Who needs a gun when you have a katana?
They say that the way of the warrior is to seek death...
Samurai Western is a 2005 Hack and Slash action game made by Acquire Entertainment for the PlayStation 2, one which is a Western... starring a badass samurai. Obviously.
Taking cues from Yojimbo and its quasi-remake, A Fistful of Dollars, Samurai Western blends the storyline of both films into an East-meet-West type of setting, where the player is a badass katana-wielding samurai wandering into a Western town in 1800s America filled with hostile bandidos.
Gojiro Kiryu is a wandering samurai on the trail of his brother, Rando, whom had fled Japan to the West. Learning that Rando had escaped into a dusty Western town, Gojiro decides to seek his answers there only to find out the town is ruled by a corrupted land tycoon named Goldberg and his army of thugs. And thus like every samurai, Gojiro draws his trusty katana and slaughters his way out.
So it was in the West, where Gojiro sets off on a great journey...
- Acrofatic: Donald, an overweight African-American gunslinger who can move pretty fast despite his bulging belly (that jiggles every time he moves during gameplay). He can even perform a Rolling Attack that knocks Gojiro off the ground during his boss fight.
- Bar Brawl: Two stages are set in a bar, where Gojiro tries seeking answers... only for Goldberg's mooks to suddenly appear. Cue intense brawl where Gojiro can fling the bar's stools and tables into enemies. The second of these even has a Dual Boss, Killer and Nathan.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Donald looks and acts the part of the Fat Comic Relief, but his boss fight shows that he's pretty quick on his feet and can use his weight to his advantage quite well.
- Big Bad: Goldberg the tycoon, whose private army enslaved the entire town. He's no slouch as the Final Boss either.
- Bullying a Dragon: In his first cutscene, Gojiro walking into the deserted streets have him confronted by three of Goldberg's mooks. Who tries taunting Gojiro for being a stranger in town, until they realize they're facing a badass samurai One-Man Army.Thug 1: Hmmph! I bet I can make you talk! Eat lead!
[shoots a few bullets at Gojiro, only for Gojiro to deflect his shot via katana almost effortlessly]
Thug 2: ...whoa? You think you... you can beat us with that overgrown knife?
Thug 3: Let's get 'im boys!
[cue Gojiro painting the town red with their blood and intestines with his katana] - Cain and Abel: Gojiro and Rando Kiryu, the former being a heroic samurai hunting for the latter who betrayed their clan and fled to America.
- Clark Kent Outfit: Goldberg looks cartoonishly stout and rotund for most of the game. Then he takes off his suit for the final battle, revealing that he is positively jacked underneath.
- The Corruptor: It was Goldberg who is responsible for Rando fleeing to the West, as he had broken Rando's spirit by defeating him. Goldberg tries to push Rando further into forsaking all his principles and is positively livid when Gojiro manages to get through to his brother.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: While Gojiro himself have some serious skills with his katana, the opening cutscene depicts him facing off a few dozen gunmen, firearms (some automatic) trained at him, which they fire full-auto. Gojiro then shows off some flashy blade moves, and somehow deflects all two hundred bullets out of the air in two seconds. He's nowhere that invincible during gameplay.
- Depraved Dwarf: Killer and Nathan are a pair of bloodthirsty little people who oversee Goldberg's slaves and act as a Dual Boss.
- Dual Boss: Killer and Nathan, a pair of quick-moving dwarves that bounces all over the place and tries attacking Gojiro from both sides during their boss battle.
- Dual Wielding: As the stages progress, Gojiro can upgrade his equipment so that he's holding a second weapon besides his default katana (a tanto, or another katana). To help him slice up twice the number of mooks, twice as fast.
- Facial Horror: "Faceless" is rather aptly named, considering what we can see behind his mask is nothing but horribly burnt flesh. He also seems to have no lips.
- Faux Affably Evil: Goldberg and Jean try to sound like gentlemen, but their words do very little to hide the fact that they're power-hungry thugs. In the case with Goldberg, he tries to assure Gojiro that he's a reasonable man while openly calling Gojiro's race inferior.
- Feet-First Introduction: Gojiro is introduced stepping into the screen in the intro. Then the camera pans outwards to reveal him facing off some mooks.
- Flash Step:
- Gojiro repeatedly does this to sidestep bullets, achieved by hitting the jump and slash button together. He even leaves behind a translucent afterimage of himself!
- Faceless has the ability to slide across the boss arena without even moving his legs, an ability he repeatedly displays while shooting at Gojiro. The only way to damage him in both his boss fights is stunning him and slice him apart before he recovers.
- French Jerk: Jean is Goldberg's arrogant enforcer and appears to be French judging by his name and accent.
- Genre Refugee: Besides the story being about a samurai wandering into a Western, there's also Donald, who acts like a Blaxploitation character complete with mild Jive Turkey and a Funny Afro.
- Gorn: Twice with every onscreen kill. The amount of blood spilled in this game can create a small river.
- Guns Are Worthless: Absolutely - should Gojiro suffer any hits from bullets, he'll suffer a fraction of health loss, which he shrugs off almost instantly before he resumes kicking ass. Shotguns can knock him over and do slightly more damage, while automatic weapons can stun him until he jumps aside, but they still pales compared to his katana that kills enemies in a handful of slices.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: One of the Finishing Move Gojiro can execute, which divides a mook diagonally. With glorious amounts of accompanying red.
- High-Pressure Blood: Expect entire geysers of blood to come with each onscreen kill scored by Gojiro. Sometimes mooks can spray the wonderful red stuff for a mile as they stagger a bit before keeling over in death.
- Human Shield: The grab move allows Gojiro to use nearby mooks as meatshields.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Slain outlaws can sometimes drop steak, beer or assorted food. Which Gojiro can collect to boost his health. Somehow a drumstick can undo the damage of being hit by a dozen bullets.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: In one of his opening monologues, Goldberg claims to be an open-minded man before immediately calling Gojiro's race "inferior".
- Informed Ability: Rando's struggles for most of the game come from Goldberg defeating him using a gun, and a point is made about how Japan is behind the times and runs the risk of falling to this advancement in weaponry. However, in gameplay and cutscenes, it's repeatedly shown that Guns Are Worthless, with Gojiro cutting through swathes of gunmen with little trouble.
- Loophole Abuse: In the third and last battle against Jean, the villain challenged Gojiro to take him down once and for all, in a personal duel in the dawn, mano-on-mano. Gojiro answers the challenge, and finds Jean in the middle of the hills... before a dozen mooks suddenly appears from all sides. Jean's answer?Jean: Please don't think me as a coward. After all, this is a duel between you and my entire organization. So it's only fair...
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: During his boss fight, Goldberg uses a bladed gauntlet that can fire out more blades.
- Ms. Fanservice: The barmaid, Claudia
, is a stacked blonde with plenty of cleavage in both the front and back of her dress. - Never Bareheaded: Besides weapons, Gojiro can upgrade his appearance to give himself fedoras, sombreros, masks and other accessories. These stays on regardless the amount of fighting, running, jumping and fighting he performs.
- Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Most of the lower-ranked outlaws have firearms, and they still get slaughtered in droves by Gojiro who uses a katana.
- Parrying Bullets: Gojiro can deflect bullets with his katana repeatedly during gameplay, and in fact demonstrates this ability right in the opening FMV. Though the opening is massively exeggerated where he deflects at least two hundred shots within seconds.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Goldberg sees Gojiro as a backwards barbarian and calls him one openly. Though he also employs his brother Rando, and Jean for their skills.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Goldberg is quite openly racist, but he still employs various minorities such as Rando and Jean for their fighting skills.
- Recurring Boss: Jean needs to be defeated thrice in the game, the first time alone while flanked by mooks on the second and third. Faceless is fought twice.
- Samurai Cowboy: Well, no doy. Gojiro himself is a samurai in a Western setting, on the trail of his brother Rando, who also qualifies, albeit as an antagonistic example. Unlike most examples, Gojiro never takes up a gun, though Rando does.
- Scary Black Man: Jean, the dragon to Goldberg, a muscular, balding French-African brute who repeatedly attacks Gojiro with a gatling gun.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Jean's gear includes a human skull as a shoulderpad.
- Surprisingly Good Foreign Language: Though still obviously accented, both Gojiro and Rando's voice actors not only sound comprehensible when speaking English but get the emotional intonations down.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Overweight short mooks who carries barrels on their backs specializes in throwing explosives, which they have an unlimited supply of.
- Villainous Breakdown: Goldberg drops all politeness after Gojiro defeats Rando and undoes Goldberg's corrupting influence, openly insulting Rando's last moments in front of his brother and fully expressing his contempt for Gojiro and Rando's race.
- "Wanted!" Poster: In the game's end credits, the VA for all characters - Gojiro, Rando, Jean, everyone - are depicted as wanted posters.
- Would Hit a Girl: The fourth stage, "The Dying", begins with a cutscene of Goldberg's mooks brutally hitting an unarmed Anne Barret and throwing her to the ground while she begs for help, for shits and giggles. Gojiro then interrupts them in a Big Damn Heroes moment - cue the level starting.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Donald initially believes himself to be the protagonist of a traditional Western, a newcomer given the position of sheriff who has to prove himself against a great evil threatening the town. What he doesn't realize at first is that his employer, Goldberg, is the great evil, while the man he was told was the threat, Gojiro, is actually the hero. Donald is quickly set straight after he finds out about the townspeople Goldberg has enslaved.
