is a

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

(PS2) action-adventure game released in 2003. It was re-released on

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

in 2009 in Japan only. The game is a

prequel A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term " ...

to ''

Way of the Samurai ''Way of the Samurai'', known in Japan as , is a PlayStation 2 action-adventure game developed by Acquire and released in 2002. Set in 19th century Japan, the player takes on the role of a rōnin who wanders into a remote village and becomes i ...

''.

Plot

The game takes place in the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. The player starts as a starving

rōnin A ''rōnin'' ( ; ja, 浪人, , meaning 'drifter' or 'wanderer') was a samurai without a lord or master during the feudal period of Japan (1185–1868). A samurai became masterless upon the death of his master or after the loss of his master's ...

who collapsed at the gate of a famous trading island-city called Amahara. Soon thereafter, a little girl shares her riceball with the ronin, giving him (or her, depending on the player's choice) energy. A choice appears, introducing the player to the diverse life of a samurai.

Combat

The combat system from the original ''

'' are carried over, albeit with some changes. Amongst them are the inclusion of "stance-breaker" attacks on nearly every weapon, a simplified guard/parry system, and instant kill techniques.

Enhancements

Dojima from the previous game also makes an appearance, though unrelated to the main plot. Here he still serves as a blacksmith to enhance the player's swords. The stats, however, are simplified: *Attack: Attack strength, determines the amount of damage caused when an opponent is struck with the sword *Defense: Defensive strength, determines the amount of damage suffered when the player is struck by an opponent *Durability: Sword strength, increases the amount of tension the sword can generate before breaking. *Quality: The number of upgrades left that can be performed. Also, the "Appraise" feature is able to make the swords upgraded more powerful. Their effects include addition to attack, defense, durability, tension resistance, or a combination of the above. These, however, requires certain conditions to be met, such as number of kills. Some special swords are able to be appraised based on their name.

Soundtrack

The original

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

of the game was composed by the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

Noriyuki Asakura is a Japanese composer and vocalist, best known for composing the soundtracks to the anime series ''Rurouni Kenshin'' and the video game franchises ''Tenchu'' and ''Way of the Samurai''. He is well known for combining traditional Japanese musi ...

, it was released on May 21, 2003. It consists of 26 short songs that are played within the game.

Reception

''Way of the Samurai 2'' was met with mixed reception upon release, as

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

gave it a score of 63.09%, while

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave it 59 out of 100.

References

External links

Spike page
* {{Way of the Samurai 2003 video games Action-adventure games Capcom games PlayStation 2 games PlayStation Portable games Video games about samurai Video game prequels Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Noriyuki Asakura Video games set in feudal Japan Video games with historical settings Acquire (company) games Single-player video games