Samurai II: Vengeance is the sequel of Samurai: Way of the Warrior made by the same company, MADFINGER Games. The original has gotten lots of good reviews, including from Craving Tech for its originality, art, design, and fun gameplay. The controls to do the combo and the lack of variety of enemies are however, its major drawbacks. Thankfully, the team listened and produced a truly wonderful sequel by keeping the good parts and improving the not-so-good parts.
Samurai II: Vengeance looks totally great on my iPhone 4. The graphic is smooth and gorgeous as before, if not better. Samurai II also maintains its dark and comical background like its predecessor. Backgrounds are colorful yet carefully drawn, maintaining an artistic look and feel.
The controls have changed from the first game – this time it uses a virtual D-pad and buttons to perform combos (a weak attack, strong attack, and evasive roll button), compared to touching and swiping the screen frantically. I totally love this change and I’m sure other fans of the game do too! It removes the frustration of performing fail combos and focuses more on having fun in slicing and dicing your enemies.
Slicing and dicing you will, because the same goriness is maintained in Samurai II: Vengeance. You will see heads beheaded and bodies sliced in two. It’s really satisfying (I know that sounds wrong!) to see and experience while playing the game.
There is also more variety of enemies in Samurai II: Vengeance compared to the first (where different enemies means wearing different color of shirts). You’ll encounter different enemies with different style of attacks: some can block your weak attacks, some have special whirlwind attacks, and some are equipped with bows and arrows, shooting you from afar.
The storyline, like the first, is presented with manga-style comics with even more artistic hand-drawn design.
A new feature introduced in Samurai II compared to the Samurai: Way of the Warrior is a role playing system. After killing an enemy (or destroy a barrel), you’ll get these “orbs” in which you can use to upgrade your maximum health and also unlock new combos! It adds a sense of progression into the game, which is a great addition to Samurai II: Vengeance. There are also new traps introduced in the game to add some spiciness into the game, a really fresh welcome.
Overall, Samurai II: Vengeance is a must to have game on the iPhone/iPod/iPad. The app is universal now so you don’t have to buy 2 different versions to play! Samurai II: Vengeance is unique, great looking, and totally fun to play. The changes that the developers made are spot-on and improve its predecessor to the next level. It’s now more fun to play, thanks to the new controls, and even more fun to play, thanks to the new upgrading system, traps, and more variety of enemies.
I’ve been trying to find a flaw in the game or something that can be improved like I normally do on my reviews, but honestly I haven’t been able to think of one! Samurai II: Vengeance is just so fun to play and well-polished. For example, the new dynamic camera follows your movement well and the control buttons are changed automatically into a single button when you need to execute a certain action to an object in the game.
Great game, great design, great fun. Highly recommended!
Samurai II: Vengeance – MADFINGER Games, a.s.
Note: Promo code provided for the review
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