Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword (3DS) Review

Nintendo's Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword is a fun mix between the company's beloved NES sports game, Punch-Out!!, and Square Enix's PlayStation classic, Bushido Blade, minus King Hippo, Doc Louis and the fear of instant death. Despite those disappointing omissions, it's one of the best titles on the 3DS eShop, a cool blend of 3D graphics and old school adventuring.

Set in Samurai era Japan, the game casts you as a young warrior charged with ridding the land of evil while rescuing the kidnapped Princess Cherry Blossom. There's a world map, but you cannot explore freely. Instead, the game ferries you to specific points, which is fine, since swordplay takes center stage.

With each confrontation, Sakura Samurai throws a handful of katana sword and/or spear wielding bad guys, archers and bomb throwing ninjas onto the play field, and you fight each character one at a time, with the goal to survive and earn gold coins. You don't run in slashing like a mad man, since that gets you killed and causes the hero's sword to grow dull; you'll need a whetstone to sharpen it. Instead, you must anticipate an opponent's attack and then side-step, block or quickly strike.

This slow and methodical pace creates a rhythm to the combat that makes one-on-one fights more intense, especially if you intend to accumulate Precision Points from successfully dodging attacks. Take damage, and the counter resets to zero. It's a fun mix of risk versus reward.

Survive an encounter, and you'll move on to the next one or visit one of the game's towns, where you'll interact with a variety of characters, replenish your health and/or save at the inn and use those gold coins (you can trade Precision Points for cash) to purchase useful items, including rice cakes to restore health, frogs that distract soldiers and throwing daggers. In addition, there are a few mini games to play that, similar to the rest of Sakura Samurai, rely on perfect timing to complete.

Meanwhile, beating the game unlocks a Rock Garden that causes cherry blossoms to bloom the more you walk with your 3DS system. There's also an expert mode with enemies that deal more damage, as well as special challenges to complete. Suffice to say, you receive quite a bit of content for $6.99.

What you may not like, though, is the lack of enemy variety (it's the same dudes again and again) and the bland looking environments, which bear a striking resemblance to a PlayStation game for all the wrong reasons.

Conversely, it's a downloadable game, and not a full retail release. Taking this into account, Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword offers five to six hours of enemy chopping, frog tossing fun. That said, we hope we haven't seen the last of this new IP.

Review code provided by Nintendo.