Coming from Piko and Qubyte Interactive is a remake of two games from the 1990’s, to catch up on the seeming current craze for taking old games, tarting them up a tad, and then releasing them on an unsuspecting public.
Running under The Samurai Collection (QUByte Classics) name, the games this time around are First Samurai and its follow up, the imaginatively named Second Samurai. Having released in 1991 and 1994 respectively, has time been kind to these 16-Bit games from yesteryear, or should they have stayed in the past?
So, first off and we’ll dive into the narrative – although you should probably strap yourself in as this could well be the shortest paragraph I’ve ever written in the history of narratives. In the First Samurai, we are the very first Samurai in Feudal Japan, and we have to beat other swordsmen to come out on top. In the Second Samurai, it is not at all that clear what has happened, but we are a Samurai in a world of cavemen and monkeys as the game opens. No clue as to why a Samurai, clad in a very fetching modern Gi, would be fighting cavemen, but who needs reasons when there is sword play to undertake?
In fact, we really don’t need to care too much for narrative at all, but we do care about visuals and I think the best thing that can be said about those is that they are true to the original. In the good old days, back when I was a younger man, visuals were never seen as the main focus of the gaming world, it used to be all about the gameplay. However, there are some graphics in The Samurai Collection, and while they look okay, they still aren’t brilliant by today’s standards. The main issue, from the perspective of today, is found in the animation; it is stilted and jerky at best. Having played both games, there seemingly wasn’t a great deal of advancement in the three years before the Second Samurai, and in some ways the graphics seem to have gone backwards.
Soundwise, it is all fine though. You’ve got some swishing sword effects and the like, along with some fairly pleasant music making an appearance. Honestly, it is almost like being back in 1990s, with all the baggage that that decade entails.
There isn’t too much difference between the two games in terms of the actual gameplay either. What is weird is that the controls change between the two games, with a completely different button mapping for the controller on both games. First Samurai comes with a traditional button layout, with A being jump and X attack, while in the second game, this is reversed, with X being jump and B being attack. The change in controls makes no sense, and when you’re combining the two into The Samurai Collection it makes the second a lot harder to play; the buttons are not intuitive.
Actual combat in both games is a bit weird, being kind. Again, it is almost exactly the same as the majority of games back in the day, with minimal interaction between the weapons that you wield and the enemies that you wield them at. Yet both titles do have an interesting mechanic, in that the sword of the Samurai can be lost if he takes enough damage, leaving him fighting the enemies with his bare fists. If you can deal enough damage in the first game, you can get the sword back, but in Second Samurai you can recover the sword by picking up scrolls that drop from the sky when you hit various floaty crystals that are dotted about the place. Don’t look for any deeper meaning, would be my advice: sometimes you will have a sword, sometimes you won’t, but it’s usually better to have a sword than not. Top tip there!
As you move through both First Samurai and Second Samurai, you will find things to collect in order to advance. The first game sees you picking up various symbols, with five being required in each level to challenge the boss. And what a mixed bunch they are, with one thing in common – for an early 90’s game, the bosses go down with hardly a whimper. The first boss in the first game, for instance, is a two headed dragon, and all you need to do is pretty much stand in the middle of the arena and wave your sword about your head until they die. Disappointing? Very much so.
Second Samurai has you hunting down jars with spirits that you need to release in order to pass a glowing thing in the sky. However, the collision detection in the game is even ropier than the first, so it is usually pot luck as to whether the enemy dies or you do. The big difference between the two games is that the second game features a two player mode, so if you have a deadly enemy or someone you really want to fall out with, get them to join you in playing Second Samurai. The two player mode does sort of work, but it is a long way from making this a game worth playing.
You may well find yourself being mildly disappointed by The Samurai Collection. The games included are very much dated, looking rubbish and playing poorly. Back in the day we didn’t know any better, but now we do, and while there is always room for some nostalgia to creep in, what we have here is a bad case of rose tinted glasses trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
The Samurai Collection (QUByte Classics) probably didn’t need putting together, combining two fairly bad games and not an awful lot of fun.
The Samurai Collection is on the Xbox Store
