Genji: Days of the Blade
So pretty, so pointless.
Published: November 28, 2006
The difficulty is also rather steep, exacerbating the problem, and there some particular moments -- even less than an hour in -- where the game simply doesn't tell you what you need to do, leading to tons of needless backtracking and getting stuck. The difficulty, uneven level design and camera issues are all compounded by the fact that if one of your characters dies, it's game over for good, busting you back to the last save point rather than a checkpoint, which can completely derail any momentum you had heading into the game's storyline.
It's a shame, really, considering that the game is otherwise quite a solid offering. No, it's nothing revolutionary -- you're still hacking and slashing your way through endless hordes, you're still kicking on the same Kamui mode that forces all enemies around you to wait until you can attack them one at a time (though this has graduated from the one button system and turned into a branching set of combos that use the full quadruplet of face buttons in a great way) -- but at least what's there is as good as that last game, and that was a blast.
And it's pretty. Oh lawd is it pretty. I mentioned it before, but the game really does tread that line between CG and real-time visuals. The characters, including enemies, are insanely detailed; cloth physics, multiple layers of armor and rope holding it all together, great water and heat effects, flowing hair, motion blur during fast moves, smooth animation... all of this is there, and it's all pulled off with stunning lighting effects, wonderfully detailed textures and plenty of little touches. It's not all universally gorgeous; you'll find some levels were never really touched up enough to give them that extra oomph, but by and large this is easily one of the most impressive visual treats on the PS3.
The same goes for the audio -- to an extend. The voice acting in place has a bizarre mixture of thickly accented Japanese and (oddly) British accents. It's not horrible stuff, and you can hear proper pronunciation of Japanese names, but it's fairly uneven. Of course, you can always flick on the Japanese voices and English subs, so it's not a huge deal, but it's still a little jarring at first. The music, however, rich with koto strums, taiko beats and extensive nohkan flurries, is universally awesome. It's repeated a bit too much, but the music is wonderful.
How a game that looks so good, sounds so good and plays as simply yet solidly as it does could have completely missed the mark on one of the most important parts of the presentation blows my mind. I've no doubt that the visuals work like they do because the camera is fixed, but I would have gladly given up some of the visuals to have some moderate control of the camera. Nothing is so frustrating as being attacked by something you can't see, and developer Game Republic literally broke their own game by choosing to present it in the way they did.
The silver lining to all this is that Game Republic belongs to Sony's umbrella of worldwide studios, meaning all the insight they built up into flexing the PS3's hardware muscle will (hopefully) be passed on to other developers. If we can see more first-party games that look and move this beautifully, it won't be long before we start seeing the "PS3 difference." Until that happens, though, we're left with a game that is little more than an illusion; it looks pretty, but you can't peek at what's beyond the view you're given, and that view will happily allow someone to stick a katana in your eyeball.
