Samurai Jack (Game Boy Advance) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Samurai Jack is one of only a handful of releases listed on BAM Entertainment?s website for the GBA this year although I'm reliably informed that the company?s new policy is to concentrate on quality rather than quantity. For those of you that don't know, Samurai Jack is a warrior unlike any other, trained by masters of weaponry and combat from all corners of the globe. He hails from the past, but was sent far into the future by the evil shape-shifting wizard, Aku. His mission: to find the missing segments of the Amulet Element that will allow him to defeat Aku and save the world from total destruction. So that's the introduction but what's the game like?

Gameplay

The Amulet of Time can probably best be described as a quest with the main purpose clearly being to reach the end of the game intact whilst being heralded as a hero by mere mortals. This involves you finding your way through some sizable locations, talking to residents and solving some rather less than challenging problems. Your main objective throughout the game though is to collect the pieces of the Amulet, which give you intriguing magical abilities such as shooting flame trails or constructing ice pillars at will. These new skills will help you to overcome the odd tricky situation and without giving too much away it might be worth remembering that fire can melt ice but ice pillars can be used to get to higher platforms. You have a fair bit of battling to engage in to and it does sometimes appear that everyone is out to stop you because your enemies grow stronger and more intelligent and the odd one actually 're-forms' almost as soon as you've hacked them down.

You also have to locate and collect various pick-ups to increase your chances of survival, especially when encountering one of the incredibly tough end of level bosses. Initially the most important item is health, which you can store in your inventory but weapons and armour are just as essential later on in the game. Actually beating the bosses however is sometimes a question of timing so dipping into your inventory at the correct moment can top up your health until the battle is over. This can feel a little like cheating but as you appear to be able to carry a seemingly endless supply of potions you quickly come to the conclusion that you have to use them somewhere. Finally - the save feature - because there are no defined levels as such this is done on a random basis via a book. There are generally three such points in each separate task like clearing the area of spiders or rescuing hostages. One will always appear before an end of level boss, which is rather useful as your first few attempts generally spell certain death anyway.

Controls

It's difficult to know where to begin here. One thing you will be required to do initially is to master various basic moves, which are then stored in your inventory. These 'abilities' can then be used as you need them but you'll also occasionally be confronted with a puzzle that can only be solved if you possess the relevant knowledge. If you don't have it you'll need to find it before you can progress any further in that particular direction, which is not always as simple as it sounds. Actually controlling Samurai Jack is reasonably intuitive with hacking, slashing and double jumping the main order of the day. It's probably not as easy or responsive as it should be though, so on more than one occasion you may spend a considerable amount of time on what should be a simple task. There are also the platform elements and though this isn't strictly speaking a platformer in its purest sense there are enough of these jumps for you to misjudge for the whole exercise to become rather frustrating.

Graphics

Anyone who's seen the TV series will be delighted with the overall look of this game, as the developers have clearly kept very faithful to the original source material. Jack himself is very nicely animated although this style of movement lends itself more to stylised Japanese animation rather than the type Warner Brother were producing in the 1940s. The enemies are a little more disappointing as well as a little on the slow side, with not only their movement but also their frame rate severely compromised when compared to the star of the game. The backgrounds too, whilst mirroring the locations seen in the show, are a little static with not even any spot animation to bring them to life.

Sound

Samurai Jack starts out sounding very nice indeed with a looped version of the show?s theme music. This continues once you?re actually in the game with a variety of soundtracks that do a fine job of establishing the right atmosphere for you to wander though ancient lands wreaking havoc on all things evil. It is rather disappointing though when it comes to samples with voices popping up very infrequently. This appears to be the norm in this style of game at the moment but if the developers can pay so much attention to the look of the game the least they can do is spend some extra time on the sound, more specifically voice samples lifted from the show.

Final comments

Like BAM! Entertainment?s other GBA offering, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: Jawbreakers, Samurai Jack 'borrows' it's core from an existing title and the game mechanics here most closely represent Konami's Castlevania series. This should be a good thing but Samurai Jack simply isn't nearly as good as this classic action adventure nor does it bring anything new to the genre. The game also manages to shift in a matter of seconds from incredibly simple to almost impossible with little consideration given to any learning curve. It's still enjoyable though. There are worse games available for the GBA out there but unfortunately for Samurai Jack there are better ones too.

Pro: Jack looks Great
Con: Can Be Very Difficult
Final score: 5.5

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