Seven Samurai 20XX

E3 2003 - Hands On

Seven Samurai 20XX is one of Sammy’s big titles for E3. The game is being developed by Dimps. Seven Samurai 20XX takes place sometime in the future and is based on the movie with same name by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa’s son even helped with the game to make sure it didn’t tread too far from the path Akira Kurosawa set with the movie.

In Seven Samurai you begin playing as a character named Natoe, and along the way he will meet six more samurai – completing the cast of Seven Samurai. Throughout the game you only play as Natoe, and you battle enemies such as beast-like humans, mutants, and the rest of your typical dystopian enemies. Natoe has both a Health bar and Guard bar letting the player know how he’s doing, but there is also a percentage in the lower left corner. This percentage represents how much of your special move you have. Once it reaches 100%, you can press the L1 and R1 buttons together to make Natoe pull out two swords. In this mode you can unleash some devastating combos.

Both the graphics and control are what you would expect from a PS2 game. Great textures litter the maps, and the animation of the characters and enemies is very smooth. The controls are responsive and allow for easy gameplay. Seven Samurai 20XX looks to be a great hack and slash title with a classic story. It is currently scheduled for release in Q4 of 2003.