PlayStation 2

Seven Samurai 20XX

If the name Seven Samurai doesn’t ring a bell, you have probably missed out on one of the better action flicks around. Okay, I admit that I’m one of the people who have not seen the movie, but I hear a lot of good things about it. The Seven Samurai story is set in the 16th century where a village is under attack; the farmers ask an unnamed wandering Samurai to protect them, only offering food as a reward. Knowing that it was an impossible task to perform by himself, he went to search for more help finding himself “Seven Samurai.” So what is Seven Samurai 20xx?

Yet another movie to game translation has arrived on the PS2 except this time it is based off a movie made nearly fifty years ago entitled Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai 20XX is made by the talented developers at Sammy Studios, but how does this latest movie to game translation turn out? Read on to find out!

Once upon a time there was an amazing Japanese director who went by the name of Akira Kurosawa. He made some amazing movies that still hold up today, one of which was Seven Samurai. Over in America, this was remade a few years later by John Sturges into The Magnificent Seven. Now, fifty years after the original movie came out, we have Seven Samurai 20XX for the PlayStation 2. Much has changed since then and now the tale has been reworked into a hack-n-slash game set in a sci-fi future. While the story remains more or less intact, the action has not held up its own end of the bargain.

Though filmmaker Akira Kurosawa made many films that can be considered masterpieces, the one he's best known for is Seven Samurai, which is an amazingly crafted motion picture that has directly inspired films like The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, and countless other "men on a mission" films. Now, thanks to game publisher Sammy, development house Dimps, and Akira Kurosawa's son, the 1954 samurai epic has stepped into the realm of video games with Seven Samurai 20XX. Tapping a three-hour black-and-white Japanese-language film as the basis for a video game is already pretty strange, and it's a fact that's only intensified by the game's peculiar sci-fi setting. Ironically, though, the end result of this unlikely effort is just a straightforward, unevenly paced hack-and-slash action game.

Despite its consequential failings, "Seven Samurai 20XX" is worth a peek if you're an enthusiast who suffers from the odd homicidal impulse. As a means of killing 20 minutes here and there, the game has merit. We can't condone fiddling with it for any longer in a single sitting, though. Prolonged exposure provides ready explanation as to why the practice of seppuku was first invented.

Even worse, I suspect that the only audience that might have truly embraced 20XX's middling action - hardcore devotees of Kurosawa's films - will not only be put off by the juvenile voice-acting and poor dialogue, but will likely be offended at this affront to his legacy.

Akira Kurosawa?s Seven Samurai is an epic tale of humanity and morality told in stunning cinematic prose. Sammy?s Seven Samurai 20XX is a poor adventure of misfortune and boredom told in uneventful gameplay. This game is in no way paying homage to a classic film.

So, Seven Samurai 20XX strolls happily down the path of mediocrity, and whilst by any means not a terrible game, it certainly isn't a good game. The repetitive slashing action adds nothing to the genre, nor does it have the strong narrative of the source material, with the only variety coming from pressing guard or block instead of attack. Seven Samurai 20XX is easy to pick-up and play, and will provide some modicum of entertainment for the brief period it lasts, but those looking for some depth and a more immersive experience should look elsewhere.

Despite its high production values, Seven Samurai is an absolutely putrid game. The combat is so one-dimensional and yawn-inducing that I have enemies I wouldn't recommend this game to. It's so bad, in fact, that I would warn fans of Kurosawa's classic tale to not ruin their love of the movie by playing this pathetic button masher.

What better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the finest movies ever made than with the release of a namesake video game, right? Ummm ... no. Sammy's Seven Samurai 20XX takes the original premise of Kurosawa's classic film, tosses in some Final Fantasy-esque grandiosity, and serves it all up as a traditional hack-'n-slasher. The result is one of the least fun games in recent memory. In true samurai fashion, whoever was responsible for this hitting the shelves should ceremoniously fall on their own swords.

Back in the 1950’s, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa put together the simple story of a ragtag samurai band coming together to defend a small village from bandit attack. Little did anyone know that this film would go on to become the most beloved samurai film of all time, a harrowing tale of courage featuring fantastic performances from an amazing cast and the standard by which nearly every action epic that followed would be judged. It’s no wonder that Seven Samurai still continues to captivate audiences five decades after its release.