Genji: Days of The Blade

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Genji Days of the Blade is probably most notorious for its silly E3 demonstration. The speaker talked about how it portrayed authentic feudal Japanese battles involving Giant Enemy Crabs :) He also talked about novel concepts such as "attacking its weak point for maximum damage" and how you could do (gasp) REAL TIME weapons change in the game. This last item actually looks very silly you could be swinging one sword, hit a button and MID SWING the sword changes into a new weapon.

In general, this is a fighting game set in PRE feudal Japan, i.e. 1187. I ran a Feudal Japan newsletter for many years, and feudal Japan was the 1500s, the days of Oda Nobunaga and the wars then. Back in 1187, there was a quite different government setup. If you're curious about this time period, read The Tale of Genji sometime by Lady Murasaki this is acclaimed by many as the first novel ever written. It was written back in the 11th century! It's a great read even today, which is quite an achievement.

So back to the gameplay. You play a young two-sword warrior and have as your pals an older warrior, a female warrior and a war-god turned spellcasting warrior :) You fight through various Japanese landscapes and settings, taking on the Bad Guys. You have your combat techniques and magical powers to help you triumph.

The graphics are very impressive. In the cut scenes, you can see the fabric weaves on the layers of kimono, the metallic sparkle in the lacquerware, the rippling heat waves by the fire. During gameplay the character movements were fluid and natural. Fabric pieces would sway and tiny, glistening sparks would float on the air. Some scenes were really quite lovely in a painting sort of way.

Gameplay itself involves slicing with swords, chaining up attacks and blocking. There are, a la the Giant Enemy Crab, situations where you have to Attack the Weak Point for Maximum Damage. I didn't like the HUD of the map in the top left it took up too much space and looked "silly" in almost a PacMan kind of way. The top left HUD of characters and health was much better done, less intrusive.

For sound, I love Japanese culture and really enjoyed the traditional music that played in the background in many scenes. For me it really helped immerse the game in an authentic setting. Many of the characters speaking are obviously Japanese and hearing that accent and proper pronunciation of historic names was great. Some have British accents ... odd.

There were a lot of little details that I really enjoyed. Obviously these guys had done their research. The little click as a sword was reset into its scabbard, the traditional sword holders on the ground, the way the swordsmen would set up a stance and move, it was all really enjoyable to watch. In many ways it was like being in a well done movie. That all being said, they took a few liberties about what the buildings looked like, and the characters dressed like, back in 1187. It was more like a time traveller from the feudal Japan period (i.e. the 1500s) went back to 1187 in some cases :) But that's sort of like the movie Excalibur, where King Arthur and his knights were wearing armor from the 1600s England. Historic King Arthur certainly wasn't alive in the 1600s :) But we accept that anachronism as part of the myth. It's not like the Japanese soldiers in 1187 had magic powers, either.

In general I really love this game. If I'm going to pick out a particular flaw, it's the camera. You can't control the camera at all, and there are situations where it becomes incredibly annoying. Still, that's something you can just resign yourself to while you enjoy the game!

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Genji is set in ancient Japan that is supposed to be actually historical, However when you run into giant crabs and Ladies floating around with butterfly wings, you start to question that concept.

The graphics are awesome, obviously next generation quality and great sound to make you feel like you're in mythical Japan.

The problems with the game are obvious. You'll start playing the game and then when a battle is over, you'll have no idea where to go or what to do so you'll start wondering all over the map until a cut scene starts.

The camera doesn't help either. All too often your character will be fighting something off-screen or your character will disappear through a wall and you'll have no idea what or if you're hitting anything and you'll get frustrated when you die because you couldn't see what was happening.

The game play is hack and slash. All that happens is "kill this giant crab, wonder around, go through the door, activate cut scene, repeat." There's no variety in the game play that keeps the player interested.

If the game had fixed the weak points (which could have been very easy for some such as the camera) this could have been at least an average game. But these flaws are not acceptable for games anymore (if they ever were) and more should be expected for a next generation game.

PROS

Great graphics

Set in mythical ancient Japan

CONS

No idea where to go

Repetetive and straight forward gameplay

"Where am I?" camera

Buy Genji: Days of The Blade Now

Genji Days of the Blade was a launch title for the PS3, I was reluctant to get it when it was $69 due to my previous negative encounter with Genji: Dawn of Samurai. Its safe to say at this point I'm glad I waited and picked this up for $5 at a pawnshop.

Genji Days of the Blade (Genji 2) takes place pretty much after the events of Genji 1, people who didn't play the first Genji need not worry, the events of the game are shown to you before you start playing Genji 2. Yoshitsune and Benkei both make a second appearance in this game, you also get to play as Shizuka who was previously unplayable in the first game. Also joining the cast is the god of war Buson who has decided to use the body of Genji 1's boss. Overall the characters all have some sort of negative trait to them except for Yoshitsune who can practically attack non-stop, Benkei is absolutely useless, hes much too slow to do anything except for when you have to use his special attack, he is really painfully slow, sure he has massive attack power, but what good is it when you can only get in 1-2 hits before taking a few hundred point of damage? Shizuka is a little faster at attacking the Yoshitsune, but can only string together 4 combos at a time and then slightly pauses, causing her to take lots of damage, and of course being a female character her defense is pitifully low, this wouldn't be bad if you didn't have to worry about her dying, but if even 1 character dies, its game over and you have to start from the beginning! Then there's Buson, sure he looks badass, but his move set stinks, you have to always strife to get his true move set, so he will sting together 4 attacks then you have to time his strife to do another 4 attacks, useless for some bosses as they move to fast for you to get any decent hits in. Basically what I'm getting at is even though you seem to have 4 characters, there is only 1 useful one, Yoshitsune. The other characters are just along for the ride.

Now there's the story, my god, its painfully dull, bland and useless. Space Invaders has a more moving story than this game. The voice acting tries to stay true to the Japanese theme and uses people with Japanese accents, Bleh hated it, the characters feel dull and lifeless,not enough character development going on. I couldn't care less if Yoshitsune's love interest died saving his life or if it was the other way around. To sum it up, boring story, never have I cared less about a story this much....

For the battle system, to some it up, You ever play Dynasty Warriors? Cause Genji 2 is a DW clone, you fight hordes of enemies and then have a boss battle, watch a few cut scenes in between the regular battles and the boss battles, rinse repeat. There is also a limited set of items adding a false difficulty to the game, then you have save points that can be within 10 minutes of each other or 1 hour within each other, that's just plain stupid, and really grinds my gears when I only want to play a 30min session, but have to go another 30-40min longer than planned because I have to find a save point. very frustrating! And now for the biggest complaint, Genji 2 employs the use of a fixed camera...a FIXED CAMERA this can make things much more harder than they need to be in this game (it seems Sony slapped on another layer of false difficulty) you might be running around like a headless chicken, only to discover your destination was just a few more feet forward, but you cant see the door because the fixed camera won't change the angle to let you see this door, also get used to being hit off screen almost all the time. Needless to say,the fixed camera should have had many more angles of the same area as it makes the bad camera angles in Devil May Cry look good. Then there's is that useless smudge on the screen known as the mini-map, it doesn't tell you where to go and doesn't display the location of an enemy very well, The game probably didn't even need the mini-map,its that useless.

The only redeeming factor of this game is the graphics....erm I mean character models, in all fairness they look really good (probably the best looking characters in the PS3's first year out),but what good is that if everything else in the game is bad? Overall I cannot recommend this game. Get Ninja Gaiden Sigma instead if you want to play as an asswhuping Ninja!

Pros:

+Great looking Characters (possibly some of the best looking for the PS3's first year)

+Good looking...box art? (probably conned a few people into thinking the game was good!)

Cons:

-Crappy Story

-Forgettable Characters

-Fixed Camera

-False difficulty with the fixed camera and set amount of items

-Tries to be a dynasty warriors clone

-And Fails

-Not worth the install on you PS3's HDD (I think its around 2GB)

-Yoshitsune is the only good character whats the point of the other 3 if they all border useless (esp. Benkei)

-Should have been boxed with the launch PS3's,for the outrageous $69.99 they were asking you should have got much more game, and a lot less crap.

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One of the early PS3 games, this one really doesn't take full advantage of the PS3 capabilities. I played and solved the original Genji on PS2 which was fun to play. This game however seems to take a backward step in gameplay. The camera is horrible. The right control stick which for most games allow you to change the camera angle is used for a dodge move, so many times I had to walk the character around to see things including enemies which were noted on the mini map but out of my sight on the main screen. The game also suffers from repetition. Too many similar missions against the same enemy. The graphics are spruced up and decent for an early PS3 game and the music is nice. I can only recommend this game if you get it for 10 bucks or less.

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Genji was this fist Game I bought, played, and traded in at my gaming store. What an honor for this "feudal japan" game. It's Pros are few and superficial and it's cons are many and tremendous. the first and biggest problem I had with it was the fixed non rotational camera, A beheading offense. It also left so much more to be desired, in level design, character design and all around cliche-isms.

You have you're plucky, young, crazy haired hero. Gruff, older, quiet side-kick, the "hot", yet untouchable love interest, and we can't forget the bad to his eyeliner foil. As another reveiwer said it best

"The game play is hack and slash. All that happens is "kill this giant crab, wonder around, go through the door, activate cut scene, repeat." There's no variety in the game play that keeps the player interested." -Kora

And I couldn't agree more. Long and short (with only a little ranting)this game was a MASSIVE waste of time, that I could have watch grass grow with, and be more entertained. This is NOT interesting or hard in any way unless you want to really be Zatoichi and fight blind. I would love to see it regain some honor and preform Seppuku.