Samurai Girl inherits numerous trappings from its overhead-view cousins in the Action RPG genre, including equipment management, player-allocated Level Up points that shape the protagonist’s stats over time, and quest progress lists. Worth a particular shout-out is its minimap, which gives away enemy positions and quest-critical NPCs outside the player’s immediate range of view. A quick tap expands it into a wider area map that serves as a much needed aid in navigating Hikaru’s giant compartmentalized world. As in Gamevil’s Illusia, travel from one area to the next is accomplished via teleporters lying in one corner or another of the current area; thankfully an onscreen arrow lets the player know which of these Hikaru should be climbing or dashing toward to complete the current story quest. Sadly, Hikaru can warp from town to town but must make the long treks to boss-holding dungeons on foot — and re-make those journeys should the player lack revival potions when she falls in battle.
I found Samurai Girl‘s controls very reliable as far as Action RPG interfaces go. Its various virtual buttons appear a bit on the small side but they’re well spaced and have sufficiently large activation areas; the greater concern for most players will be the order in which they’re arranged, with the regular attack button proving a bit counterintuitive for action game vets weaned on consoles. The game’s movement control does something interesting in combining a virtual D-pad with a virtual joystick, and this works well except for the fact that the entire thing could stand to be a tad larger — in a game with this much fast-paced action the player is bound to get flustered from time to time, and on these occasions the player’s thumb easily slips from its relatively tight activation area.
One area in which Samurai Girl clearly lags behind its competitor Illusia is its aesthetic presentation. Whereas Illusia‘s environments are lush and varied, Samurai Girl‘s tend toward drab palettes; on the other hand, some very impressive and varied sprite work shows up in the game’s enemies and bosses. Hikaru’s appearance doesn’t evolve with new equipment but the game more than makes up for it with her wide range of combat animations. Players will probably regard Samurai Girl‘s music neutrally, as it consists of the short clips we’ve grudgingly come to expect from ported titles. The player can play external music by silencing its BGM in the options menu, saving, and reloading the game after an iDevice re-start though.
A veritable ton of bosses populate the list of goons Hikaru must cut down, so her quest can easily be counted on for fifteen to twenty hours’ worth of gameplay. Towns give the player access to a minigame that makes use of the combat system’s juggling physics, rewarding the player for knocking enemies off a cliff. This is best attempted starting about halfway through the game; as with the familiar system, its rewards are high-hanging fruit. Samurai Girl contains In App Purchases in which real-world cash can be exchanged for in-game currency, but better to let all that phoenix raising break your in-game bank and not your real-world one, eh?
iFanzine Verdict: It may not bring much new to the table in its capacity as an RPG but Samurai Girl triumphs as a sidescrolling action game on iOS. Its deep yet generally fast-paced combat system will have console game veterans waxing nostalgic for the heyday of classic sidescrollers, and if updates can capitalize on its already present strengths, it is well within reach of classic status itself. Highly recommended for Action RPG fans yearning for a little more “action” than the genre has been seeing until now, and especially to anyone on the lookout for a console-style action sidescroller.
[xrr rating=4/5]
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