Changed overall score to an 8 after playing it a few dozen more times
This game grows on you very much. Even when beating it the first 6 times, I barely scratched the surface of unlockables. On my 20th playthrough or so I found a new scene for the first time, getting tied to the railroad, how cool was that?
The fun isnt the 2 hour long story (max 2 hours, usually less) its playing it out differently and getting nice swords and unlocking weapons.
While the game is absurdly difficult on the hard mode, normal feels just perfect for most gamers I would assume. Hard is just lame because you can get killed in 3 attacks or less. And when you die, gone are your swords you were using, which is a fundamental design flaw IMO.
There are lots of little secrets hidden in the game, and as I mentioned, unlocking extra characters in battle mode or stages, and new outfits is certainly worth playing another hour of the game.
But it is the excellent animations of sword attacks and the nifty combos that are the meat and potatoes. There are so many sword stances and types to use that it is almost like a sports game, you find favorites, and no 2 battles are 100% the same, although it can seem repetative when doing things like the 100 man attack.
However you can also play as a "samurai king" style, and rarely if ever unsheath your sword, quite a twist on an action game.
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Way of the Samurai excels in innovation yet draws much from classic genres. Much like Bushido Blade 2 this game combines a semi realistic sword fighting engine with a "quest mode" although this game is more quest than BB2.
Similar to a choose your own adventure book the game is essentially a linear story but with multiple paths to choose from. You pick answers to questions from NPCs in order to progress a story and you then act however you wish, sometimes fulfilling a promise, other times betraying your word.
All of what you do affects your overall rating but only select plot twists and choices determine which of 6 endings you get.
At the root of all the choices and story is battle. Sword contests against multiple enemies usually of your choosing. Unfortunately the game has a lock on targeting system and like a saturday afternoon kung foo movie you fight a single enemy at a time. Others simply watch and wait their turn while you hack it out doing combos and defending (which is critical).
The combat engine is solid, with learned combos and twitch based timing crucial to success. After a while certain weapons and combos start to show their dominance over others when fighting the CPU. Money moves reveal themselves, but only after beating the game a few times.
Considering the first time through it will only take 2 hours, it wont be long before you are unlocking multiple endings and eventually cranking up the difficulty setting.
There are some annoyances with the gimicky save system which erases a file after you load it, but your overall record/status and weapons collected will save permanently.
Its pretty satisfying to start the game with a pumped up weapon with +500 health +20 attack/defense and a full stable of moves unlocked.
Fighting with a sub par weapon is impossible on the harder difficulties and it is almost imperative to unlock special combos as you can be sure the CPU will unleash special moves on you.
Graphically WOTS is a mixed bag. Some models are nicely rendered with flowing outfits and smooth animations, others are repeated and blocky looking characters.
The backgrounds experience a lot of shimmer and some are rather bland. A nice touch is the day/dusk/ night system which affects lighting. Just about every local looks far better at dusk or night, unfortunately some locals just dont look good no matter what. The section where the sword smith is located is notoriously bland and shimmery, and you will be seeing this location many times as it is a connector of sorts.
After playing Tenchu 1 I was expecting big things from acquire in the sound track. Tenchu 1 has some of the best atmospheric music and sound on the PSX. Unfortunately WOTS experiences the sophmore jinx. In the opening sequence there is a nice build up of music but it quickly degrades to a poor mixture of classic japanese / commercial guitar rock / soft jazz.
When I think sword fights and honor, the sound of Pontiac Sunbird car commerical music playing in the background doesn't come to mind. The battle music is especially irritating.
There are some decent cricket sounds and the train sounds ok, but overall this is a major problem in the game. I keep music on mute after a couple of times through and all hope lost.
I have found myself wanting to play this a lot and unlike most games, I actually seek to unlock the extras since 2 hours isnt terribly painful for a new gi. And due to the branching storyline choices you dont get all that bored unlocking stuff, compared to say an Onimusha where 12 more hours of the exact same thing for a panda outfit wasnt quite worth it.
It almost feels like Tony Hawk 3 as far as replay goes. Its the same game every time, but ever so slightly different and you are challenged to unlock that new look/character.
The developers have a full fledged fighting game mode as well, you can pick various characters from the story and equip weapons you have earned for 1p vs. CPU or 1p vs. 2p. I havent played much of this but it is quite fun to use some of the other characters, I would have preferred to use the other characters in story mode but obviously that would screw up the storyline, say you use a villain to save the day etc...
WOTS is not for everyone, if you are looking for turn based FFX 70 hours of questing forget it. WOTS is a fighting game with a story mode tacked on.
It reminds me a little of Majora's Mask in that you need to do certain things to progress the story and upon replaying it you feel like you are going back in time.
Sitting in the house of one group of Samurai who were discussing tactics, it was like a star trek episode and I was sitting there thinking, "I just killed all of you a couple of hours ago" or "you fool that plan is doomed"
It would have been more fun if the choices didnt seem so limited and forced, your creativity is severely limited with the amount of time and choices you have. 2 days isnt a whole lot of story to work with and even with 6 endings you will be seeing a lot of the same side plots play out.
WOTS surprised me by how addictive it is, the inclusion of powering up weapons , over 40 weapons to collect , and the 4 or so fighting styles really adds a lot to keep one from getting bored when playing the story through in another way.
Be wary though, the game has major flaws in the graphics and the novelty of the gameplay might not be enough for hardcore adventure gamers looking to interact with the environment like a Deus Ex or MGS or Morrowind
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