Publisher: Majesco
Developer: Genki
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Action
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ryan Asher

In an industry in which the oft-practiced ideology is to rehash any concept that sells to the gamer audience, why don’t we see more great samurai games on store shelves? There are so many different staples of the samurai genre that resonate with the stereotypical gamer. I mean, come on, what do most geeky males love? Being one myself, I think I can answer that for you. We love swords, Asian culture, hot Asian babes, hot Asian babes with swords, Asian dudes with two swords, Asian dudes with two swords and an eye patch, and pretty much anything else that has do with Asian babes and more swords. So tell me, have you ever seen a samurai game lacking any of that goodness? It’s doubtful.

Yet, why was the last great samurai game to hit consoles the now six-year-old Onimusha? Granted, Onimusha rocked so hard we didn’t NEED another samurai game for a while, but six years is far too long of a gap to go without some much needed samurai-on-samurai action. Hoping to resolve this issue and fill a much needed gaming niche is the new samurai slicer, Kengo: Legend of the 9.

The Kengo series is the spiritual successor to Bushido Blade. Sadly, previous installments have been mediocre — or bad, if you want it put bluntly. In fact, you might recognize the game’s developer, Genki, as the party responsible for the dreadful Kabuki Warriors. Of course, as gamers, we’re able to forgive and forget, right? Good. So let’s give Genki another go-around and see if they’ve figured it out this time.

Besides, they sure did go all out with Legend of the 9. There are nine real samurai from, you know, whenever samurai were wandering around killing people for little-to-no reason. Each has his or her own story in the Campaign mode. In addition, there’s a Mission mode, a Versus mode and Xbox Live support. On paper, Kengo shapes up nicely, but is the plethora of gameplay options deeper than a stab in the gut or as shallow as a paper cut? Read on to find out.