So, I named Genji before, and I said it’s a cool game. Well, I have some details to fix up on that statement.
The game in itself looks tremendously cool. Very nice graphics, nice characters, nice story. But it has some pitfalls in the actual implementation.
First of all I have to say that the graphics is not a way to get the eyes off from the actual gameplay. The gameplay is nice. Of the four playable characters, none is the perfect character: this means that you have to switch between them to balance the game. This is very good to me, otherwise I end up fixating myself on one playable character and use just that. The fact that the mini-bosses need to be hit on the back otherwise they just won’t come down is a very nice touch in gameplay. And in general the whole game is well designed.
The problem comes on levels design. I’m in what is probably the third “area” (not third level), the checkpoints where you recharge and save are very distant one with the other, which isn’t bad on its own, but it starts to be a problem when you don’t provide more than a couple of health-restoring items, and you start having something like six mini-bosses to fight (with their team of minions) before you can get near a new checkpoint.
Sometimes it’s just a waste of time because you have to get back to the previous checkpoint to save and recharge your health. Sometimes it’s simply a pointless exercise because you end up fighting more and more minions, as they re-appear every time you come around the same corner, even though you fought and killed them all.
Now this is not entirely bad, as you can’t just turn back and pass again a level to become stronger before challenging a boss. Which is quite annoying when you have a savegame in the boss’s lair, and you come to think your characters are not strong enough to cope with that.
So what do I think of the game, all things considered? A bit frustrating. Not only because of the distance of checkpoints, but even more because it is tremendously well designed in other areas that this frustration is not easy to explain.
I’m not regretting spending money to get this game though, of that I can be sure.
