The holiday season means crunch time for developers on all platforms and this unfortunately leads to games that are rushed to market. This same rule applies even more so to console launches as nearly any title available on release day has a good chance of selling much more than it would have otherwise. Case in point number one is Genji: Days of the Blade, a sequel to a mediocre at best action game that was instantly forgettable on the Playstation 2 and will certainly be flooding eBay the day after launch.


Attack its weak point for massive damage.
The basic mechanics of Genji 2 boil down to mashing buttons furiously until everything on screen is dead. From time to time you’ll be asked to do some horribly broken platform jumping and solve a few archaic puzzles, but for about 95% of the eight hours you’ll be playing Genji 2 you’ll be hacking and slashing. This is actually a rather good thing as the puzzles are hard not because they’re challenging but because the horrible fixed frame Metal Gear Solid style camera obstructs things so much. This camera is so badly placed in some spots that from time to time you’ll be lost wandering around levels because of it.


More action than you can handle!
Though while you are traversing these levels you will have access to a wide variety of weapons and will be able to instantly swap between four different characters. All four characters have different attributes and abilities that lend themselves to tactics in boss fights but you’ll likely be sticking with the main character known as Yoshitsune as he’s the best at clearing out the incoming hordes. You’ll of course switch to the others when your health gets low but other than that rare situation you’ll probably only pull out the rest of the cast when you’re doing some old trial and error on one of the mildly entertaining bosses or to solve a push block A into slot B type puzzle.


So much color.
On the weapon side of things the variety of attacks linked to each one is impressive. Every single weapon has different attacks that let you unleash some fun visuals by executing one attack, dynamically switching to a new weapon, and executing another. What’s problematic though is that not many weapons are that much better than your characters starting weapons so just out of laziness I guess you might not care about getting new ones or switching all that often.