Genji: Dawn of the Samurai

The Good
Ooooh, an RPG. I was expecting more. Much, much more. But apparently on every RPG on the console turns out to be Final Fantasy. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

In General
The good? Hmm. Graphics good. Very good in fact, but I guess that's common practice in PS 2. Though I wish there were more "eye-candy cut scenes".

The game mechanics were "mostly" very good. It has to be since its a semi hack-and-slash kinda game. The controlling of the character was very good and easy to learn: you move when you want to move, you attack when you want to attack, since timed attacking in this game is very essential.

More Specifically
What makes this game a little unique is the "powers" available in the game. This refers to "stones" called the Amahagane. These magical stones, when used as an ability mimics similar to the time sequencing-slow motion matrix-like moves in Max Payne. Unfortunately for Genji, Max Payne has more style. In slow-motion, you have to press the attack buttons in the right time for the power attack to be successful. It does a lot of damage, very useful against multiple enemies and of course, enemy bosses.

The difference is, the more powerful your Amahagane, you can actually use it more than one time in one period of time sequencing. This means the enemy becomes even more slower, giving you easier chances to hit the right button. This is because that for some bosses, using the ability once doesn't make really help since the enemy moves really damn fast.

The Bad
Ironically, I didn't figure out that you could use the Amahagane more than once...and I already almost finished the dang game. Apparently they missed that little bit of information in the tutorial...yes, not everyone presses the button more than they have to, unless mentioned otherwise.

For an RPG it isn't much of an RPG in the area of selection and choices part. The only reason why this is an RPG is that you can level up your character to your liking: Faster or Stronger. There are also several items you can buy to for your character. The thing is, the choices are limited. You eventually discover that leveling up to your liking doesn't really matter, since the Geek (Genji) will always be faster and the Hulk (the Monk) will always be stronger. The game doesn't provide the "minimal assumptions" of what an RPG should be in the traditional sense: more monster, more items, more character classification, etc.

The Worst
But the major downside of the game is that its too darn freakin’ short. You could finish this game during the weekend. Its that short. I've played platform games that lasted longer than this game.

Spoiler Alert
Even more irritating is that the only reason I finished the game and restarted was because there were mentions of secret places that could only be accessed after you finish the game. So after going in the second time around, I unfortunately discovered that these secret places were not extended stories of game play. The were in fact JUST a room where you kill enemies. That it. Bah. This is game is what I call 'the developer being lazy'. Yes, really lazy.

...and I minor not so important feature. I have a problem with heroes that look like geeks. This Genji apparently isn't old enough to notice girls. He looks, let me say...inexperienced? I prefer playing the 'make-may day kinda hero' not the one that looks like 'mom can I borrow some money' kinda loser.

The Bottom Line
Well its worth the play for funs sake, but seriously not worth the buy.