Review – The Spirit of the Samurai

Without much fanfare, it arrived on the market to close the year with a majestic adventure worthy of being considered a work of art. The game developed by Digital Mind Games and published by Kwalee will transport you to a world full of legends and intense combat, in a beautiful cinematic atmosphere.

This is an indie game that draws heavily from Japanese legends and manages to adapt its mythology through an adventure that develops through many influences from Japanese cinema classics, such as The Seven Samurai, and Bunraku, traditional Japanese puppet theater. With a unique beauty and a contemplative, almost poetic rhythm, get ready to face a land devastated by demons and find yourself immersed in the commitment of your journey as a samurai.

Once upon a time…

The Spirit of the Samurai has a pulsating and urgent narrative, in which we take on the role of Takeshi, a samurai responsible for the safety of his village and, without him knowing, predestined to defeat evil. With the legend of Shuten-Doji, known as the king of the oni and one of the three most feared monsters in Japanese folklore, peace is threatened and we soon need to face several creatures to protect the lands, in addition to saving the inhabitants.

This plot develops during the game and with a short duration of just five hours, counting the various attempts to stay alive. However, the story begins with a young child meeting kitsune, a wise yokai who tells the story of Takeshi, experienced by us, to resume at the end of the game about this legend of the ancestors and clearly leaves a huge hook for a possible continuation. In fact, after playing one of the best games of the year, I really hope that Digital Mind Games continues this folkloric adventure.

Far from being an exaggeration on my part, The Spirit of the Samurai is incredible and deserves to be highlighted for its many qualities, starting with its visuals. References from cinema and puppet theater are present at all times, done in stop motion style and with very beautiful animated scenes. The color palette uses sepia color, with darker tones, to create a darker and gloomier atmosphere to accommodate all the ferocity of the monsters and the difficulty in staying alive in a world in constant threat. Everything matches perfectly with your evolution during the game as you brave the darkness and the unknown.

During this journey we learn more about the movement of Takeshi, Anako, the other NPCs and all the monsters, which carry the stop motion style and also justify the developers’ choices for combat. Almost as if we were playing with dolls, we will define sword striking styles for frontal, upward, downward, jumping and defensive attacks. All of them with space for two additional hits that you gain by evolving the samurai and customizing the combat system, to use via the right directional pad and creating different combos.

The coolest thing is how the developers managed to create depth even in a simple system, as you have your stats (Strength, Resistance, Dexterity and Bow) and each blow also comes with damage and speed, making you analyze the way you prefer attack, defend or dodge enemy attacks. Due to the stop motion style, the combats are more rhythmic and require more attention and caution to avoid being defeated with just one sequence of blows from the monsters. Everything making sense in the little world created for a Japan threatened by demons and ready to take Takeshi’s life.

Folklore is the soul of everything

Just like the story and combat system, The Spirit of the Samurai has a simple level design for a game with side-scrolling progression, but was designed to be a secondary and constant threat. Several traps are prepared to take Takeshi’s life, as well as platforms are placed to make you fall into spikes with the slightest carelessness. All this while you try to defend or dodge, by rolling, to avoid monster attacks and managing your stamina bar or vital energy at the top of the screen.

I confess that many hours seemed to be the work of the developers as something purposeful just to make me die and start a portion of the level again, requiring me to memorize the exact sequence of movements. Even the hordes of monsters were more difficult than the few bosses in the game, but I believe that because they prioritized the journey and not necessarily a one-off success along Takeshi’s journey in search of Shuten-Doji.

Proof of this was seeing that The Spirit of the Samurai alternates gameplay between Takeshi, the Kodama (spirit of the forest) and even Chisai, his little kitten. With simple controls for exploration and movement, you will experience different views of this same world, in addition to facing threats in complementary ways that further enhance the experience during the game. Even though the difficulty is unbalanced at certain times, not necessarily in combat, the game is very competent and innovates in bringing these new features by breaking its predictability.

Everything is very well done and is integrated into the story and its proposal, making The Spirit of the Samurai an incredible and memorable experience. Even though there are small performance issues, causing the character to get stuck in corners of the scene or the combat to not be fluid if you are in the same position as the enemy, as a whole, Digital Mind Games’ work impresses with the quality of its narrative construction. , gameplay and creativity when working on the visual style in stop motion.

The Spirit of the Samurai is a love letter to Japanese culture, very well localized for PT-BR, offering an immersive experience that is both visually impressive and culturally rich, in a game that manages to tell a good story while also offering a good challenge, already consolidating itself as a modern classic that deserves to be experienced.