Soul of the Samurai
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Soul of the Samurai, otherwise known as Ronin Blade, is a part survival horror part hack and slash adventure from Konami for the PlayStation. From the start you choose to be either a young male ronin or a teenage girl ninja. From then on you travel through prerendered levels, killing enemies and fulfilling your mission. The game has a high level of difficulty.
Characters
Kotaro Hiba
Kotaro is a trained samurai who travels Japan, a ronin. Not much is known about his roots, other than he grew up in a dojo with a boy called Yukinosuke, training in the ways of Japanese swordsmanship. Both were apparently raised by their 'master', and Kotaro reveals his parents have already died. Yukinosuke reveals, that when growing up, they were both of equal skill, with neither ever able to clearly defeat the other in sparring contests. Kotaro left suddenly one day, after his parents died. He has a laid back attitude to life and does not sit in the traditional seiza sitting position in the dojo.
Lin
Lin is a ninja who was orphaned as a child. Both her brother, Shin and her were taken in by a ninja clan and trained in the art of ninjutsu until they were strong enough and skilled enough to carry out missions. She resents the 'kid' image Kotaro uses on her, despite her youth.
Yukinosuke
Yukinosuke is Kotaro's childhood friend. Along with Kotaro he trained under his 'master' in kenjutsu, and could not best Kotaro, although Kotaro could not beat him either. He secretly harbours a deep feeling of resentment towards this fact, and strives for a way to defeat Kotaro (though not to kill him). Some time after Kotaro left, he turned to Lord Tohjo and he gave hima soul bug, giving him more power. Despite this, the sould bug has not deformed him like other hosts, and he despises the soul bug.
Lord Tohjo
Lord Tohjo is the ruler of the village's fiefdom. He has contacted Urabe and enlisted his help to create 'Soul Bugs' for him. He is a master is Sojutsu (Japanese spear art) and possibly Jukendo. Tohjo has unnatual power, and can heal himself using magic.
Combat
The combat system is quite detailed, and will take a while to get used to. However, when mastered, it is incredibly easy for Lin and Kotaro to dispatch multiple enemies quickly from different directions, while simultaneously avoiding the enemies thrusts and swipes. There is a single attack button, but when combined with different directional buttons pressed in different combinations and held down for various intervals. There are different attack speeds which correlate to the weight of the equipped weapon, and this is displayed on the swords 'check' window. Also diplayed is the sword's length and sharpness, and a brief description of the blade.
Sword Sharpness Qualities
Dull- Both Lin and Kotaro start out with a sword that is Dull, and it wil take many strikes to kill most enemies.
Ordinary- An Ordinary sword will take 3-4 strikes to kill stronger enemies.
