As a huuuuge fan of the original PS2 game I was a little wary of picking this one up (the first sequel changed most of the things that made the original great) but what I saw seemed close enough to the original to make it worth a shot.
For anyone who doesn't know the premise, it was like a videogame version of the movie Yojimbo. You were a wandering samurai in a town split by two warring factions. The narrative was very short from start to finish but the longevity was in the way you could alter the path of the story and arrive at several different endings. You collected swords from your fallen opponents, and every sword had a different move list that had to be unlocked through combat. The real challenge was to get the best ending where all the main characters survive.
Originally you would run around, and optionally draw your sword at any time with L1 - do this in front of the wrong (or right!) person and it would alter the story. This feature remains and now you can also hit L2 to prostrate yourself on the ground in submission - I'm not sure if this can be used to beg for mercy during a fight, but it can be used to end 'event' confrontations peacefully. Another new addition is a score/reputation penalty for hitting bystanders during combat - this is easily done in some of the town areas as there are people everywhere, so you have to be careful where you fight.
So, in this one, the combat and sword collection is almost identical to the original. My favourite feature was the way you could make yourself invincible to the special moves of other swords, by doing a perfect block (awase) as the move hit you (think of Just Parries from DMC3 for a more well known example) - this causes your sword to 'learn' that move and automatically block it in future.
In this game the opponents seem to be split into two categories - street punks, and samurai - if you do a perfect block on a punk's attack it doesn't learn the awase move, instead it flashes up an indicator (QTE style) that lets you pull off an instant kill (hissatsu). If you are taking on two or more punks then you can chain these instant kills and wipe them all out in dramatic fashion. Your timing has to be great though, so I shouldn't call it a QTE.
This is good thinking as it keeps the awase system from the first game and the hissatsu system from the second (you can't use hissatsu on proper opponents, which keeps them challenging)
I haven't played for a long time yet but there seems to be nice variety of swords - some moves I immediately recognised from WOTS1, but I have also collected some awesome new swords. Normally hitting L1 causes you to bare the blade completely, but on my favourite sword so far he simply puts his hand on the hilt when you hit L1 - subtle threats FTW!
Your swords are vulnerable, but not as much as in the original. This game keeps the sword strength gauge - repeatedly blocking aggressive moves or using a powerful move too often causes your blade's heat to rise, if it passes the limit then you lose one chunk of that bar (making it even easier to overheat). If you break the sword completely then that's it.. kaput. If you have a sword with a lot of awase moves on it then you would be gutted to break it in this manner. Luckily the blacksmith from the first game has returned and for a cost you can repair any sword that still has at least one bar remaining.
The original was even stricter however, as it would delete your save when you loaded it, and if you died in game any swords you were carrying were lost forever. This doesn't happen here. You have a house with lots of storage, and it seems that any swords you collect go in there, even if you die you can get them on your next game. This is a little disappointing, but in some ways a welcome relief as it is easy to get into a scrap with someone out of your league, and it's not always possible to run away.
As well as the main narrative (which I have barely seen so far) there are also side missions to do now, for random people in the town. I've mostly been mucking around fighting though so not too sure on how these play out.
Anyone who recalls the PS2 game will remember it didn't set the world on fire in terms of graphics.. in fact it always reminded me of the PS1 Tenchu (made by the same team) with slightly higher resolution - this is much the same. A higher res version of the original, nothing to write home about. Some of the environments can look beautiful and the time-of-day lighting is very well done though.
Sound effects are the same as the original too - characters communicate through speech bubbles with only a few short spoken phrases to indicate they are talking. In many ways this doesn't need to be a PS3 game. As far as I know there are no online portions and no trophies (but curiously it did a patch upgrade on the first play).
Another highlight of the original was the soundtrack - I believe it was the same guy who did the first Tenchu that composed WOTS1, and the music was beautiful. This game revisits the same main theme so I couldn't really tell from that, but that guy has a very distinctive style and from some of the area music I'm pretty sure they got him back again (or found someone who can do a very good imitation!). I'm looking forward to hearing the music as the story plays out.
Unfortunately for now this is Japanese only, I really hope they do an English release. While the sidequests can probably be worked out, I think you will miss a lot of the significance of certain actions if you don't understand what's being said. Also, a lot of fun can be had playing to get different titles at the end, and if you can't read them you will miss out on that.
The inventory and character upgrade system is pretty complicated, I haven't really worked it out yet.
edit - oh yeah, something that was bothering me (because of my inclination towards fighting and dying very quicklY) was that some of the cutscenes are lengthy and I thought you couldn't skip them, but you actually can by hitting select.
For anyone who doesn't know the premise, it was like a videogame version of the movie Yojimbo. You were a wandering samurai in a town split by two warring factions. The narrative was very short from start to finish but the longevity was in the way you could alter the path of the story and arrive at several different endings. You collected swords from your fallen opponents, and every sword had a different move list that had to be unlocked through combat. The real challenge was to get the best ending where all the main characters survive.
Originally you would run around, and optionally draw your sword at any time with L1 - do this in front of the wrong (or right!) person and it would alter the story. This feature remains and now you can also hit L2 to prostrate yourself on the ground in submission - I'm not sure if this can be used to beg for mercy during a fight, but it can be used to end 'event' confrontations peacefully. Another new addition is a score/reputation penalty for hitting bystanders during combat - this is easily done in some of the town areas as there are people everywhere, so you have to be careful where you fight.
So, in this one, the combat and sword collection is almost identical to the original. My favourite feature was the way you could make yourself invincible to the special moves of other swords, by doing a perfect block (awase) as the move hit you (think of Just Parries from DMC3 for a more well known example) - this causes your sword to 'learn' that move and automatically block it in future.
In this game the opponents seem to be split into two categories - street punks, and samurai - if you do a perfect block on a punk's attack it doesn't learn the awase move, instead it flashes up an indicator (QTE style) that lets you pull off an instant kill (hissatsu). If you are taking on two or more punks then you can chain these instant kills and wipe them all out in dramatic fashion. Your timing has to be great though, so I shouldn't call it a QTE.
This is good thinking as it keeps the awase system from the first game and the hissatsu system from the second (you can't use hissatsu on proper opponents, which keeps them challenging)
I haven't played for a long time yet but there seems to be nice variety of swords - some moves I immediately recognised from WOTS1, but I have also collected some awesome new swords. Normally hitting L1 causes you to bare the blade completely, but on my favourite sword so far he simply puts his hand on the hilt when you hit L1 - subtle threats FTW!
Your swords are vulnerable, but not as much as in the original. This game keeps the sword strength gauge - repeatedly blocking aggressive moves or using a powerful move too often causes your blade's heat to rise, if it passes the limit then you lose one chunk of that bar (making it even easier to overheat). If you break the sword completely then that's it.. kaput. If you have a sword with a lot of awase moves on it then you would be gutted to break it in this manner. Luckily the blacksmith from the first game has returned and for a cost you can repair any sword that still has at least one bar remaining.
The original was even stricter however, as it would delete your save when you loaded it, and if you died in game any swords you were carrying were lost forever. This doesn't happen here. You have a house with lots of storage, and it seems that any swords you collect go in there, even if you die you can get them on your next game. This is a little disappointing, but in some ways a welcome relief as it is easy to get into a scrap with someone out of your league, and it's not always possible to run away.
As well as the main narrative (which I have barely seen so far) there are also side missions to do now, for random people in the town. I've mostly been mucking around fighting though so not too sure on how these play out.
Anyone who recalls the PS2 game will remember it didn't set the world on fire in terms of graphics.. in fact it always reminded me of the PS1 Tenchu (made by the same team) with slightly higher resolution - this is much the same. A higher res version of the original, nothing to write home about. Some of the environments can look beautiful and the time-of-day lighting is very well done though.
Sound effects are the same as the original too - characters communicate through speech bubbles with only a few short spoken phrases to indicate they are talking. In many ways this doesn't need to be a PS3 game. As far as I know there are no online portions and no trophies (but curiously it did a patch upgrade on the first play).
Another highlight of the original was the soundtrack - I believe it was the same guy who did the first Tenchu that composed WOTS1, and the music was beautiful. This game revisits the same main theme so I couldn't really tell from that, but that guy has a very distinctive style and from some of the area music I'm pretty sure they got him back again (or found someone who can do a very good imitation!). I'm looking forward to hearing the music as the story plays out.
Unfortunately for now this is Japanese only, I really hope they do an English release. While the sidequests can probably be worked out, I think you will miss a lot of the significance of certain actions if you don't understand what's being said. Also, a lot of fun can be had playing to get different titles at the end, and if you can't read them you will miss out on that.
The inventory and character upgrade system is pretty complicated, I haven't really worked it out yet.
edit - oh yeah, something that was bothering me (because of my inclination towards fighting and dying very quicklY) was that some of the cutscenes are lengthy and I thought you couldn't skip them, but you actually can by hitting select.
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