Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
Afro Samurai follow the tale of the Afro Samurai as he exacts revenge for the death of his father. To do that, he must find and challenge the number two headband wearer and then get to the number one headband wearer who happens to be the person that killed his father. With illustrative graphics, the game looks a lot like the manga/anime that the original story of Afro Samurai. Taking a few liberties on the source material, this game puts you in the wooden sandals of a deadly warrior.
What’s Hot
The graphics are visually arresting. The cel-shaded look isn’t just done to be different; it goes beyond that and really sets the bar high for graphics. The developers made Afro more illustrative by adding some style to make the game look like a moving manga. Afro Samurai is a brutal game that features limbs, torsos and heads getting lopped off and is shocking to see in the context of the visual style. At times the game looks different than most because it goes for more of the manga look, there will be lines that signify shading, which is unorthodox for a video game but effective.
Continuing with the manga theme, there are some other bold visual choices made to extend the feel that you are playing through a story in a book. You’ll see the screen gets split as you see the action taking place in other locations in the level you are playing. There isn’t a HUD to speak of to tell you your life or your focus attack power. You must take visual cues from Afro to know what is going on. Afro Samurai takes the manga concept very far and succeeds at creating that atmosphere.
Complimenting the visuals are some slamming tunes. The RZA of Wu-Tang Clan fame laid the sound track for most of the game. It is pretty easy to tell what beats are created or “inspired” by the RZA. The inspired tracks are easy to tell from the “real” tracks. The RZA tracks are really amazing while the inspired tracks are good. Voice acting is top-notch with some celebrity voices speaking convincingly. Samuel L. Jackson takes the role of Afro Samurai/Ninja Ninja, which adds a lot of colorful language to the game.
What’s Not
With all the focus and attention put on the visuals and sound, you’d think that the same care would be paid to the gameplay. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case whatsoever. Gameplay design must have taken the back seat while all the visual artistry was done because after the 20 minutes, you’ll know exactly how the game plays. There was an attempt to spice up the gameplay action with focus attacks but they ultimately fizzle. The problem stems from you hammer away at buttons until you build combos for a focus attack and repeat the process until you get another one. It’s one thing to have a rhythmic pacing to the game but this is ridiculously boring.
At times the game will bust into platforming sections. These sections are worse than the combat for a number of reasons. In one instance, you lose control over the camera (not that the camera is all that good in the first place) and are forced to make some blind jumps. The biggest of those reasons is that Afro Samurai isn’t set up to be a platforming game and when prompted, it feels way too forced. It is like the developer is admitting to the gameplay being repetitive with all the sword slashing and put a dirty band-aid over the open wound.
There are points in Afro Samurai that you’ll try hard to like the gameplay offerings. Everything except the visuals feel forced on to you. Combat-wise, there are button combos you perform with hilarious names, but the entire system boils down to mashing buttons. Animations that correspond to the moves aren’t as elegant or as graceful as a samurai should be — even random warriors look clunky — but part of it could be the inconsistent framerate. The splitscreen comic-like panels are supposed to show you impending doom when in reality they usually show slowly moving enemies you must slog through until the next section of the level.
Final Word
For a game that has all the presentation nailed down to near perfection, the gameplay was poorly handled. The focus must have been so intense on the visuals that it swallowed up all the development time. For a visual showpiece, Afro Samurai is outstanding but for everything else, you can safely pass.
