Review: Samurai Maiden (Nintendo Switch)
An action-adventure game featuring Nobunaga Oda? Go on. And sword-fighting skeletons? Go on! And a team of kunoichi who draw power by kissing each other? GO…kay.
Samurai Maiden has all that and a little bit more, and it’s better than you think it would be. Annoying in parts, but worth a look if you’re into action/adventure/platformers.
A couple of those annoying bits surface the moment we meet Tsumugi, a high-school girl who’s immediately yanked from class and sent back to Japan’s Sengoku period. Narrative establishment? No time! Character exposition? Useless! To the game we go!
Actually, it’s possible that any semblance of an introduction was dropped to make up for the time lost during dialog scenes. There’s a weird pause each time the “camera” switches angles of the on-screen characters. It’s like we’re not watching a performance but a tech rehearsal, and the actresses are still learning their blocking.
Once we’re past all of that, though, things become kind of fun. Tsumugi is dropped into a burning building where she meets both Nobunaga Oda and a horde of skeleton warriors.
There’s nothing for it but to fight, and, thankfully, Tsumugi knows her way around a sword. She’s not dressed appropriately for the leaps and rolls required in swordplay, but are any of us, really? After this training stage, she gets additional help from three slightly-more-appropriately-attired ninja maidens who are a bit familiar with what’s going on around them. The gist is that demons are about to burst forth from the Honnō-ji underworld, and it’s up to the ladies to prevent this while Nobunaga attends to other matters. It helps that Tsumugi is apparently the prophesied Priestess of Harmony; so…this was all supposed to happen?
The only thing for it is to press onward, so that’s what Tsumugi and her friends do. The game introduces the combat mechanics and the special abilities of each character on a level-by-level pace, allowing you to get familiar with everyone before ramping up the difficulty. Tsumugi fights via combos and button mashing, with more powerful attacks becoming unlocked as you move along. So, the further along you get, the less likely it is you’ll be able to just mash your way through levels. The enemies don’t really get smarter, they just grow in number and endurance. And since they and the scenery never change much, combat fatigue can and will set in.
You can mix things up by strategically swapping between the kunoichi for assistance, but they’re mostly useless during standard battles. None of them do anything until you specifically tell them to. And even then, they’re not very good about it. One character has the ability to plant bombs on the battlefield, for example, but it takes her so long to drop them off that the enemies have often moved on before she reaches the assigned drop-off point. As such, learning the timing of everyone’s abilities becomes a requirement for success. The side characters are actually more useful between battles and in the Bubble Pockets when their specific abilities are required to solve platforming puzzles or reach bonus items.
The Bubble Pockets are also used to develop the characters’ relationships with Tsumugi, all of which become lightly romantic. There’s plenty of flirting, mostly using the typical anime tropes. One girl is very aggressive and suggestive, one is demure and possibly actually in love, one seems entirely focused on the mission, but…you get the idea. The further the relationships get, the more powerful the combined Devoted Heart attack becomes when the girls engage in some tame PDA on the battlefield.
It helps that the graphics in Samurai Maiden are quite good. The characters and enemies look great. The environments are bland and somewhat muddy, but they serve the gameplay well, allowing you to concentrate on what needs to be seen.
Unfortunately, a couple of development issues really hurt the proceedings. First, there’s usually quite a leap between working through the linear levels and winning the boss battles along the way. The game is either too easy or too hard, so you’re either unchallenged or frustrated. Action-combat pros will have an easier time until they unlock the harder difficulties, but is this game aimed at combat pros?
And although the levels do have checkpoints, you only get one use. If you die a second time, it’s back to the beginning of the level for more of the same. You do have the ability to replay levels to improve your rewards, increase your skill and weapon levels, unlock outfits, and access the Bubble Pockets. But considering you’ll know where the story is heading from the start (nothing here will surprise you), having to grind your way towards it can become a chore.
It all boils down to a hack-and-slash affair that’s better than you may expect at first glance, albeit likely overpriced. I compared it earlier to Ninja Gaiden, and I honestly like Samurai Maiden more (on the Switch, specifically). Obviously, getting Tsumugi to the sexier cutscenes and battle sequences is going to be a major draw, but D3 deserves some applause for making characters earn that level of affection. And also for giving us plenty of sword-wielding skeletons to fight along the way.
