First Samurai (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
141A playthrough of Kemco's 1993 platformer for the Super NES, First Samurai.
This game is soooo freakin' odd. You're Japan's first samurai who goes to avenge his teacher's death after the King of Demons does him in. The King is chased into the future by a floating head that helps you use magic, and then you have to follow the bad guy in a time-travelling space train and "time elevator". Seriously.
It's actually based on an Amiga game, and though there were some major changes, the SNES version of it remains quite a good game, and much improved in some ways. It's faster, and the sound, though the instrument and voice samples are lower in quality, is a big upgrade to the original thanks to the SNES's 8 sound channels over the Amiga's 4. You still have the crazy digital effects (like when it sings "Hallelujah!" when you find a basket of food or some treasure, or how hitting certain enemies and items causes the game to play extremely loud and hysterically out-of-place orchestra hits, sometimes in scales), and the game now has music in the background. The port is Kemco's, after all, and all of their SNES games sounded great. Top Gear, anyone? Or Phalanx? Dragon View?
The controls are also way better because of the SNES controller, even though the Amiga version worked impossibly well for using just a single button.
The game itself is fun and not too complicated, and though it keeps the challenge on the tame side, it's an incredibly amusing spectacle. I find it a lot of fun, though your mileage may depend on your ability to enjoy its sheer tackiness.
If you aren't sure, just look at the box art. I never thought I'd say this, ever, but the hot pink color scheme is the least of its offenses. Tbh I love the box art for how unbelievably awful it is, but WTF? Were they trying to sabotage its sales? Why would anyone choose this? Even Rival Turf had a better box than this!
I know I'd pick First Samurai over Rival Turf going solely off the boxes. But then, I also wanted Kemco's space shooter Phalanx, not because it was good, nor because the music was awesome - no. I wanted it because I loved that the cover was a guy playing a banjo. So, they had me - but I can't imagine that these covers ever elicited any actual interest from people shopping at Macy's or Montgomery Ward's beyond the initial bemused "what the hell?" facial expression they may have cast when they saw it on the shelf, only to totally forget about it two seconds later.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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