keep your finger on the screen and Daisuke will follow it.

Ultimately though you will come across one of the many, many enemies that block your path and defeating them is also via the touchscreen via combinations of left, right and up swipes on screen. You start with just four different combo’s to use against your enemies and to begin with it appears that any random swipes will take them out. However as you progress through the game and the enemies get harder and more difficult to defeat remembering the more complex combo will certainly aid your effectiveness.

As you progress you will also unlock new combo’s and you can remind yourself of them via the scroll button at the top right of the screen.

The levels are relatively linear although each the levels do split off on separate paths at various times and failure to clear those paths of the enemies will prevent you from moving forward as you will find your way blocked by large floating padlocks. When this happens though it’s easy to retrace your steps and find any hiding enemy that is still breathing and slice them into pieces.

This brings me nicely to the graphic nature of the killing in this game. As you can imagine a samurai sword is not backward in coming forward when it comes to bloodshed and this is emphasized in graphic effect with each slice and dice of your enemy. From severed limbs, decapitation, and complete quartering the deaths in Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD are nothing short of graphic, all be it in cartoon form and this extends to the blood that is splattered on the touch screen.

You have been warned, this is not a game for those who are squeamish at the site of cartoon blood and dismemberment!

The story mode in itself is a lot of fun even with the linear nature of the levels and while it is a little short, you should be able to complete it in around an hour, you’ll still enjoy the time you spend completing it.

And even when you have completed the story mode of Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD you can still enter the DoJo and test your skills against wave after wave of samurai in a fight to the death. There are multiple DoJo’s to fight in and your high scores in both the Story Mode and the Dojo can be submitted to the online leader boards to compare your scores with other players.

These leader boards are provided via the integration with Agon which also provides Facebook and Twitter integration, awards and friends lists.

Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD for iPad is a wonderful game but it could do with a couple of issues that need to be addressed. Firstly it would be nice if the environment could be interactive so that it can be smashed up along with the enemies and then there is the price. At present the game will set you back $4.99 and that’s about right. However that is a sale price which takes 40% off of the full price so if your not quick it’s going to be considerably more expensive.

Pros

  • Great graphics
  • Wonderful Japanese theme’s
  • Blood drenched game play

Cons

  • Passive environment
  • High price point
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPz0OTnAxIY]

Price: $4.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Released: Jul 01, 2010
Version: 1.0
Size: 55.9 MB
Language: English
Seller: MADFINGER Games, a.s.
© MADFINGER Games, a.s.
You must be at least 17 years old to download this application
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

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