Year: 1994
Genre: Platform
Players: 2
Our Rating: 9/10
Mini Review
The Second Samurai for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis is potentially a candidate for one of my top ten games on the system. This game has everything, an evil demon master, revenge, samurais, dinosaur chases and you even get to throw monkeys in to cavemen! What more could you want? As soon as you see the purple “Psygnosis” logo you know that the game is going to be of high caliber. The back story is a little contrived but then again there’s very few video games backstories that aren’t. You have to seek out the demon master that has been on his usual soul enslaving deeds. Along the way you the aim is to kick blue soul pots to free the souls inside, these also act as way points should your character die at the hands of a vast cast of enemies. The game is a nice blend of button bashing mixed with slightly technical skills such as throwing blades and rocks to progress.
The Second Samurai is a game that will keep you guessing too. One minute you’re throwing rocks on three dragon heads and the next you are racing dinosaurs or floating through a volcano on a flaming rock platform. Graphically it’s about as good as you will see from the 16bit era. It’s fast, colourful and very dynamic, the action just never stops for a second on some levels. This combined with a set of well thought out bosses makes for a very classic experience of 90’s gaming. I would recommend this on to any gamer of any age. It’s a timeless classic and I wish we could have seen even more from the series. I seem to remember reading a review of the game in Mean Machines, Sega Power, Sega Magazine or one of those other magazines back in the day and wondering why the score was so high. Sure enough I ran out and bought it. It’s now nearly two decades on and the game still looks as fresh as when I first saw it. This is a retro gaming essential.
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