Genji: Dawn of the Samurai Hands-On

LOS ANGELES--At Sony's pre-E3 event earlier this week, we had the opportunity to spend some more quality time with Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, an action adventure game inspired by the famous 11th-century Japanese novel by Lady Murasaki. The game is being developed by a company called Game Republic, which was founded by Yoshiki Okamoto, who previously worked on a little game called Street Fighter II, among other Capcom titles. This latest game of his is reminiscent of titles like Onimusha, Otogi, and Dynasty Warriors--Asian-themed hack-and-slash action games with lots of atmosphere and pick-up-and-play combat. Of course, Genji will have its own twists, including two different playable characters and martial art movie-style fight choreography.

We got our first glimpse of Genji last year at the Tokyo Game Show, during which time the game hadn't yet been announced for US release and hadn't received its English subtitle. However, this build shown all these months later seems to be pretty much the same as the one we got to try out in the first place. Nevertheless, without the hubbub of a crazy trade show to rush us along, we were able to play through the 15-minute demo as both characters. Also, we wanted to get a better impression of the nuances of the combat system, which definitely seems to be the focal point here. Oh, and we've also brought back a bunch of new screenshots and direct-feed video to give you a sense of what the game is like.

Genji's two playable characters are the young samurai Yoshitsune and the bigger, tougher warrior monk Benkei. As you'd expect just from looking at these guys, Yoshitsune is the faster of the two, while Benkei is stronger but slower. The demo reveals that these two characters may have slightly different ways of dealing with situations. For example, when faced with a locked gate, as Yoshitsune we were able to climb up and over it, using one of our swords for leverage. As Benkei, though, we just busted down the gate with his huge club. The demo also revealed some light RPG elements, such as inventory management, the option to switch weapons and armor, and leveling up from defeating foes.

The combat seems like it'll be the main attraction, though, and it basically boils down to single button presses. With its sleek and responsive feel, the combat effectively lets you take on multiple foes at once. Also, much like in the Onimusha games, Genji allows you to execute critical hits by timing your attacks just as your foes telegraph their intent to attack you. To aid you with this, you can use a "mind's eye" effect, which slows down the action around you temporarily, allowing you to much more easily time your critical strikes. At any rate, it's good to see that the emphasis thus far seems to have been on making the combat feel solid.

We got to fight through hordes of samurai and weird monks as both Yoshitsune and Benkei, and as each of the characters, we fought a unique mid-boss of some sort, followed by a climactic encounter with a scary-looking chimera creature. This boss could be defeated by leaping around to attack its flanks while also avoiding its claws and flame attack.

Sony reps described Genji as a "beautiful" game, and from what we played, this seems like an apt description. The game's rendition of Japan is filled with color, light, and fine detail--it hardly seems like a place for such warfare, especially when everything looks so pretty. The game runs fast and smooth, too. We also learned that the domestic version would still feature the original Japanese language track with English subtitles.

The demo we played was mostly just a disconnected series of encounters, which mostly overlapped between the two main characters. We'll be interested to see how the story plays out in the context of all the fighting. We'll be expecting to get our hands on an updated build of Genji: Dawn of the Samurai at E3 next month. Stay tuned.