Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for the Playstation 2 Review




Now there are a lot of unknown Playstation 2 games around and not a lot get their just desserts. I just recently found out about this game, which is called Genji: Dawn of the Samurai and I thought it looked fun so I decided to give it a try. I put it in my game Q from Gamefly and then got it two days later. You never know what you might find in one game. After playing it for a couple days I now have an opinion on this game.

Now then the whole story revolves around a young two sword-wielding samurai named Yoshitune Minamoto who wields a magical item called Amahagane and must travel the land to stop an evil clan of destroying Japan. Basically its based off of an ancient Samurai tale which has been told many a time in Japan. Its kind of confusing so I will let you guys find out about it and see for yourselves.

Now on your journey through this dangerous time many characters including an old priest, her daughter and granddaughter accompany you, and a might monk named Benkei also joins the cause. Now the reason I told you the monk’s name is because you can also play as him. The game style is in the form of an action adventure-hack hand slash beat em up. You go around the vast land beating up the enemy soldiers and buying items and gaining weapons on your way through the land. Now the whole game kinds of plays through like a very intense Japanese action movie. I wouldn’t say it is as great as House of Flying daggers or 7 Samurai, but its still pretty interesting. Now like I said before the game style is in the form of a hack and slash beat em up since you run through certain areas and stop to beat down some enemies then move onto the next part kind of like Knights of the Round or Golden Axe. Now the final thing to talk about in this section is the magical item you wield with both characters. You can sue this item to slow down time and to counter attack an upcoming enemy attack.

The music is pretty great actually and fits the whole entire game. The graphics are well if you have played games like Dynasty Warriors you would understand they can be detailed but there not like Devil May Cry 3 or God of War 2 graphics. Another upbeat thing about this game is that its in Japanese and not with English subtitles which is pretty nice since sometimes the voice acting is pretty bad in these kinds of games.


I can tell I haven’t talked about something yet that I know I should, the playable characters. Yes you can only choose two characters but there all the force you will need. Yoshitusne is the fast attack character which makes this game pretty fun since its actually bloody, and Benkei is the strong two hits K.O. character that’s needed in these kind of games.


Even though this game is pretty good there are some major flaws in the game, which didn’t age well. The first thing ill talk about is the difficulty. Sometimes during the game the enemies can be as dumb as mud and just stand their while you chop them down one by one. When you need to equip items specifically for a certain part of the game like fighting a boss who can sue lightning attacks and etc, if you already equipped it to one character you can’t unequipped it unless you have another item that can replace the one that’s already equipped. Even though you got two players you choose from there is no two player, which is silly since it is calling for a two-player co-op mode. Since were talking about characters. The sad thing is that you will be favoring one character from another, which is more of a reason there needs to be a co-op mode.


My final conclusion is that it’s a good game I mean if you like Dynasty Warriors or Devil may Cry. This is just another overlooked title that you might just pass by on the shelves of your video game store. If you have Gamefly or something I would put ti on your list and try it out.

This game gets a 7.8 out of 10.

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