Games worth discovering

Felines and Frogs Throw Down in the Land of the Rising Sun – Neko Samurai Review

1K View2022-10-11

I’ve always had an affinity for samurais and ninjas, and for Japanese culture in general, truth be told. If you put a samurai and/or a ninja in any form of media, I’ll most probably watch/ buy/read/ play it. But if you make your samurai a cat and your ninjas frogs, well, that’s just something I have a MIGHTY NEED to check out.

If you are a Japanophile like me, you don’t need to look any further than Neko Samurai, from developer Bit Egg, Inc. to get your cat samurai and frog ninja fix. It’s an arcade-y, hack-and-slash affair that adds an exciting and comedic piece to the casual mobile gaming arena. You play as Nyanjuro, a cat samurai (“Neko” is Japanese for “cat,” after all) defending the land from evil ninja frogs who want to slay him. The narrative isn’t developed beyond that, and for a casual game like this, it’s not really necessary.

The entire point of Neko Samurai is to eliminate as many ninja frogs as possible and keep your catself from being stabbed more than three times. At first, these frogs charge you with giant swords, and with precision and strategic timing, you must strike them down. Each frog you slice and dice gives you a point, but if you hack them with perfect timing, you get two points. Once you reach 110 points, the ninja frogs will start throwing shurikens at you that you must then deflect back at them. The higher your score grows, the more challenging the game becomes. Frogs charge at you faster, come at you from both directions, and sometimes pause in-between onslaughts to mess with the rhythm of your attacks.

Every now and again, pots of health will be thrown your way by your assistant, and they must be smashed open to heal your catself. If you miss the pot and it hits you, it reduces your health bar/heart meter by one rather than upping it by one. This fast-paced, “endless slasher” gameplay in Neko Samurai is quite entertaining and ramps up its difficulty at a rapid clip, so you’d better be on your paws.

As you cleave the frogs in twain, you gather in-game currency that can be used to purchase various types of katanas to help you on your journey and other random skills. Katanas offer different abilities like shields or slowing down the amphibian enemies, while the passive skills on offer help gather more gold or provide you extra opportunities to regain health.

Neko Samurai is free-to-play—aside from the occasional opportunity to watch ads for extra coins or extra lives during battle. It’s a game that challenges players to continually beat their own high scores. Although this can be fun for a lot of casual gamers, it became old hat for me rather quickly. After playing Neko Samurai for a couple hours, I felt I had seen just about everything it had to offer. The progression offered by purchasing new katanas, backgrounds, and abilities pulled me in at first. However, since there is such a small selection, this didn’t hold my attention for long. The challenging but redundant gameplay wasn’t enough to keep me slashing away for more than a couple hours. Perhaps if the game offered a wider variety of cosmetics, weapons, or even a boss fight, it would have held sway over my phone for longer.

That being said, I believe Neko Samurai has a ton of potential if developer Bit Egg ever decides to revisit the concept for new versions or sequels. The gameplay is alluring, the characters are memorable, and the hand-drawn animations look fantastic...it just commits seppuku when it comes to the amount of actual content the game offers.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Dead Cells. Give Neko Samurai a gander if Motion Twin’s hack-and-slash roguelike tickles your gaming fancy.

• Castlevainia: Grimoire of Souls. Neko Samurai may not be a classic like Konami’s long-running monster slaying series, but it has its own animalistic charms to be sure.

💬Have you played Neko Samurai? Let us know what you think of it in the comments! Even if you haven't played it, leave a comment sharing your thoughts on your favorite hack-and-slash games!

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