A great concept, but a crappy game in the end.
The storyline was overall ok. I honestly think it would have made a fantastic anime. A better anime than game, really. Especially since the voice acting is like watching a B rated kung fu movie.
The first thing you notice when playing this game is that the camera is absolutely God awful in this game. I don't know how the developers played through it in when they were working on it and simply thought no one would notice just how bad it is. The camera stays approx. 3 feet behind, as if it were a camera man who really, really, likes you.
The second thing you notice is how clunky the controls are. Often you find that when trying to do something, like, attack and then jump, it is either delayed, or you wind up attacking more than you wanted, or what have you. Also, if you're not swinging wildly in front of you, it's difficult to move about in a fight.
You start off with two weapons. The first is a blatant light saber rip off, and the second is a glowing bow staff. As the game progresses, you obtain the weapon the level boss uses after you defeat them, a la Mega Man. The cool idea they came up with is that the weapons have an RPG element to them; the more you use the weapon, it will level up, giving you a longer weapon combo. The downside to this is if you attempt to level up all your weapons equally, you'll wind up dying because some weapons are stronger than others. That, and it's completely a waste of time, seeing as how the stats of each weapon does not change; they're just as strong or fast as when you obtained them.
90% of each level is finding two balls of light, called Ley Seeds, that will allow you to preform one of your weapons special attacks, usually to complete a puzzle. You can use these special attacks in battle, but they only give you enough energy to preform it twice, and at that expense it would be just as wise to defeat a thug the old fashion old. The special attacks themselves are the most vital and frustrating part of the whole game. A symbol will appear on screen and you have to "trace" it with the right analog stick. And by "trace" they mean pressing it left or right. But getting it started is next to impossible, and you will find yourself trying to do it correctly no less than 10 times per try.
There are about 6 types of thugs overall, and then upgraded versions of the original four you encounter. This doesn't present much of a challenge at all as you quickly learn what weapon works best on each one.
Your weapon/girlfriend tells you what to do next, but she gets really annoying really fast on account of you can generally figure out what to do based on the cutscene, or just by having your eyes open. For example, a gate will be locked, blocking your path, and she will tell you that you must find a way to unlock it. No, really? I was gonna spend all day trying to pass through it...
To add to the illusion that it is a good game some enemies will leave behind "Data Modules", which gives info about every character, weapon, and level in the game, but not enough of them are dropped to fill the entire log in way play through, and then when you play through it again, you will often get a data entry you have already obtained.
The bosses usually aren't difficult, but they are really annoying and frustrating, usually attacking you with a cheap shot or being freakishly strong.
The game itself can be beaten in about 9 hours, and it has little to no replay value. When you do play through it again, they do give you a new weapon, which is really fun at first because of how quickly you can defeat any enemy, even a boss, with it, but this, too grows stale quickly.
The one idea that was pretty cool was that it incorporated an arcade element of having some cutscenes requiring you to press a button. Pressing it right invokes a sweet badass attack on an enemy; not pressing it in time or pressing the wrong button makes the enemy deal damage to you.
If you must play this game, just rent it. It is not worth your time or money to purchase it.