Review: Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma – Volume 1

Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma – Volume 1 is an unmitigated pile of turds. Simply one of the worst games I’ve ever played, it has almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever and should be avoided at all costs.

Set after the main events of last-gen’s Afro Samuari, this “game” puts players in the newly-robotic boots of Jinno after he’s become Kuma. Cut to pieces by assassins and rebuilt using robotic parts, Jinno-slash-Kuma is out for vengeance against Afro because his family was murdered. Or, because Afro didn’t save his family. Or something. I’m not quite sure and Afro Samurai 2 doesn’t really make it very clear.

Cutscenes are static images in black and white, complete with panning, smash zooms and motion blur. For a current-gen title it’s woeful, but worse still is that the cutscenes, narrative revealed during gameplay or any of the voiceovers help to unravel exactly what’s going on here. It seems like players are expected to have some knowledge of the anime. That’s fine in itself, but when the story is indecipherable to anyone else then it’s kind of missed the point. The voiceovers recycle the same few lines over and over which, by the way, are either too quiet or way too loud and suffer from audible distortion. I don’t know where the dialogue was recorded or who was responsible, but they have failed. Miserably.

Subtlety isn’t Afro Samurai 2’s strong suit. One mission, which had me following the ghost of my murdered sister, gave me the objective, “Confront the reality that everyone you loved is dead and their memories are all you have.” Jesus. Christ. Coupled with the fact that the mission is to walk up to a group of characters and then watch them be slaughtered, the heavy-handedness is just out of control. It makes the moment a joke when it should be a somber moment.

For a game about samurais you’d hope that combat would be at least fun, but nope. It’s sh*t. Ripping off the know widely used Batman: Arkham style, combat is mostly mashing the attack button and occasionally blocking. Though not often because you don’t really need to. I don’t think I died a single time while playing and all I did was mindless bash Square until all the enemies on screen were dead.

There are three combat styles, but they are basically identical and switching between them does so little as to be pointless. Players earn upgrades through using different combat styles, but the points seem to be awarded arbitrarily and have little bearing on the combat when applied. The upgrade trees for each of the combat styles is also confusing, often requiring you to upgrade an unrelated stat before you can proceed on another path. To add insult to injury, the final upgrade for each combat style is locked until Volume 2, so I will definitely not be finding out if they’re worth it.

I’ve never watched Afro Samurai, but this totally puts me off ever doing it. The only thing that does work is the weird blend of hip-hop and samurai cultures. The soundtrack is great and throbs along behind the mindless, boring and uninspired gameplay as the only shining beacon of anything worthwhile. You’re better off just downloading the songs or creating a playlist on Spotify than buying the game though.

Visually, it’s laughable that this is being released on current-gen only. Solo developers tinkering with Unity have produced prettier titles than this trash. Murky textures, bland colours and uninspired cel-shading have been seemingly vomited onto the screen with no regard to design or aesthetic. It’s f*cking ugly. The saying is that beauty is only skin deep, but Afro Samurai 2 is ugly to the bone. Ugly, boring, bland and awful.

Don’t play this game. Don’t buy this game. For fans, this is an enormous slap in the face. For everyone else, it’s a confusing mess. Avoid at all costs.

Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma – Volume 1 was reviewed using a promotional code on PS4, as provided by the Publisher.

Review: Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma – Volume 1

The good The hip-hop soundtrack	The bad Everything except the soundtrack

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