Samurai Maiden Review

While I know intellectually that Takaya Kuroda, the voice actor for Kazuma Kiryu, has done, and will continue to do, non-Like A Dragon voice acting, it’s always a delightful surprise whenever I hear him in things. So, I sat down to play this game about a Japanese highschooler who is sent into the past to stop a Demon Lord from being resurrected, when who should I hear but Kiryu! I was delighted, because damn his voice is smooth.

SAMURAI MAIDEN is a hack-and-slash set in the late Sengoku age of Japan. More specifically, June 1582, which history buffs will know is when Nobunaga Oda died, and as luck would have it, the protagonist bumps into him almost immediately upon arriving in the past. Of course, this isn’t a historically accurate game, it’s full of demons and re-animated skeletons, so history is slightly altered by this teenager arriving. Her name is Tsumugi Tamaori, and she’s the descendant of a priestess who banished a demon lord long ago, so it’s up to her to be sent back in time 500 years, apparently.

Tsumugi sets off on a quest to travel through the underworld and help Nobunaga stop the Demon Lord from returning, but she’s not alone. She’s joined by three shinobi who come from different worlds, one was Nobunaga’s apprentice, one is a cyborg, and the other is part-animal. Each has a special ability that you can use in and out of combat; with Iyo able to place bombs and healing urns, Hagane can use her mechanical arm to grab things or swing, and Komimi can throw certain objects, respectively. They also have attacks that you can trigger once their bar has filled up, and if you’re in the middle of a bunch of enemies it will fill up quickly.

The first thing you’ll notice about Samurai Maiden is that it has long cutscenes. In the opening hour of the game there is literally 10 minutes of gameplay, and that’s being generous. Each visual novel-style cutscene throughout the game takes its time, and it’s not helped by the fact that it fades to black each time a character who isn’t currently on-screen needs to appear and speak. Other games just have them appear on screen, but developer SHADE Inc. appears to have seen that as, I guess uncinematic maybe?

At a certain point in the game, you unlock the ability Devoted Heart, which you can activate once a gauge is filled to boost your attack power as well as imbuing your weapon with the element of the chosen Shinobi (fire, electricity, ice). The gauge empties at the end of a level, so make sure to use it! The effect gets stronger if the character has a higher level of affection, lower levels activating with a hug and the highest one getting a kiss. Yes, the trailers didn’t lie, these girls are lesbians who get feelings for one another and kiss — so polyamourous lesbians at that.

To raise an affection level all you have to do is make each shinobi accompany you on a mission and participate in combat. You can freely swap during missions to utilise their particular skills, so you can level up affection for all three in each mission, or just stick with one. Reaching a new level can unlock combos and special levels called Bubble Pockets, which are specific to each girl and help you learn more about the characters. They’re also pretty intense platforming levels with a little bit of fighting.

With this being an anime game featuring a primarily-female cast, you might be thinking that it’s full of fanservice, especially since the DLC costumes include different styles of swimsuits. Well, there’s very little and not even any jiggle physics. While Tsumugi’s outfit will get damaged and torn during fights, it never “breaks” leaving her in just her undies. It’s not as if SHADE Inc. hasn’t included this stuff in past titles, so you might be concerned that the game is censored but it isn’t. It’s just that stuff isn’t what the game is about, it’s about the relationships between the characters, with optional fanservice. The photo mode can be activated at any point, but if you try to look up people’s skirts you’ll only see blackness (though outside of photo mode you can see panties if you catch the right angle at the right time).

The graphics are nice and crisp with well-designed characters and enemies. There is a bit of colour swapping for them, but at least they usually have different weapons too. While the levels look fine with some decent variation now and then, I’m disappointed in how empty they are. It’s almost as if they had some levels and put them into the game, rather than building them for it. There are hidden chests in some places, but you can waste a full minute in a level just checking out dead ends and finding nothing.

Samurai Maiden is fully voiced in Japanese which is all great, but I’m disappointed by the music. It’s not bad enough that you hate the repetition, but since some of the paid DLC is music it’s insulting that so little of it is already in the game.

When it comes to playing the game, things feel a little repetitive after a while. The game often tries to give you a variety of enemies, but only the boss battles actually feel different. Until you get the hang of their attacks and can dodge well enough. There are three difficulty levels for you to play through each level multiple times, but unless there are achievements to obtain I’m not sure why you would. Combat just isn’t very kinetic or as fluid as other girl-oriented hack-and-slash titles.

Samurai Maiden’s cutscenes are long, I said that earlier, but honestly without those this would just be “another” hack-and-slash game about fanservice. Honestly, it’s nice to have five minutes of character growth, two-to-seven minutes of fighting, then another five minutes of talking. It makes the game straddle the line between visual novel and action game, so if you’re after a girl-love visual novel only or a fanservice horde battler then you can go and play one of those, if you want a bit of both then you’ve got Samurai Maiden.