There are dozens of games that utilize blood as one of their major components of the gameplay. Mortal Kombat made waves back in the ‘90’s for gory fatality. Ninja Gaiden brought decapitations to the forefront. Even Microsoft’s own Gears of War sprays blood all over the screen when you chainsaw your way through an enemy. So much blood, so much violence – and it’s about to get much more brutal with the release of Afro Samurai. Afro Samurai is being published by Surge, Namco Bandai’s new U.S. based publishing label. Based around the anime license, Afro Samurai takes credence in the hack-n-slash genre with over-the-top deaths and nonstop action. Add in the fact that Samuel L. Jackson provides voice-acting, you have a formula for a video game that is aimed for an adult crowd. There’s nudity, cursing, bodies being split into two, and of course, excessive blood squirting from wounds. What else could you ask for if you’re a college kid looking for something downright nasty in terms of violence?
Falling by the wayside, Afro Samurai shares similarities to other hack-n-slash titles with repetitious gameplay and monotonous attacks. You’ll be mixing it up with your enemies via hitting your four face buttons to change up your attacks along. If you choose to jump before you start executing your attacks or stay on the ground to assault your enemies, the combos throughout the course of the game become rather boring after the first few levels when you’ve practically seen everything the game has to offer. Hunting down Justice, the man who killed Afro’s father, you’ll be slaughtering thousands upon thousands of enemies. While bringing death to your enemies is of course fun, Afro presents very little variety in enemy types. It’s only a matter of time before you ask yourself why you’re continuing to play through Afro Samurai outside of getting your revenge against Justice and seeing more blood thrust upon the environments as if you were Pablo Picasso painting his next masterpiece.
While on your journey, Ninja Ninja (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) provides commentary to move the story along. He’ll bicker back and forth with himself as he cusses up a storm in regards to your fighting abilities and the storyline itself. If you ever get lost, you can call upon him through pressing down on the D-pad to give you directions on where to go within the level. He’ll pop up via smoke screen and tell you to follow him after saying something witty. It’s useful at times, but it’s not anything too special as Afro Samurai doesn’t focus heavily on the adventure/platforming side of the genre. Another huge attribute for Afro is the removal of a HUD and focus on watching the action rather than your own health bar. Having no health bar or combo meter to pay attention to, gamers will have to listen and feel Afro’s heartbeat as he jumps into combat. The faster his heart beats – and the more blood on the screen (also noted for the enemy’s health too) – the more likely he’ll fall in battle. It’s a daunting task and the developers pulled off this approach of not focusing on health bars and timers of any kind.
The last bit of the gameplay that needs discussing is the usual “bullet time”/slowing down of the action that’s included with any typical action game nowadays. Afro has the ability to use his focus powers to slow down time to assassinate his enemies with his deadly sword before they ever see it coming. By hitting the Right Bumper, gamers can access this or if you build up your focus enough, you can enter an ‘Overfocus’ that allows Afro to kill all his enemies with one hit. Either way you spin it, it’s not exactly unique or original, but it fills a void to a point that it removes repetition early on in the game. Sooner or later though, you might run into that invisible wall that is called monotony and become bored with hacking and slashing the same enemies.
As for the looks, Afro Samurai has a distinct look that should catch your eye right off the bat. If it isn’t for the gallons of blood being splattered across the environments, then there are body limbs falling to the ground and graceful animations to take notice of. It doesn’t look like any other action game of its kind – thus, Afro Samurai is visually appealing on almost all levels of its aesthetics (not considering the frame rates dropping when there were too many enemies on the screen).
While I would recommend this title to fans of the series, it has to be known that they have to enter this game with caution. Having to hit your enemies four to six times with a sword to kill them is kind of ridiculous when you look back and think about how macho Afro is. He’d normally mop the floor with nameless samurais in seconds rather than the ten to fifteen minute battles some of the fights end up being in the game. For gamers who’ve never heard of the series and love hack and slash games, this is right up your alley. It’s gruesome, it’s vibrant with style and has Samuel L. Jackson providing VO’s; it’s a formula for success. But, as always with hack-n-slash titles, the replay value is limited and the action becomes droning within a few hours.
