Review: Genji: Days of the Blade
In my humble opinion, Genji: Days of the Blade is one of, if not the, best looking launch game for the PS3. The details, designs and colors all create an immersive and cohesive environment that is pure eye candy.
Yoshitsune's speed and balanced attacks are great but be sure to change characters according to the situation at hand.
Too bad it sticks to the basic hack-and-slash, one-against-hundreds conventions that both the Onimusha and Dynasty Warriors franchises have already played out.
Feudal Japan Never Looked So Good
As I said, Days is awesome to look at. The combat animations are superb and the character movements are fast and fluid. Speaking of which, there are four different characters to play as: series vets Yoshitsune and Benkei are joined by newcomers Shizuka and Buson. Each character fills a different stereotypical niche during battle: Yoshitsune, for example, is the well-balanced one, Benkei is the basic tank with enormous power and slow speed, Shizuka is the weak but effective ranged fighter and Buson is the turtle-like defensive character.
During gameplay, you may swap characters at will, which is important because the game requires you to use each character's skills to progress through a level.
It's good to have a friend to back you up when the action heats up.
Particular About The Particulars
It all sounds decent enough but then you run into a pretty big problem: the camera, which was, and still remains, the biggest technical complaint about the Genji series. Yes, the graphics in Days are beautiful, but when you're being picked off by off-screen enemies because the camera is fixed at a skewed angle to show off some interesting scenery, it's hard to appreciate the view. Another big gripe: the voice acting. As is usually the case, the English language track is absolutely horrendous and should be avoided at all costs. Do yourself a favor and turn on the vastly superior Japanese language track with English subtitles.
While the game isn't principally bad, it doesn't take a step out of the conventional box or do anything out of the ordinary. Because it's a launch title, I expected to catch a glimpse of the face of next-gen gaming. Graphically, it's almost there but the gameplay felt like something I'd seen from multiple PS2 games in the past.
If you're surrounded with enemies, hit the L1 button to trigger your Kamui, and take them down with flair.
The enemies are plentiful but you have some killer moves to even the odds.
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