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By Sean Booker
February 20, 2009 - 12:00
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The main character, Afro, is in search for the number 1 headband which is being worn by the man who killed his father. Afro currently holds the number 2 headband (which you collect early in the game) and is on a path of revenge. Possessing the number 1 headband means that you are the greatest sword master in the entire world. This is the reason that your father was killed in the first place and now you must fight your way through a mass of enemies in order to avenge your father.
The game’s main focus is its battle system. Throughout each level you will encounter many enemies, which you must kill before continuing on. It goes with the norm for these kinds of games, where you are given specific buttons for specific attacks. X will do a quick attack and Y, a strong attack. You will be mainly using these two buttons, and just mashing them for the entirety of the game. This brings up one of Afro Samurai’s key flaws: its monotone nature. As with most hack and slash games, the only thing to do is continuously hit your attack buttons until you are done the game. Afro Samurai is no exception to this unfortunate rule.
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However, the game’s combat varies with the addition of “Focus Attacks.” These attacks are more powerful than your regular moves and add a bit more thought to your battles. Apart from the standard fighting, you can go into focus mode and then angle your attacks with the left analog stick and choose either a horizontal (X button) or vertical (Y button) slash to perform. This causes the game to slow down, so you can target specific bodies parts to chop off your enemies. Once you can pull these off with no problem, the fighting becomes quite fun. Stringing together your sword attacks, your kicks (B button) and even being able to flip around in slow motion make for a great time. It’s quite satisfying when you finally slice your opponent clean in half right when they were in mid air. Killing them also leads to their blood pooling out which is a nice addition.
Apart from the game’s combat moments, which make up about 75% of the game, you will need to run, explore each level and even do some platforming. This is Afro Samurai's greatest downfall. The platforming sections will require you to execute tasks such as wall climbing or running along walls. The reason these sections are flawed is that the controls specific for the section aren’t the best. You will only be able to run along a wall if you have angled yourself exactly as you need. Since the game requires no buttons to be pressed or held to initiate wall runs, you can only jump (A button) towards the wall and hope you got it right. This also becomes evident when you need to wall jump between two walls several times. This requires you to run up the first wall and then jump to the one opposite and continue this till you reach the top. Around 25% of the attempts of these will end with Afro not grabbing the edge or wall section and falling back to the bottom. There were several moments that I was cruising up a wall until my character, for no reason, back flipped back to the ground instead of launching himself to the opposing wall.
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The game also doesn’t allow you the ability to run up/along any wall in any other parts of the game. You can only pull off these gravity defying stunts at the appropriate, preset points. This harms the game, since it shows how restricted some of the controls and gameplay elements are. This also shows how insignificant the platforming is to the overall game. You do end up doing it a lot, but specific "wall-runable walls" take away from the charm of the game. This also makes the game feel choppy, as it doesn’t all flow together. You are either doing crazy wall runs or you are in a fight. It would have been much nicer to be able to pull off some wall jumps and insane stunts during the combat.
To add to the annoyance, the camera in Afro Samurai doesn’t fit well at all. It inverts the X axis without giving the player an option to adjust any of the controls for it. This issue arises most often during combat. It can be quite irritating to not be able to see the enemies behind you and thus, leads to more damage being done to your character. It also has a tendency to get stuck on small objects or pass behind trees and, once again, this can lead to a quick death. Finally, as the platforming sections are hard enough as it is, not being able to adjust the camera the way you like it ends up costing you more time or causing you to jump off a cliff that you couldn’t see.
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The most appealing aspect of Afro Samurai is its graphical style and original soundtrack. The artwork is very different from most other games on the market and especially in this genre of games. When the camera zooms in on the characters or scenery you can see that shadows have been cross hatched to add depth. For example, a close up on Afro’s face will reveal little diagonal lines running across all his skin. The beauty of this graphic style is a good fit for a game paralleling its anime version. It just feels right. Partnered with the soundtrack, the game is both good looking and great sounding. All music was composed specifically for the game and fits perfectly. This puts it apart from most actions games since you will be hearing a fantastic hip-hop song playing with lyrics based on the Afro Samurai story instead of fast-paced techno or rock music.
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Afro Samurai does a great job of making you feel incredibly powerful during its combat. Being able to slice any enemy’s body part off in one quick (or slow motion) attack feels great. And seeing your enemies explode into pools of blood just adds to this. Partnered with a beautiful art style and awesome music leads to a great game. You won’t be too frustrated with certain platforming sections for too long, and after you've gotten used to the dreadful camera, most of the issues aren't so important. These issues don’t take away from the game’s charm, as most of the game is brutal hack and slash fighting, and that's an aspect that Afro Samurai pulls off quite nicely.
Rating: 7 /10
