Musashi is summoned as the hero of legend, but he’s not quite up to snuff due to an error in the summoning ritual. That’s like a metaphor for the whole game. So, this girl that summoned Musashi is kidnapped, and you must save her. Along the way, the rest of the villagers must be released from their hiding locations as well as the guardians of the five elemental swords.

Samurai Legend is a hack and slash action game with RPG undertones. It’s very similar to a game like Zelda The Wind Waker. Musashi slices his way through enemies using a simple one-button system. There are some special attacks and magical attacks that can be learned throughout the game, but really only become useful in boss fights. Your special attacks are learned by keeping a lock on your enemy until a gauge fills up. Once the gauge is full and you are struck by the attack, it’s added to your repertoire.

The fighting is really quite stale, and it is all complicated by a poor camera system. At least you can use the right analog stick to adjust the camera, but it’s a lot more work than your actual fights are. The boss fights are where things get really out of control though. Bosses are large and will back you into walls, where you can neither move nor see anything because the camera is somewhere in the wall, the floor, or in Musashi’s head.

Beyond learning moves from your enemies, which is pretty cool, there’s not much more in the way of character advancement. Your other major moves come from the elemental swords, which grant a special power that is useful in both attacking and solving puzzles. The blacksmith can upgrade your katana, but it’s just a power upgrade.

The puzzles are the most disappointing part of Samurai Legend. They’re just not intuitive at all. Often times you can see something that you don’t think you can get to, but you don’t know if it’s just because you can’t figure it out or that you’re not supposed to get there until later. I’ve spent half an hour on a level with non-stop respawns looking for a way out only to finally notice, “Oh, that’s a BUTTON??”

The graphics are an interesting take on cel-shading, with extra bold outlines. It all works pretty well. The graphics are pretty nice overall. The camera is the major issue, but that’s almost to be expected in third person action games anymore. There’s some significant slow down with just a few objects on the screen as well.

Musashi: Samurai Legend is not a bad game by any stretch, but there’s also very little to garner a gamer’s hard-earned money. The story is trite, and the action is like a groggy Sunday morning. Your best bet is to sit this one out.