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Fun Storyline, Audio Based Combat

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: July 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Samurai Champloo was first a manga and anime - and now Samurai Champloo Sidetracked fills in a missing piece of the storyline. It's an interactive, humorous adventure game.

You're up in the cold, northern world of Ezo back in the days of feudal Japan. Jin is the quiet, focussed one, while Mugen is the wild, reckless half. Both are fighters of high renown. With them is Fuu whose talent appears to be getting kidnapped to move the plotline along. Their comments are sometimes mature but usually quite funny.

The graphics are generally quite good - a mix of a feudal look, cel shaded smoothness but still with a bit of blockiness. They aren't as good as I've seen on a few other titles, but you into the feel of the atmosphere pretty quickly.

That's because this isn't a role playing game - it's a fighting game - and while you do have to do some wandering-and-finding, much of the game is about pulling out your sword and slicing people in half. This is where the game gets funky. You can choose different soundtracks for your characters. If you play a slow song, your character goes through gentle, solid moves, with blocks and sweeping blows. If you play a fast song, your character reacts - the combinations you get are far more furious and sharp. You can build your song collection as you go - meaning that as you face different enemies, you swap between songs to get the best attacks going to take advantage of your enemy's weaknesses.

Of course what actually happens is that you like some music and hate others, so you end up playing the music you enjoy the sound of - and then you get really good at those combos so they end up being your best moves. Which is of course a fascinating way to formulate a fighting game :)

I did find the loading screens to get a bit annoying. I also found the mini-games could have been REALLY cool if someone put a bit of work into them. For example the beetle contest - why not show us the 3 beetles? Give them names when we choose them? Let us see them in action? It wouldn't have taken much work to make it into a really funny game. I realize this is tongue in cheek, but it really could've been a fun mini-game with a small amount of work. Finally, it seems like there's a lot of running around.

Still, the humor and innovative fighting more than make up for any small problems with gameplay - and the story is quite an interesting one!

Game review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It's really fun, especially if you're a fan of the show, the story line is a little slow but good none the less, any fan of the show will enjoy it.

From a graphics point of view...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have seen some very strange graphics glitches over my many years of game play and graphics design. I don't think I've ever seen hips ROLL so much before in my life. I swear it looks like the characters are trying to carry fish bowls between their calves or something. It's strange to look at and even funnier when you see Jin walking that way. I don't really care for this game, though I love Samurai Champloo. Being one of those people who doesn't trade or sell their games, I'll inevitably play it later on. The music is good, the story good, the load times really stink, and there are many of them, and the characters walk like pregnant hippos. It's worth the rental first to see how you like it, but buying, well...

disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Great series... very poor game.

Does not live up to the standard set by the tv series. Poor graphics, poor animation, disjointed storyline, poor gameplay (99% button tapping), and huuuuge load times between every bad animated filler. The game was obviously rushed to completion to capitalize on the popularity of the tv series.

Looking for a great ps2 game? Try Ghost In The Shell.

be a fan boy, or suffer

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

i'll be brief.
pros-
great music
decent story
it's more samurai champloo stories
cons-
play control a bit twitchy
long long long load times and lots of them
very few save opportunities so it's a time killing game.

if you have the time to invest and love the show, it's really a must have. this is not a game for the weak of will. it takes a while to get the play controls down and when you have to replay the levels over and over after dying, it will devour your free time.

Samurai Champloo Sidetracked

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game is a lot of fun very easy to play, and it is like being a part of the actual tv series. There are some crazy fighting scenes and the music is as great as always =)

Not Bad At All Actually

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Bought this game becuase I love Samurai Champloo, but I was fully expecting this game to suck. Oddly enough it didn't. If you are a hardcore gamer, then this is probably not going to do it for you (although it might), but if you love Samurai Champloo then I would recommend picking this up.

It's a side version of the original story, and sort of plays along like a more involved episode. Gameplay's not half bad, and there are some unique aspects of the game that are very "champloo"; like combo's that are linked/changed through switching a cross fader on two turntables. You get to play as Mugen or Jin and basically hack and slash your way trough hordes of evil ninja (who are, of course, wearing hoodies). There are some really unqiue aspects to the game and intersting little things that they threw in here to make up for the fact that this probably didn't have the same production budget as a Final Fantasy game.

The only bad thing is that the story is told through 3D CGI cut scenes (instead of the regular series animation). Turns out that the characters don't translate well into 3D....but whatever. If you are fan of the overall Samurai Champloo look and feel that the orignal series had the good news is that they put that in so it sort of balances out. This is probably the only game that I actually look forward to the "Now Loading" screens. At then end of the day it's just like playing an episode of the series on your PS2....which is EXACLTY why I bought the game.

Honestly, it's a good, solid game that's just plain fun to play. Lotsa hack, lotsa slash, lotsa samurai action, and lotsa beats. If you love Samurai's and hip hop as much as I do then buy this sucka.

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