I’m just going to cut straight to the point: if you’re a fan of action games or Afro Samurai then this game isn’t for you. In fact it’s for no-one because I don’t think there’s a single person out there who would genuinely consider this a good game. Everything about this game feels dated from the visuals, to the combat, and even the menu layouts that look like placeholders. It’s honestly kind of fascinating to see a game that not only should have never been released, but functions on all levels worse than the game it’s trying to improve upon.
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma
Developer: Redacted Studios
Price: $15 ($35 for all three volumes)
Platform: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma copy for review
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma is the first chapter in what’s clearly competing to be the worst trilogy of all time. Now the first game wasn’t by all means a great game, a decent one sure, but nothing anyone would consider a classic. Revenge of Kuma on the other hand is a complete shit show of a game and I refuse to believe anyone who worked on this thought this qualified as a polished, finished product. The game feels more dated than a PS2 action game, it’s riddled with technical issues, and the “plot” is a complete joke. The game kicks off right after Kuma is defeated by Afro in the first game and Kuma decides he’s not only going to get revenge on Afro, but gather all the magical headbands and destroy them all. Of course I wouldn’t be surprised if you forgot this was your goal since you spend half the game hearing Kuma shout his dead sister’s name almost constantly and it’s the most aggravating thing ever. The first half of the game is just you slowly inching your way through ten minute levels hearing this character screaming the same name ad nauseum.
The gameplay itself is an even bigger mess than the story. Afro Samurai 2 features one attack button with no combos to perform. For the 1½ – 2 hours this game lasts you will be mindlessly mashing that single button and praying for sweet mercy for the credits to roll. Kuma’s overly enthusiastic movements don’t help matters either since a few taps of the attack button will send you spinning halfway across the room but I just chalked that up to the game itself wanting to stay as far from the combat as possible. You can also counter enemies similarly to the Batman games but the counter button works maybe 10% of the time. Most of the time you’ll hit it (while next to the enemy too) and Kuma just won’t respond or the enemy will clip past you. It just flat-out doesn’t work.
Enemies are just as mindless as the combat with them just sort of swiping at you occasionally and doing almost no damage which I guess is the developer’s way of balancing things out since they’re complete bullet sponges. It’s insane how many hits are required to kill a regular enemy and then the game introduces these later foes who won’t die without a finisher which isn’t made entirely clear. Telling me an enemy is weak against a finisher when you really mean it’s the only way to kill them is some hot bullshit. If there was an achievement for landing 1000 hits on an enemy I would’ve easily gotten it because those guys refuse to die without a finisher move which is an insane design decision considering you can’t use your regular finishers on them, you have to use the special one that has a vague cooldown timer. You don’t even really fight anyone until halfway through the game, instead spending your time crawling around while hearing Kuma scream a lot. The funny part of the combat is how good the music is at getting you amped about the action. The strong hip-hop tracks really instill this confidence in you but when you actually start fighting the broken mechanics instantly ruin the mood the music tried to set. Oh did I mention the game features platforming segments? Don’t even try to imagine how those controls feel because I can guarantee you the end result is much worse.
This game also has the most ridiculous quick-time events I’ve ever seen in a modern game. There are various moments where you’ll need to mash buttons during a scene that goes on for a ridiculously long time. The first boss fight has you mashing buttons to hold onto the boss’ spinning hammer and it goes on for a few minutes. This is a scene where all that’s happening is your character being spun in the same spot over and over while you mash these buttons until the game decides you’ve mashed enough. The first God of War game handled quick-time events so much better than this game. This is just another part of the game that just brings up the question of why these developers thought this was a good idea in a modern day action game. These bad decisions aren’t made because of a low budget, they’re made because of people with bad ideas.
So in some hilarious way of pretending the combat mechanics had some depth to it, you have three combat styles you unlock through the story: Kuma, Master, and Afro. These all practically control the same with the one key difference being that Master style lets you kill every enemy around you instantly with your finisher, Afro lets you dodge over enemies, and Kuma only lets you kill a single enemy with your finisher but also has a rage mode that randomly triggers. All three of these styles have their own skill tree that you will easily max out before you finish the game which really makes me wonder what the point is in it at all. I ended the game with maybe a dozen extra points I had nowhere to invest and how you earn points is never made clear. I wouldn’t be fighting enemies and I’d be suddenly gaining skill points. The game states that you earn points by fighting with specific styles which implies you’d level up each style by using it but that’s immediately contradicted by the game itself when you earn points for doing nothing and can invest those points in whichever style you want. The trees are filled with health, power, and speed upgrades but I never really noticed the difference between having no points put into power and having all the power slots unlocked. As if this whole system wasn’t already a big enough joke, you technically can’t max out the trees since the final skill in each tree is locked until volume two is released.
Because it wasn’t enough for this game to just be plain old bad, it’s also broken as hell too. This game is infested with bugs such as the audio cutting in and out at clearly wrong points, game crashes, weird hit detection, tons of clipping, bugged set pieces, and multiple times I got stuck on parts of the environment requiring a checkpoint restart. The sound balance is off as well with some characters speaking normally and then suddenly the volume will skyrocket only to tone back down for no reason during normal conversations. I honestly felt genuine concern for anyone playing this with headphones. The frame-rate is the biggest issue here though with the game playing at a broken frame-rate throughout the entire ride. I even captured some footage of a few fights just to show you how bad it gets. Once again, I’d like to stress that it isn’t the video that’s stuttering but the game.
The Final Word
I’ve played some pretty bad games in my life but I can say without a doubt that Revenge of Kuma is easily one of, if not the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing. This is a clearly unfinished, hot mess of a game that leaves a dirty stain on a great series.
– MonsterVine Rating: 1 out of 5 – Abysmal
