Genji: Days of the Blade

Most Japanese console games have one thing in common – about 50% of the time spent on development is used up on character designing, modeling, animation and anything else that might be needed to make the protagonists more fleshed out. Because of that new character features usually appear first in games coming from the Far East – animated faces, clothes and other graphical features we take for granted today made their first appearance in eastern games. But what happens when developers spend too much time on the characters and the rest of the game suffers because of that?

Based on a true story

I don’t understand why Sony advertised this game as being based on real facts from Japanese history. The very beginning of the game introduces demons, so even the most gullible players out there should start doubting the “real facts” part of Sony’s claim. Putting that aside, the story is actually quite interesting or at least as interesting as action game stories go. When starting a new game we are presented with a short summary of events that took place two years earlier, so playing the prequel is not necessary to understand what is going on. The story is basically your typical Japanese clan war where the “bad” clan loses and then employs the help of demons to exact revenge. There are some minor twists after that, but nothing you wouldn’t be able to foretell in advance.

Don’t let that kimono slide off!

Before moving on to how the game actually plays let me state that this is the prettiest game I have ever seen. The amount of detail seen on the characters and their surrounding is simply awe inspiring. In fact, when the intro movie stopped playing I kept waiting for something to happen, as I didn’t realize the cinematic ended. The same thing happened again a while later, when even though I suspected that I was supposed to fight the enemies I just kept staring at the screen, waiting for the level of detail to drop to something I’m more used to (meaning the end of the cinematic). Being an almost trained professional (if such a thing exists in this field) I’m rarely impressed with good graphics, but in this case I was just not ready for what I saw. Character models sport an amazing number of polygons and their animation is close to something you’d find in a Pixar movie. Clothes are also realistically animated, which is especially impressive when playing with the female protagonist, whose dress has some long flowing sleeves that trail behind her hand movements. Slap on motion blur effects when the characters move and you’ve got an almost lifelike presentation.

Environments may not be as detailed as the characters, but they are still miles above being average. The ancient Japanese palaces, war camps, ports and other in-game locations are all crafted with an immense sense for detail. Unfortunately most of it is not accessible, as the game levels are structured as rooms with interconnecting corridors, so most of what you see is actually out of reach. Still, burning buildings and flowing rivers are some of the best looking locations ever seen in video games.
The score is well written and fits the action, though you might wish for more diversity after listening to the same combat songs for a few hours. I can’t comment on the Japanese voice acting as I don’t really understand it, but the English voiceovers are so painstakingly bad that they are actually good (similar to how Japanese movies sound with English voiceovers).
Unfortunately it is not all milk and honey and there are some technical issues that pop up here and there. The framerate, while stable most of the time can drop during some fights against a large enemy force. Another minor issue are the barely noticeable, but quite common skips when the game is trying to access the needed data on the disk. Installing the game (2GB approx) alleviates most of this and speeds up the load times as well. We wonder if more games will offer install options to speed access, especially as Microsoft have detailed the new Black  120gb Xbox 360 ELITE due for release this year.

Hit the weak spot for massive damage

The gameplay in Genji consists of two parts: fighting and erm… more fighting. You do come across minor puzzles that force you to explore the levels a bit, but the end result is usually even more fighting. Fortunately dealing with the countless demon hordes is a fun experience (at least initially) that requires a certain amount of skill to actually survive. Every character you control has the ability to jump and perform 3 different attacks. Yoshitsune, the main character is a dual sword wielding samurai who favors speed above all else. Benkei is his complete opposite – he is capable of dealing some heavy duty damage with his huge weapon. The two new playable characters are Shizuka, a female fighter equipped with chained blades can deal damage from afar while the last character -Lord Buson has an extremely short attack range, making up for that with attacks that can hit several enemies at once. You can switch between characters at any time via the d-pad, which is especially helpful since some enemies require specific approaches to be defeated.
Throughout the game you will collect new weapons for all the characters. Every acquired weapon gives the character wielding it new attacks which in turn helps make combat less repetitive. But even though you have 4 different characters at your disposal, each wielding several different weapons the combat still becomes stale and frustrating after some time. One of the reasons for this is the corridor-like level design, so no matter how many different enemies there are in the game, you still have to employ the same tactics all the time. The main problem is the camera though. The developers decided to use a fixed camera angle, which means that you will have severe trouble with enemies outside of the cameras field of view. Sure, it might make combat more cinematic, but when weighed against all the problems it causes it is simply a bad choice.

Repetitive + Frustrating

When you ignore the amazing graphics and fluid character animation and focus on the fighting itself you realize that the combat mechanics are quite old. You can get pretty far in the game just by button mashing and moving into random directions. The slapped on special attacks, which can be triggered when a special meter is full are basically a mini-game where you have to press the right button at the right time are a nice touch, but not nearly enough to make up for the other combat issues. Certain enemies are also capable of special attacks and you’ll have to play the same mini-game here as well, the main difference being that you avoid taking damage when successful.
After a few hours of playing the challenge is no longer caused by the enemies themselves but by the terrible camera and the often unresponsive controls. Most of the enemies will throw you to the ground if they land a successful hit, and by the time you manage to get up (can take up to 5 seconds) his buddies will be swarming all over you. You can probably guess what happens next – one of the enemies will undoubtedly manage to strike you, knocking you to the ground once again. This problem is made even worse by the huge distances between save points. You will be required to kill 3 boss creatures and about a hundred regular enemies before you can save again. Surviving such parts is almost impossible and even the smallest mistake can be fatal. While I don’t mind a challenge, I absolutely loathe games that put you against unfair odds.

Conclusion

Genji: Days of Blade is the perfect game to show to your friends if you want to show off the PS3 capabilities graphical. You must make sure that they don’t try and play it though, or at least not for longer periods of time. If they do they’ll sooner or later realize how dumb the camera system is, how the enemies can mostly be killed by using only one attack and how constricted the levels are. If they play long enough you are even endangering the controller – they might throw it right out the window. As with many other next-gen titles, Genji is a game that is absolutely amazing as long as you are not the one playing it.

Gameplay	8/20	Repetitive, frustrating and constricted are words that describe the combat in this game. The first impression is good, but the longer you play the more glaring the issues become.
Graphics	18/20	The characters are borderline photorealistic and their animation is spotless. Motion blur and depth of field blur make the whole experience even more life like.
Sound	12/20	The sound in the game is average, with repetitive music and some pretty sad voice acting. Still, it gets the job done.
Value	7/20	The game is quite lengthy, but this may be more because of the tedious nature of combat and the constant dying.
Preference	8/20	Regardless of your preference you should only consider Genji after you played any other fighting game available.
Overall	63/100	Genji is a typical launch title – it looks amazing, but behind the under the hood lies an old engine which should have been replaced eons ago.