Game:

Samurai Western (2005)

Duration: 1:32:14

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0

Originally recorded: July 30, 2023
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Well, I tried to stretch that out for as long as I possibly could. I'm pretty sure that if I'd just done a straight shot to the ending, I could've wrapped things up in the span of an hour. I was worried that starting 15 minutes late might've made things more difficult, but honestly, beating the game was all but guaranteed. The funny thing is that I miss remembered how far I got in the game. I remembered "The Hanging" as Stage 10, but in reality, it was #11.


I felt pretty overlevelled on the first three stages of this final batch. Fortunately, the difficulty sort of rebalanced itself during Stage 15 and I was no longer wiping out normal enemies with a single hit. I was told that Raddo was supposed to be the hardest boss in the game by a significant margin, but in reality, my strategy of saving my Super Mode for bosses made him a piece of cake.


Since I was so ahead of schedule and managed to unlock Extra Stage 6, I decided to try it out. Clearing that unlocked the ninth Extra Stage, so I tested that out as well. Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed with they ended up being -- they're just slightly remixed versions of the existing stages with filler story sequences tacked on. Honestly, I'd probably be *less* disappointed if they didn't have the story filler. I would've beaten Extra 9, but eventually enemies just seemed to stop spawning in any reachable location... so I just decided to go back to the main campaign after that.


The last two stages were an interesting remix of existing assets... where you essentially had to play through Goldman's fortress in reverse with new boss fights at the end. Stage 16 was especially interesting because rather than killing a set number of enemies to trigger the boss fight, you just have to make it to his chambers. The boss fight itself was pretty weird though -- it was almost like he'd randomly heal at times. Super Mode made mincemeat out of that 'roided out Robotnik lookalike though.


Beating the game on Normal unlocks a Hard Mode, but all that does is offer more unlockables. In terms of story progression, I've seen everything there is to see in this game, so I doubt I'll be returning to it any time soon. But for how little time I spent with Samurai Western, pretty much all of it was worthwhile. I'll have to thank my good friend mrEkli for originally nominating the game in the first place... and Hobbes Voltaire for putting it on the bonus list this year. All-in-all, this game is probably the highest 8.5 I've ever given ...whatever that means.


Hey, I just remembered: this means I can finally watch that AboveUp video about the game with a clear conscience. Score!

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