The Spirit of the Samurai – Review

Ninja Kittens, Zombie Samurai and Stop-Motion Animation

The folks at Kwalee keep throwing me bones with interesting titles they’re releasing. So I’m going to return the favour and chop their game up into tiny little pieces, haha. I already told you how Voidwrought piqued my interest in the games they publish for PC. Well, The Spirit of the Samurai was the next title to catch my eye. I’m a sucker for samurai and katanas, okay? Don’t judge me.

Joking aside, the term “stop-motion animation” particularly caught my attention. I’ve already seen a few short films and series that use this technique, and I was impressed by how they can tell stories frame by frame, using puppets, models and other similar elements. The people at Digital Mind aren’t exactly rookies either. They have around 23 years of 3D animation expertise behind them.

The question is whether they could use all that experience to deliver a game. Or perhaps they need a little more time to perfect their formula? Those are the questions, and yours truly has the answers. Let’s get to it!

I’ll use the abbreviation SOTS instead of the game’s full name.

Classic Story. Clever Execution

Our story is narrated by the fox spirit Kitsune, who isn’t just talking to himself. He meets a young man and his cat at a shrine, and then begins to recount the tale of his dear friend. The tale of Takeshi.

Takeshi leads a fairly peaceful life for a samurai. He has a beautiful wife, Anako, and a child, joined by Chisai, the ninja cat. Yet something sets him apart from other people: he can communicate with the spirit world. That’s how he comes to meet Kitsune and learn about the world beyond the one we know. At the same time, he discovers that a great danger looms over the village he protects.

There’s an introductory section where we meet Takeshi’s neighbours and loved ones. We talk to our mentor and train with a fellow samurai. But a series of unfortunate events makes our protagonist pass out. When he wakes up, everything has already burned to the ground. He manages to protect his family, and then sets off on a journey to defeat Shuten-Dōji, a demon who escaped after hundreds of years of imprisonment.

SOTS has a relatively short story, and it doesn’t need more to get its message across. It has a clear introduction and premise, the events that follow build nicely on them, and the conclusion gives it a satisfying ending without leaving anything dangling.

Takeshi is not a man with a limited vocabulary, but words aren’t the only way he expresses his thoughts and feelings. The animators have laboured over every detail of body language and paralinguistic cues. From the slight frown you see on his brow, to the way he grips his katana a little more aggressively, to how his face lights up when he talks to Chisai. I fell in love with all these meticulous details that shape his character.

The game’s brevity leaves little room for many other characters. But the ones we do meet will leave a real mark on you. Whether we’re talking about more important figures like Kitsune or Shuten-Dōji, or about the monsters, witches and other creatures we meet in passing, each has something memorable: their beliefs, their hardships or even their looks.

You won’t be sent on pointless errands. The quests you receive help you progress along the main route. There’s only one slip-up where quests are concerned: the items you need to collect for some of them don’t appear until you’ve spoken to the character, even if you visit the location first. It’s no big deal, but it doesn’t make much sense either.

You’ll also get to play as Chisai or a Kodama. I can’t tell you how or why, but I can tell you I like the multiple perspectives the story is told from.

The narrative doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. It’s the typical tale of honour, duty and sacrifice, with a samurai theme sprinkled on top. And you know what? I’m not going to complain. Why? Because the real beauty lies in the execution.

A Samurai, a Cat and a Kodama Walk into a Bar…

You’ll play as three distinct characters. You’ve already worked out who the first one is: Takeshi. He’s armed with a katana, a bow and various other tools. The sword is what you’ll use most, and it lets you customise your fighting style. Besides attacking, you can block, or parry if you block at exactly the moment of impact. But the parrying leaves a lot to be desired. For example, if you see an opponent winding up to attack and you try to parry, the chances are you’ll get hit. I preferred to lean on dodges for most of my playthrough. You simply have more control over them, whereas a parry is something you either hit or miss.

You’ll mostly use the forward attack, but it isn’t the only one available. You can also strike upwards, and attack from a low stance, while blocking or while jumping. I didn’t bother much with these. There’s only one enemy you can hit from above, because it crawls along the ceiling, and you can hit it just as well normally. I didn’t bother with attacks from a blocking stance, since I mostly dodged. There wasn’t enough room for jump attacks, because enemies rush you extremely fast once they spot you. And low-stance attacks never got a look-in, because there’s no benefit to kneeling mid-fight.

I found it handy that you can control your attacks and the direction you strike in with the controller’s right stick. It comes in useful when you roll behind an enemy and want to hit them straight away. I wish this had been part of the tutorial; I found it by accident.

As you level up, you’ll unlock slots for two more moves for each attack type. These let you execute a three-move combo. But not all moves are alike. Each has a speed rating, from Fast to Medium to Slow. The faster the attacks, the more chances you have to block or dodge between them. The slower they are, the more damage they deal. I decided to go with a balanced combo built on Medium-speed moves. But if that doesn’t work for you, there are other options to choose from.

Whatever you pick, I guarantee the moves will feel powerful and look great, especially as you get haptic feedback for every hit. Combat is visceral and fluid.

One thing that bugs me when we unlock new moves is that we only see their names and the requirements to use them. We don’t see important details like damage, number of hits or speed. You should be able to make an informed decision that suits your style.

When you reach a new level, you’re fully healed and receive three ability points. These let you unlock new moves if you invest in attributes like Strength or Dexterity. Some moves need Strength, some Dexterity, and some both. On top of those, you can invest in Resistance or Bow Damage. The last two are self-explanatory, but we’re never told what the first two actually do. Are they only there to unlock new moves? Or do they influence more than that?

Resistance is a mix of the health and stamina bars. You spend Resistance when you strike, dodge or block, but it also drains when you get hit. If it hits zero, it resets and you lose one of your three lives. Lose all three and you're sent back to the last save point.

Your bow comes in handy when you run into enemies who can hit you from range, or when you want to pick them off before they spot you. And just to keep things fun, your arrow and the enemy's arrow cancel each other out if they collide. Just make sure you've got enough arrows, though. They come in limited numbers and have to be bought. Speaking of shopping, you can also pick up kunai and lockpicks, plus potions for health, extra damage or faster stamina recovery. I never felt the need to use any of them apart from the health potions. As for the lockpicks, the game doesn't really encourage them. There's a section dedicated to lockpicking, but by then you'll have found plenty just by exploring.

You won't meet many enemy types, because the game is short. Zombie samurai will give you the most trouble, while demonic creatures turn up here and there. There are five enemy types in total. The small number didn't bother me, thanks to how fast the action moves.

The boss fights, on the other hand, were a terrible letdown. Why? Because absolutely every single one can be killed by hitting them and rolling, over and over. They simply get stuck. The only thing you have to nail is the dodge on their first attack. After that you can start massacring them as if you were the boss and not them.

It's a shame they pose no challenge whatsoever and go down so easily. Not to mention they only have three combos at most, all easy to avoid. Even the regular enemies gave me more trouble.

The problem with the regular fights, though, is the repetition of the same patterns. Either opponents spawn behind me, or a few are hiding behind the one in front. Sure, I still enjoyed turning them into Swiss cheese, but I started mashing buttons on autopilot.

I also ran into a few enemy bugs. Some of them glitched out, and I had to reset sections where I couldn't progress without killing them all. Enemies take no damage, or can't be killed, if they're stuck in a corner. And for some of them the health bar doesn't show up at all. That happened with one enemy type that explodes when it's close to death. You can guess why that bothered me.

The layout of elements within the levels can be confusing wherever there are platforms. It's hard to look down and tell whether you'll land on solid ground or on spikes. It's hard to tell whether you can grab a platform to climb up. And sometimes it's harder still to tell whether you can move forward at all, because foreground or background objects give the illusion of an obstacle. You don't want to hurl yourself into flames like a maniac, do you? Especially when you're halfway through a level and the last save point is nowhere near.

As I said, the other characters you can control are Chisai and the little blue Kodama. Since you're a cat, playing as Chisai is all about sneaking. You can't attack, and your only option is to hide behind objects. I came across situations where objects floated when I pushed them off a hill, and others where I couldn't push an object too far in one direction, which meant restarting the puzzle and sometimes the whole level.

As the little Kodama, you can perform the same actions as Takeshi. The only difference is that the Resistance bar turns into an Energy bar. That means you no longer have to worry about burning stamina when you attack, and you can restore a point of health when you have enough energy. Or you can hurl an energy ball at enemies or at objects in your way.

You still have to avoid getting hit if you don't want to lose lives. You can restore Energy by interacting with the glowing plants you find pretty much everywhere. They respawn after use, but you don't get much energy from them, and you have to hammer the interact button repeatedly to fill up. I'd suggest that a single interaction should fill the Energy bar completely.

I'll also mention that some of the moves you unlock in Kodama form can't actually be performed. I don't know whether that's a glitch or intentional. Either way, there's no point letting you unlock them if you can't use them.

The save points sometimes feel too thinly spread, especially since the game likes to place hidden traps right when you're far from one.

Last but not least, be prepared to restart the game often. It starts to stutter after about two hours of play, and let me tell you, lag combined with stop-motion animation does not look pretty.

Overall, I enjoyed slicing up enemies and living out my dream of being a samurai. But unfortunately the gameplay gets repetitive very quickly, and a lot of it needs revising and fixing.

It's Not a Game. It's a Film

The folks at Digital Mind Games have outdone themselves when it comes to visuals and sound. The level of realism and detail is overwhelming. The cutscenes are phenomenally executed down to the last pixel, and every character model and environment is nearly perfect. I know, I know. It's not like me to hand out this many compliments. But here they're thoroughly deserved.

I was especially impressed by the scenes where Chisai gets caught while sneaking. They're brutal, violent and bloody. Just picture an innocent little kitten being strangled by a monster, then torn to pieces as it starts gnawing on her flesh and tiny bones. It sends shivers down your spine.

I've no complaints about the sound effects either, especially in the duels with opponents. The picture is completed by the vibrations you feel with every katana strike.

The actors know how to get under the skin of the characters they play. It makes no difference whether they're in leading roles like Takeshi, the wise Kitsune or the evil Shuten-Dōji, or in more minor parts. We are talking about people who have appeared in films like The Last Samurai and 47 Ronin, after all.

And the mix of taiko (Japanese war drums) and flute rounds off the setting.

Final Verdict

I'll say it once more for those at the back: The Spirit of the Samurai should have been a film, not a game. I say that because I can't argue with the visual and audio quality I've just described. The story is short, around 8 hours to finish everything 100%. It doesn't bring any wow narrative moments, but it was cleverly written and impeccably performed by the actors. It genuinely felt like a film.

At the same time, that means the gameplay isn't brilliant. The fights are fun, but they get repetitive fast. You're not encouraged to use all the tools the game gives you, and they end up being there just for the sake of it. On top of that, the bugs and optimisation problems stop it from reaching its potential. It's a shame, and I sincerely hope it gets enough post-launch support to fix these issues.

It gets a 5.5/10 from me. You might even give it a 7/10 if you're big cinephiles. But this is a game first and foremost, and we shouldn't overlook the gameplay.

The game came out last Thursday and is currently discounted. You can grab it for €16 until 26 December, after which it goes up to its base price of €20. Is either price worth it? Not yet. I'd say €10 is more realistic for what it offers right now.

That's about all I had to say about The Spirit of the Samurai. See you in the Next Level!

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Played on: PC
Release date: 12 December 2024
Developer: Digital Mind Games
Publisher: Kwalee