Way of the Samurai 3

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $49.99
Sale Price: $33.93
Today's Bonus: 32% Off

I've been waiting for this game for a while and this game was near impossible to find, but I finally found a copy and got to play for the first time last night. It follows the along the same model of the original The Way of the Samurai. There are tons of swords and fighting styles, that will keep you enthralled for hours upon hours, and once you find that certain sword/style that fits you, you can learn new techniques and level the sword so you can become the ultimate assassin, protector, or just plain ole bad a**. This game is full of action around every turn, and the best concept is that you can choose which path you want to take, if you want to become a rich samurai you can join the fujimori clan, or you can be a sole wanderer a ronin,or you can protect the citizens of a poor city who are being heavily taxed, or you can plot against the fujimori clan and join the ouika clan who are a bunch of thieves and robbers, and the beauty of it is it's all up to you which path you choose. The fighting in this game is superb, depending on which sword you use that is the fighting style used, or you can fight bare handed which is pretty fun as well. I thoroughly enjoyed and am still enjoying this game, if this game sounds like something you might like, or if your like me, I really enjoy old samurai movies especially Akira Kurosawa films, you'll love this game. One of my favorite things about this game is one of the faces you can choose for your samurai looks almost exactly like Toshiro Mifune. In all I give this game a 5 out of 5. Maybe more, this is possibly one of my favorite games of the year.

Click Here to Read More Reviews >>

Way of the Samurai 3 is an open-world game styled like an old-school samurai film. In some ways, it lives up to the standards of the series; in others, it overextends itself.

In WOTS3, you play as a wandering samurai caught in the kingdom of Amana during the Warring States period. There are several factions you can choose to ally yourself with: the powerful Fujimori clan, the rural Ouka clan, or the oppressed farmers of Takatane. The game has an open world, so you can wander around doing what you want doing jobs and gaining the trust of the various factions to accomplish something in the world, or just spending your time picking fights and upgrading your sword. The game is meant to be played many times it's short, but there are so many variations in the endings that it's clearly meant to be replayed over and over.

WOTS3 offers you more influence in the world than previous games. While WOTS1 and WOTS2 both allowed you a wide variety of choices as to your behavior in the world, in terms of who you could kill and where you could go, you were severely limited. In WOTS3, anyone can be killed at any time as long as you can get to them. It's possible to draw your sword during almost any cutscene in the entire game; if you want to, you can just cut a bloody swath through every important character, take their stuff, and leave.

On the flipside, if you're actually trying to accomplish something and get a good ending, it's important to be more diplomatic. WOTS3 offers two different concessions to the idea of peace. The first of these is the ability to apologize; in previous games, if you accidentally drew your sword, you had to fight or run away. In WOTS3, it's possible to attempt to reconcile and avoid fighting, which can be crucial if you've spent all your time building up trust with one clan and almost ruin it accidentally. The other new feature is the ability to attack non-lethally; you can defeat an enemy, but they won't be killed permanently. Since every single character in the game is persistent in the world, this can be important if a necessary character picks a fight with you and won't accept your surrender. You may find it necessary to fight back, but also to keep the person alive.

The swordfighting system feels slightly less refined than in WOTS2, but it makes up for it with improved customization. Like previous games, there are a few basic styles that swords can be used in, as well as some exotic options like ninja swords and iaijutsu. WOTS3 changes a few things as far as weapons go. Spears have been added to the game, to go with the more medieval tone of the setting. Additionally, dual-wielding now involves two actual swords, rather than one "sword" that's actually a set of two. Finally, you now have the option to create your own swords or spears from parts that can be found or bought in the game world. These weapons have their stats determined by the parts you use, so saving all your best parts to build a super high-quality sword is usually a good idea.

As gameplay goes, the most annoying part in comparison to other games in the series is how disconnected everything feels. The story is moved along through "inklings", which show up on your map occasionally to let you know to go to a certain area. However, many of these inklings are non-intuitive. For example, while playing as a member of the Fujimori clan, I ended up at a dead end where nothing was happening. As it turned out, I had to go join the rival Ouka clan, then immediately leave. It made no sense and felt really awkward. The jobs you have to do to gain faction approval are a pain, too. Some of them are ok go here, kill one guy. Others have you hunting around the map for a hidden person or item, many of whom won't show up due to bugs or bad programming. In one case, I found two of three people that I needed to find, and couldn't find the last one no matter where I looked. I then left the map and came back; when I returned, the third person was sitting in a place that I had definitely checked before.

Another gameplay gimmick added is the presence of "partners" romantic interests for your samurai to pursue. These partners have no role in the main gameplay; rather, you have to go out looking for them and fulfill whatever requirements they have for you to "recruit" them. For example, one partner threatens to attack you to avenge her dead father (she has mistaken you for his killer), and to recruit her you must apologize to her rather than fighting back. Another shows up only at midnight, and can be hired as a bodyguard for the night. However, these partners are more annoying than helpful some offer small advantages, like remote access to your weapons safe and so on, but they all run much slower than you do and you'll be forced to constantly stop to let them catch up, or just walk everywhere. There are some mini-games you can do that require you to have a partner, and if you hang out with a partner long enough they can become a romantic interest, but other than that there's really not that much they're good for. Overall, they're just a pain.

The game's graphical quality varies pretty wildly people and weapons are done pretty well, but the environmental textures are bland and unappealing. The main character especially is good at expressing emotion, but the buildings look really fake and the maps are lined with invisible walls and other issues that seem really silly to still have in 2009. Despite some improvements, as a whole WOTS3 is not a graphically impressive game it's not quite as bad as last-gen, but it's not up to the standards of current generation graphics.

The sound design in the game is similarly varied in quality. The music is interesting and atmospheric. The voice work in Japanese is pretty good, but the English dub is lazy and not even worth bothering with. Thankfully, the game provides both English and Japanese as options. There's a really weird bug with voices, though, which is that the volume of a person's voice is based on the camera's proximity to the speaker not based on the character's proximity. The result is that, because it's a third-person game, you won't be able to hear anyone unless you swing the camera around so that the person speaking is right in front of you. It's really weird and annoying and just ruins the experience.

As a whole, WOTS3 is an ambitious game, and I can respect that. However, it's so sloppily put together that the few areas where it is fun are overshadowed by repetitive tasks and shoddy development. It's a good example of combining story and gameplay, but in terms of being a fun game it's kind of lacking.

Rating: 6/10.

Buy Way of the Samurai 3 Now

Although the game has everything I expected, the lack of the tutorial ensured a costly error within the first 5 minutes of game play. I was prompted to press the L1 button when some farmers arrived and they ran off, thinking i was out to kill them for no reason. Other than that early mistake, and the immensely corny dialogue that was so very rampant in the first 2 games, the game play ends up being a lot of fun. you can choose from three paths now, Good, Evil, or you can take a diplomatic route and avoid combat entirely. All around this is a great game, just read the instructions before you play. There is also free Downloadable Content on the Playstation network. Worth checking out over all I would say $40-$50 is a fair price for this game.

Read Best Reviews of Way of the Samurai 3 Here

I've played WOTS2 and although it was great at the start, the time limit and strange save system drove me crazy that I decided I was not going to play WOTS games ever. When I read that WOTS3 had no time limit and the save system was "fixed", I decided to give this game a chance. I'm glad I did.

You start out walking off a bloody battle, wounded and confused. You encounter two villagers. At this point, it's all in your hands what you wish to do. Kill the two villagers or let them help you. Your choice. The game can end in 15 minutes if you choose to or you play the game for hours on end. Currenlty, I am playing it for 10 hours now.

The gameworld is small, about 8 villages I think set in a province, pre-Meiji period. But don't be disappointed about the small gameworld. There are lots of things to be done in each of the villages; from running simple errands, to setting up ambushes, joining samurai clans, or just picking a fight on a villager. There are consequences to every action you take. So be careful what you do. You can beat up an opponent without killing him/her. WOTS3 introduced a "blunt" system whereby you use the blunt edge of the sword to pummel the baddie or goodie into submission. Killing a person in game affects the entire flow of the game, so be careful on who you pounce. Oh...and during combat and there's a bystander, and you accidentally hit the person with a sword, that bystander will either run, die, or join in the melee. You cannot turn off "friendly fire" in this game. Everyone, except the livestock and children, can be killed anytime, at any point.

Although I am not that familiar with different katanas/bokkens in Japan. Most, if not, all the weapons in the game seem to be authentic or based on real authentic weapons. There are no ninja-gaiden type weapons in this game. Also, the weapons gain levels not the person. So the weapons grows in level as you use it. At the same time, the weapon gains different stances (I think) that you can employ on your character. The game reportedly has 20 endings. I have not beaten the game yet, I am taking my time doing quests and just walking around villages waiting for a fight. The game randomly throws in a samurai or two to ambush you in broad daylight or in the evening. So...be ready to unsheath your sword or yoou'll get sliced and diced fast. By the way, during cutscenes the game will give you a choice to unsheath your weapon (a sign of aggression) or apologize (a sign of submission) or just let the cutscene run by itself. In other words, you can actually shift the cutscene to a different story line simply by drawing or apologizing while the cutscene runs.

For the most part, the NPCs in the game seem to be authentic in their costumes although you'll find a few weird looking costumes that are more anime than authentic. The villages look authentic for it's period. The language in-game can be either english or Japanese. I went for the Japanese language to give it a more samurai feel to the game.

Now comes the saving part. Well...here's what I do. I save my game often. There are what you call village minstrels who you can speak to and have them save your game. They are all over the map so don't worry about not finding locations to save. From what I've noticed, every village has a minstrel that you can save your game. When you save your game, your entire inventory and status is saved, including your current location. Now if you get killed or complete the game, you will get a screen showing you how many samurai points you've earned at the end game. Another screen will then pop up and ask you if you wish to save the results or not. Here's the trick: If you decide to save the results. The game will reset back from the beginning but it will still have all your items, money, etc you've earned intact and complete..so basically you won't be starting from scratch as a dirt poor samurai. But the entire storyline starts from scratch again. This gives you an opportunity to take a different approach to the game. If on the other hand you decide not to save the results, the game will take you back to your LOAD GAME screen, and you can pick up from where you last saved before you were killed. I believe the only time you can see how much samurai points you've earned is when the game ends either by dying, completing one of the endings, or leaving the province of Amana (which you do by simply selecting Leave Amana on your map).

Do I like the game. Yes I love the game because of it's open ended approach. It gives me a sense of actually being a samurai and doing something that affects a person or a community. There are tons of "Samurai" games out there that walks the line between a fighting game and a comic-book rpg. DOn't get me wrong. I like fighting games and anime styled rpg games with samurais but WOTS3 brings the samurai to a more realistic and authentic level. Do I like the graphics? Well...to be honest I'm not easily blinded by eye-candy. I still go for the substance of the game. Graphics is like the least of my requirements when choosing a game. For my own standards (which I know isn't all that high or great), the graphics is next-gen. A lot of people are saying WOTS3 has ps2 graphics. I think they're wrong...or so that's what I think. BGM is a mix of authentic Japanese koto and shakuhachi music and some chill lounge music with a Japanese traditional feel to it.

All in all, it's a great game. It might not be for the trigger happy sword wielding gamers who want to hack and slash for hours. THis game takes patience. The game isn't hard in terms of dealing with NPCs. What makes the game difficult is making the right choice at the right time, and being able to face the consequences of your actions.

Want Way of the Samurai 3 Discount?

this game is very realistic, its the best martial art game to come out since tenchu z for the xbox 360. it has great replay value. set in real historic times, it gives you a idea what it was like in fuedal japan. another great point is you have the option to have everything spoken in the japanese language with english subtitles, ive been waiting for a long time for this game to come out and i am 100% satisfied with it. its a game for every martial artist as myself andd also for those with the warrior spirit. it teaches good morals and virtueous character.