Games like this makes me wonder... Why don't I live in Japan? Oh, that's right...
You see, when I was a kid, Rurouni Kenshin-known in my country as Samurai X- was the most violent anime series ever seen in TV, followed closely by Saint Seiya- again, known in my country as "The Zodiac Knights"... Whatever.
Kenshin was son enigmatic at that time, and the story was ...wow! Where, at the early 90's could you see the Japan of the 18th century in an anime if you weren't a sick otaku? Well, this show made it possible and made my heart fill with joy, so, when I had the opportunity to have this game, I didn't think twice. Ca - ching!
Let's talk about greatness. First of all, I'm amazed how people can say this game could have better graphics. They were amazing! I mean, it's true that sometimes you can see Kenshin's hand going trought his own clothes, but... bah, the anime-like drawing compensates everything. They tried to "keep it real" in the graphics and in my humble opinion, they achieved it. Graphics look cool, faces have expressions on their eyes, mouths and eyebrows... can you say that about many other games? Well... maybe you can.
Anyway, let's just say graphics are just fine. Music, in the other hand, is great. It fits almost every environment the game has and it looks as someone actually composed this based on the emotions shown in the cutscenes or the battles. Good stuff, altought it could have been greater if they added some of the music from the series... What about the Hiten Mitsurugi theme when you use a Hiten Mitsurugi technique? And it would have been great to hear the first and most characteristic opening from the series also. Oh well.
The we have the storyline which is... I don't know, because the game is in japanese and I only can say "neko" wich means cat, so, can't say much on this one. But I can say something about gameplay. It is, maybe, the most boring part of the game when you go around towns asking stuff (maybe I could have enjoyed a little better if I knew some japanese) because most of the events only happen after some amount of time has passed, so you either go and waste your time with this japanese dialogues or fight some random fights wich have no real relevance to the game.
Battles, on the other hand, are just stunning. You can see how much effort programmers gave onto this aspect, as they are tremendously swift, fluid and tense. You have to have strategy and be quick with the controllers, otherwise, you're dead, so battles are, all in all, the best part of the game. It just gives you the chills.
Difficulty seems to go from normal-hard to impossible-kill youserlf, so, the game is challenging, but not unb eatable.
The other thing that I didn't like much about the game is the fact that it doesn't cover much of the story of the series. It just goes from the beggining of the Shishio saga till the end of it. What about Shinomori? Uh wait, you actually fight this guy... but is not the best fight! What about the Oniwaban Shu? I missed to see some real face to face with Hannya. And what's more strange is that the tutorial of the game is the first real fight of the series, with Jin-e. What is going on then? You just decided to skip the 90% of the series just because you were lazy? If they had included this whole enormous gap, this could've been the best beat'em up ever, but no, they didnt'. Luckily for us, players, at least the decided to give you 4 characters to go trought the same story, so, it isn't as bad as it sounds.
All in all the game is still great tough. It is funny (I guess, judging from the smileys in dialogues), battles are awesome, story is well and nicely adapted (altought it is a very small part of the series story) and music is good. Oh! I almost forgot to mention the most incredible of all: voice acting. Just to keep it short, I believe the guys who recorded the original Rurouni Kenshin in the series are also in this game, so, they're IDENTICAL. AWESOME!
Ok, so all in all, only because of the lack of a bigger story, this game deserves an 8.0. With a larger storyline, I would give them a 10, no doubt about it. Ara ara? :D