Samurai Jack, The superb animated martial arts drama by Genndy Tartakovsky, debuted on Cartoon Network in December 2001. It lasted until 2004, and returned for a fifth and final season on Adult Swim in 2017. In all that time, only two games were made based on the series, and they were not great. Now, three years after the end of the show, the Soleil Games of Japan are coming together to show us how it’s done Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time.
Samurai Jack is the perfect car for an by-the-book 3D brawler. We have a hero who must fight countless field battles to make his return through time and defeat the big bad boy, the shapeshifting evil known as Aku. The series takes place in a warped future Earth populated by aliens and supernatural beings. Pick a spot in the plot, give Jack a truckload of weapons, let one button do light attacks and the other do heavy, and as long as you do it right, you’re golden.
Developer Soleil Games, a team composed of veterinary industry whose work includes Death or life en Ninja Gaiden, did very well with it Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time. First, they grabbed the perfect spot in the show’s plot for a long, time-consuming adventure. Fans will remember that Jack and Aku’s daughter Ashi jumped through a portal in the last episode of the comic strip, and appear just in time to defeat the evil creature once and for all. Apparently the journey through that portal was much more involved. In an official cannon twist, Aku kills the couple in the portal, sending Jack away on a side-adventure through the history of the comic strip. Basically, they took a moment of the show and embarked on a five or six hour adventure in it. Brilliant!
The gameplay in Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is as basic 3D action platforming as they come. As prophesied, one button makes light attacks and another heavy, and stringing these two makes combos. Jack uses his magic sword to split enemies, but can also quickly switch to all kinds of hammers, spears, clubs, or just his own fists. He can parry and dodge. There are daggers and shuriks to shoot, bows and rifles to fire. So many different weapons and combat qualities, and they all feel great. There is a slow ramping complexity to the combat that makes the game incredibly satisfying to play. Hell, I even enjoy watching videos of myself playing.
G / O Media can get a commission
There’s plenty of hacking and slamming as Jack makes his way back to the past (again). There is also a fair amount of platforming, a bit of puzzle solving, and a lot of skill and inventory management. Although relatively simple, the levels of the game are littered with tiny nooks and crannies filled with hidden treasures and useful NPCs, including everyone’s favorite Scotsman, his daughter, Sir Colin Bartholomew Montgomery Rothchild III, and Da Samurai.
Da Samurai is especially important, providing skill upgrades, potions, accessories, and repairs for weapons that are not magical samurai swords. He’s the reason Jack collects gold during his travels. He also collects skill points, used to unlock new abilities in the game’s three-tiered skill tree. Possibilities include things like doing extra damage with a particular weapon and giving enemies the chance to drop extra items in case of defeat. There is a lot of room for adaptation, although skill at higher levels requires a lot of rare gems to unlock.
And that’s the game. Fight, earn skill points, power up, fight some more. The developers venture into some fierce moments between Jack and his beloved Ashi, giving fans of the cartoon the feeling they are looking for, sending the incredibly tired warrior forward on this one last adventure. It all comes together so well.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is the best by-the-book 3D hack-and-slash action game that it can be. It does nothing new, but it does such a great job with all the old stuff that I do not care. When you become basic, be the best base you can be.
Back to the past
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