Yet another movie to game translation has arrived on the PS2 except this time it is based off a movie made nearly fifty years ago entitled Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai 20XX is made by the talented developers at Sammy Studios, but how does this latest movie to game translation turn out? Read on to find out!

The setting for Seven Samurai 20XX is in a futuristic land with robots trying to wipe out the human race, pretty much standard stuff. There is a youthful hero, with a troubled past, and a natural talent for beating the enemies into pudding. There is also the young girl who discovers that she has mysterious and very powerful abilities. This is something taken directly out of a lot of different anime/cartoon TV shows.

Seven Samurai 20XX is a hack and slash fighter in the same vein as Dynasty Warriors, where you take one of the seven warriors to go destroy myriads of enemies, while trying not to die yourself. There are many moves at your disposal, first up are the “Just Moves.” A Just Attach is when you are attaching an enemy and you move and strike in the same direction as the enemy, the enemy will not be able to guard it. Just Guard is when you hit the guard button at the exact same time as you get attacked, and you will perform a counterattack. If you step into an enemy’s line of attack, you will perform a Just Step and be able to hit the enemy from behind.

Nitoh-Ryu is one of the best things about this game, it lets players use both of their swords for a limited time, and the characters will move more quickly and do multiple attacks. It will last until your two-sword timer gets to zero. The only way to increase the timers is by performing the “Just Moves.”

Overall the combat system, at its core, is really simple, and equals to just hitting the attack or guard buttons. To help expand the fighting, you can perform different moves with your sword, but hitting a direction and then the attack button, but when you are in the heat of battle, it is rare that you will be trying to do a super move (because you can take some damage when you are trying to figure out the button combinations.)

One of the biggest things that kills this game is the repetition and enemy AI. The game plays out exactly like this: you walk into a section of the game, fight hordes of enemies, clear that area. Repeat this a couple more times depending on how far you are in the game, until you reach the boss. Defeat the boss then learn some more back story, save the game and repeat in a new area. This gets stale pretty fast, to help break it up, there are some spins in each of the levels, but nothing drastic.

The enemy AI in this game is as dumb as a brink. At times the enemies might come toward you and stand there, maybe swing their weapon at you a few times, while they are getting eradicated. On the other side of the fighting arena, there will be a few stray enemies walking aimlessly around, they will see you and go “Oh, yeah that’s right I am here to stop you,” but by the time they figure that out, you have already put them out of their miserable existence. It is really sad to see a “hack and slash” game have this kind of AI on its enemies. The boss fights are a little better, but not by much.

The character designs in this game is one of the graphics strongest points. All of the characters are highly detailed and full of vibrant colors. They each have their own off the wall style that really helps give this game personality. While in the middle of a skirmish, players will see a lot of good graphical effects. This is where the good stops and the bad starts. The game is plagued with popup and slowdown. It is not good when you are fighting a horde of enemies, and the game slows to a crawl.

The music and sound for this game is decent. The opening and ending musical theme for this game is really good, but the in-game music has something lacking. The music you will hear while playing the game is more of a techno-ish feel to it. The sound effects are pretty good, which range from the swords clashing to the explosions you cause as you go though each level. The voiceovers are also really well done, and fit this game.

Seven Samurai 20XX is rated T for Teen for blood, gore, and violence. It will take up to 113kb on your memory card.

Gameplay: 6.5
The combat is simple and the game is nothing but unadulterated repetition, it is highly disappointing.

Graphics: 6.9
It is a double edge sword, on one hand you have great looking graphics, and on the other hand you have slow down and popup.

Sound: 7.1
The music and sound effects for this game is palatable.

Difficulty: Easy
The game is extremely easy due to the unintelligent AI.

Concept: 8.5
This game offers nothing new to the hack and slash game world.

Overall: 6.7
Seven Samurai 20XX is very disappointing, it offers nothing new to the table, yet it has so much potential that it wants to let out, and the graphics alone prove that. What it boils down to is that this game was released early, and the developers didn’t get a chance to polish this game up. It is a shame too because this game could have been something special.