Song Samurai Reviews

I really don't like discouraging small VR developers because I want more games, but this one just doesn't cut it. The idea is that it uses your music library to generate the rhythm components, but at best it's just using the tempo to generate the volume of orbs. It really doesn't feel like it has anything to do with your song choice. It also doesn't come with any pre-loaded music. I know the developers didn't want to license any music, but you at least needs a tutorial song because as it is right now you start the game up for the first time, then have to immediately take off your headset to move music into the correct directory. I could live with it if those were the only issues, but it's not at all. Compared to so many other VR experiences out there, including free ones, it doesn't look great. And the hit detection on the swords is terrible. I sliced my sword through many orbs that seemed to ignore it completely and I had the best luck trying to poke at them with the tips. Overall, the control schemes need a lot of work and need to be much more accurate (just navigating through the instructions is annoying). Nothing is intuitive and you can't move around at all without moving in the physical world. It's cheap and seemed like an interesting idea so I gave it a try, but unfortunately Sword Samurai needs a lot more polish to be worth playing.

I come from a DDR background. I also have enjoyed plenty of music related games. The idea of putting these into this setting, and in VR no less, intrigued me. Once it came out, I saw the price and couldn't pass it up. I will say, it is simple in its design, to which there is room for improvement. For example, the system for picking your song is hard to use, and using the scroll bar on the side doesn't always work for me. Also, I can't seem to get the special to work after getting the swords to glow, but that may be because I'm playing it on an Oculus instead of the vive. and finally, I can't quite figure out how it senses music. Some songs I think will be extremelyt hard (Through the Fire and Flames for instance), aren't, and vice versa. All that aside, I still will give this a thumbs up, because when it comes to actual gameplay, it's a blast! Me and my son have been playing with it for a little bit now, and it's quite the workout as well. Although, like my kid, you can play this by just swinging your swords around wildly an do pretty good, the idea of being able to "slice" through multiple blasts at once, and do it intentionally, is quite rewarding. edit: There has been an update, and the problems of scrolling through the music, as well as not being able to fire the special, have been fixed. The UI where you pick your songs has improved as well.