Acquire's samurai simulating game "Way of the Samurai 3" is an action RPG set in the Sengoku era of Fuedal Japan (around 1560). The story takes place in the fictional lands of Amana which is ruled with an iron fist by Fujimori Shuzen. Within these lands there are three factions, the Fujimori Clan (the current ruling entity), the Ouka Clan which contain the remains of the once great Sakurai clan who where the former rulers of Amana and a bunch of misfits and outcasts who crave power. The third and final faction are the Takatane villagers, a simple people who wish only for peace and harmony and for the rather excessive taxes to be loosened.




Within the game you play the part of a nameless Ronin, the lone survivor of a rather violent and one sided battle, the scenes of which you are treated to as you start the game. You are found beaten and bloodied wandering the battlefield by a couple of peasant who were busy looting whatever had been left behind by the warring factions, and duly taken away to recover in a near by village. As you awake your journey in Way of the Samurai 3 begins.





The idea is quite simple, you are completely free to do whatever you want, be that talking to people and run small tasks for them, joining one of the warring factions and ultimately help them become victorious, or if such takes your fancy you can play both sides against each other and attempt to take down everyone in the land. You have absolutely no strings attached, there are no continuous prompts directing you to go somewhere to continue the story, in fact in the beginning you are more likely to accidentally stumble across a key storyline moment than you are to deliberately seek it out. There are a few interesting touches to the game which continue the whole free form nature, for example at any point during just about any conversation including cut scene conversations you are free to attack them on a whim. Another interesting feature is that once someone within the game is dead they stay dead, certain characters will be replaced by a clone that does the same job however but these instances are the exception rather than the norm. For example should you decide to remove the leader of the Ouka clan with prejudice, you can do so and he will be gone forever more, this action can even result in you becoming the new Ouka clan leader, not that it reaped much in the way of benefits unfortunately. Oh and for those that have the inclination to do so, the above rules do not apply to the child characters in the game, whilst you can attack them you are never able to actually kill one. It seems they hard coded one level of morality into the game after all.

There is no notion of levelling up, rather everything revolves around your weapons rather than your character. The more you use a weapon the more proficient you become with it and you unlocking new moves/ techniques. There are over a hundred different weapons for you to collect or construct through parts you can find of defeated enemies.


As nice as these features are the game suffers from a few drawbacks, the biggest of which being that the game only comprises of eight different areas and these aren't exactly sprawling landscapes and bustling cities, in fact they are all rather small, you could explore all of the areas the game has to offer in under an hour. So you are given free reign to explore as you wish but ultimately you don't really have anywhere to go. Another issue is the strict adherance to certain laws and codes doesn't leave an awful lot of wiggle room. Merely walking around with your weapon unsheathed will at best make people fear you as some form of tyrant and at worst have the local militia calling for your blood. Another example is in one of the first missions you will stumble across, you will find a young woman who is being harrassed by a couple of unsavoury types and calling for help. This encounter ultimately, for me at least, always ends in combat and should you accidentally graze the young maiden with your blade during the heat of battle a rather distinct indicator flashes up in the top left corner of your screen screaming "HI DO" at you, basically meaning you have just performed a villianous act, for which people will hate you, guard will want to kill you and it will effect your "samurai points" which will then in ture effect the way the game will end.

This leads me into the problems with the combat mechanics which are a little clunky to say the least. The combat is basically holding the block button and waiting for your opponent to stop hitting you, kicking them in the shins to open them up to attack and then beating them. Whilst this is a highly amusing exploit it does rob the combat system of any real skill.


Another annoyance is that you can only ever have one mission/ task active at any one time, so there is none of the usual gathering up a bunch of quests which require you visiting a particular area and saving yourself some time by doing them all in the same visit or even so you can just casually make your way through the list at your leisure. Not that this ever presents that much of a problem as the number of tasks you can do is rather limited, and instead of adding new tasks for you to complete in an area they have opted to just recycle everything. There is only so many times you can go and gather up the villagers mischievous kids before it becomes repetitive.



HOW DOES IT LOOK? Way of the Samurai 3, has a really bad way of updating their graphics engine. It looks like a PS2 Game and nothing looks really polished at all. Sometimes frame rate drops, and at others things blend into each other. Sometimes it makes you wonder if they even took the time to polish it up.

HOW DOES IT SOUND? Music is very limited, at the beginning they will play the very infamous Way of the Samurai theme song which is a good deal but in-game it only plays a couple of songs "on loop" and by that I mean it repeats the same thing over and over and over and over again. The voice acting however, is sub-par. I suggest listening to the Japanese version with subtitles rather than the English one. It will save you the heartache.

HOW DOES IT PLAY? Way of the Samurai fans will actually rejoice at the new fighting engine, as well as the new character modifications. Save system is much better, as well as the new fighting techniques.

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? With 20+ endings, the game lasts a long time. Although, with limited map locations as well as choices it usually takes at least an hour or two to get a new ending. Sometimes with the same choices you make it will lead you the another ending so it takes a while to get used to the mechanics.

HOW IS IT PRESENTED? Way of the Samurai 3 is a fantastic idea that was unfortunately let down a little in its eventual execution with its biggest selling point being its biggest flaw. The freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want with no strings is a fantastic notion but unfortunately with absolutely nothing to direct you through the games actual storyline it can leave you feeling a little lost and ultimately unsatisfied. When you do find your way through the story you will realise that the game in itself is very short, the developers relying on you replaying the game to see the twenty one different endings even rewarding you with a 150 point achievement for the trouble, but it is doubtful whether anyone will want to go to that much effort. The achievements continue along this trend meaning you only gain high scores after muliple play throughs. It is a shame really as there is some genuine fun to be found in the game, albeit limited. Ultimately you can't help but feel that this game could and should have been so much more than it was.