Way of the Samurai 3 Hands-On

Sep 22, 2009

Acquire's Way of the Samurai 3 is already out in Japan, but here in North America fans of the series can expect the third entry to show up this October. If you have no idea what this game is about, you should no it's definitely not a conventional experience. Read on for impressions of the opening sections.

When first starting up the game you're given a profile screen where you can see a shot of your character, as well as a variety of records for chain kills, distance traveled and total times apologized. The difficulty can be set to easy or normal, your fighter can be outfitted with unlocked clothing, and you can look through your weapon selection, items and accessories, though of course at the outset there isn't exactly much to choose from. With a level 1 Moderate Blade, no money, and basic clothing, I started the game.

Across a still screen voiced dialogue sets up the plot, with warlords fighting across the world, and eventually the action begins on a rainy battlefield with your character stumbling around amongst corpses, holding his side. Two villagers wander by and start a dialogue, and you get an option to immediately attack them as they're in the middle of talking. Which I did, and one swiftly fled before I could kill him. Such behavior probably wasn't the most sensible considering the game was still starting and trying to establish itself, but by checking an overhead map I was able to see an objective marker. Upon arriving, another NPC was waiting, and by hitting the appropriate button during dialogue I was able to avoid hostilities by having my character drop to his knees and touch his forehead to the ground.

By moving out of the small zone, I came upon a town and initiated a fight with two thugs harassing a young woman. They unsheathed blades and came at me with slashes and leg sweeps, partially draining but not depleting my health reserves. After a few spinning slices I took them down and picked up their weapons and a poison mushroom from their corpses. The lady thanked me and proceeded to explain the basics of the game. She went over how many options were available to me as I moved forward. I could take up arms with one of the warring factions, run around and save those in need, or choose to operate entirely on my own. I chose instead to head to an empty house on the other side of the village and take a nap until morning, since it was getting dark anyway.

With a full health bar and a full day ahead of me, I set out into the town to find out what there was to do. From a merchant I could buy mushrooms and eggs to restore health points, or scrolls to learn basic skills. There was also a mask on the sales block that was used for appearing as a woman from Kyogen, which I didn't have enough money to pick up. In fact I basically had no money at all, so I bowed down in front of the merchant and he was nice enough to hand over a rice ball, though it was rotten. I picked it up anyway.

A blacksmith was set up inside one of the village's low hills where I had the option to upgrade and create weapons, though without any parts yet this wasn't really of use. I could have drawn my sword during the exchange, but the blacksmith seemed like too useful an NPC to chop down. On a dock I ran into an old lady that gave me my first job…to find her underwear. While it wasn't exactly the most glamorous assignment, I took it up anyway. The garment had apparently been dropped in a different town, which was odd, but off I went.

It turns out the town was the scene of battle from the beginning of the game, and between the corpses strode scavengers. I managed to grab a few nicer weapons from the ground than the ones picked off the thugs before, and after some searching came across the underwear in a building. I was paid for its safe return. Returning to my house I took another nap to advance time to morning and stored the weapons I'd picked up to clear inventory space. The old lady then wanted me to go beat someone up who'd stolen a giant radish from the town, so I obliged.

I traveled to an adjacent town, promptly found the thief (the name bar floating above his head read "Thief" -- apparently he's not much for stealth), and asked him if he enjoyed eating the radish. He completely freaked out, I drew my sword with the blunt edge out and proceeded to chase him around. Every so often he'd stop to catch his breath, which gave me the opportunity to pummel him until he passed out. At various points our chase would pass by other villages who'd also run screaming, and in the process I even managed to learn a new sword skill as I attacked. In terms of the basic combat controls, there's a button to sheathe and unsheathe the default katana, and by hitting another it's possible to flip the blade so the blunt edge is the one that makes contact. With two buttons a variety of attacks are possible, from overhead slashes to lunges to spinning attacks. I just stuck to basic attacks for this affair, and when I returned to the old woman she gave me an even larger sum of money.

This wasn't really the most exciting path of gameplay, but it at least introduced me to the basics of the world and let me explore a little to see how the towns were laid out and what kinds of NPCs were wandering around. The next task from the old woman was to find some missing kids, which I wasn't thrilled about, so I decided to take a different approach to gameplay and kill as many people as possible. I proceeded to slash the old lady for what seemed like an eternity – it didn't seem possible to kill her – and mid-attack my weapon leveled up. My only mistake was extending the scope of my rampage to a nearby merchant, who quickly dropped to his knees to beg for mercy while what I assume to be his bodyguard beat the snot out of me with a staff.

I died, and was greeting with a scoring screen that said I'd committed numerous acts of villainy totaling -1600 samurai points. Not very successful, I would say, but I was able to save my game at that point and start over keeping my stats and items. This time at the beginning I didn't attack the NPCs who greeting me on the battlefield and chose to have a conversation. While I eventually wound up in the same village, the way I got there was entirely different.

Obviously there's a lot more to see, particularly with regards to the combat and equipment systems, but that's where my time with the game ended. Way of the Samurai 3 doesn't really impress with its visuals, but it offers a unique flavor of gameplay and it'll be interesting to see how everything in this virtual world shifts and reacts to player behavior when the game ships this October for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.