
Digital Minds Games have brought us The Spirit of the Samurai. A side-scrolling action platformer where we play Takeshi, a Samurai looking to defend his village from a looming evil. Out now on Steam for £16.99.
I saw it all in a dream.
The story begins with a young boy looking to meet a Kitsune. Once it appears, it tells us the story of a past samurai who once existed. The samurai in question was called Takeshi, and he could communicate with the spirits, who then tell him of the return of an ancient evil. This sets us up for our story.

Gameplay
Gameplay-wise, The Spirit of the Samurai is pretty straightforward. You have a sword which you can unlock various combos for. A bow for long range and some damaging consumables such as kunai. Upon slaying enemies you earn XP which, after collecting enough, will give three attribute points. Points can then be spent at a shrine for one of the four attributes.
- Strength – Will increase attack
- Resistance – Kinda works as both stamina and repose bars
- Dexterity – The major way to get new combos (some are found).
- Bow – Self explanatory.

Shrines use incense to work and are also serving as a small shop. Incense is found via breaking lanterns or sometimes dropped from foes. A major way is to offer items, for example, cherries, sake, and ginseng. Useful items to pick up are the kunais and health potions. You only get three orbs for health and the potions are the only main way to heal.
Small Samurai and Chisai The Cat.
Another segment you’ll play in The Spirit of the Samurai is the role of his small companion, Chisai. This little guy doesn’t do much apart from jumping around for platforming segments. And hiding away from the evil Yokai. When we get to the literal “Spirit of the Samurai” part of the game. We only get some minor changes to the gameplay. We lose our bow and in its place an energy blast. You can also heal after a certain amount of energy is reached. (side-note the spirit form weirds me out).

Graphics & Audio
The star of the show in The Spirit Of The Samurai are the visuals and animations. Looking like a mixture of stop motion and Claymation, the game is reminiscent of things like Don Chaffey’s 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts, and the old Mortal Kombats with the way the enemy looms over the stage. There’s clear love and effort put into it and feels incredibly nostalgic.

Unfortunately, the frame rate heavily lets it down, especially during the last boss. I’m pretty impartial to frame rates and don’t notice it most times, but the lag and stuttering were so bad the Samurai could barely move and I couldn’t fight properly. I hadn’t seen frame rates that bad in a single-player game in a long time, and it took away from the experience, turning it frustrating fast.
Longevity
The Spirit of the Samurai isn’t that long after playing for five hours. There are twenty achievements to obtain but most are for killing with different weapons. Such as the bow and sword.
Final Thoughts
The Spirit of the Samurai has a great art style, but the story itself needs fleshing out. I had a few major issues with input lag throughout the game, which led to many pointless deaths. The combat is okay, but I found the combo system useless and the same for leveling up. I didn’t really use the bow either, as most of the time it felt like I had to be near the enemy. I really hated the checkpoints in this game and more so in the end-game area. If you die, you go all the way back, which was annoying. Especially when you have to fight across a bridge before fighting a boss.
Some areas go on for too long, especially with waves of enemies. Chisai’s segments are cute but felt like they could be removed from the game and it wouldn’t change anything. The biggest thing to really tick me off was the final boss fight. I had horrendous drops in the frame rate when against him. The boss himself wasn’t hard, but frames would screw me over when attacking.
The game seems a lot more on the artsy side for me compared to the actual gameplay. I find it deserves the Thumb Culture Silver Award, maybe after a couple of updates to fix the frames and controls it could be bumped to a gold.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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