Xbox 360
Scrolling beat-em-ups have a problem with repetition; Punch, kick, throw, punch, punch, throw, kick...repeat until completely fed up. Strawhat Samurai 2 by developer Luther Chan gets around this problem by integrating a superb control system, consisting simply of drawing lines with your mouse or laptop touchpad.
By drawing slash lines through enemies or over terrain, our samurai hero can slice and dice enemies into blood-soaked chunks or leap around the environment with ease. There are no button bashing issues here. Instead the onus is on the player to think fast and draw lines of certain distance and shape to succeed.
For example, when faced with heavily armoured foes, you can strike them repeatedly using horizontal slashes and slowly chip away at their health bar. However, if you draw lines up from the ground you can lift your foe into the air with your sword and attack them repeatedly in mid-air to create heavy-hitting air juggle combos.You can also draw a vertical lline down to the ground to perform final exectution strikes. For a simple control method, there are plenty of moves at your disposal.
As you battle your way across the four massive stages, the range and volume of foes on screen at once increases. Luckily, the more damange you deal a special bar fills up that, when activated, allows you to stop time and dish out some brutal hits without worrying about enemy attacks. It's a nice touch that takes the edge off a bit when things get too much or your life bar is dangerously low.
Boss battles are also superb, each requiring some clever tactics to win. The end of stage one sees you going toe-to-toe with a heavily armoured samurai with a whopping blade. He's tough but has a weak point that lets you deal out critical strikes. Finding these is half the challenge although often, you may feel that fights go on just a little too long and lose their initial spark about half way through.
Aesthetically, this is something special, with environments rich in colour and a superb soundtrack to compliment all the gory mayhem. The developer has managed to squeeze a lot of impressive visuals into the game, which stands out above most flash titles. There are a lot of neat touches, such as a superb red and black effect when you land the final blow on the areas last enemy, giving it a nice Samurai film feel.
Strawhat Samurai 2 is a great game that bolsters the template of the original and while the mouse control helps reduce repetition, some sections still grate, such a perilous mountain climb on stage two. You will find yourself falling off cliffs a lot due to how precise the game asks you to be with your movements. However, things just get a bit too chaotic to pull off these actions precisely, which is not helped by the pressure of ten bloodthirsty Samurais baying for your blood.
It's punishing, but managable, with a great deal of pressure taken off by infinite continues and no backtracking when you die. Laptop users should also get ready for some serious hand cramp if using a touchpad. This can often feel awkward although this is nothing a USB mouse can't solve.
This is slick, action-packed and gory, everything a good samurai romp should be. Head over to the official E4 games portal for a slash now!
Strawhat Samurai 2 at the E4 games portal: http://www.e4.com/game/straw-hat-samurai-2/play.e4