As I have promised my friend MOJI to write a review for SM a while back, so here I am. Despite usually, I don’t write a review for a game if itself is caught between good and bad these days, I’d only make a review either the game’s extremely enjoyable or horrible to play, there’s no between. If the game’s content is too subjective, recommendation would also be hard to evaluate.

To sum up, the mixed reviews on the game’s store page is very accurate. SM has its charms along with some hard to ignore problems.

Good Part
Gorgeous art, not too much to explain
Excellent voice acting, 4 girls, 4 total different personalities, VAs have managed to make them sound real enough
Light humor between girls, if you’re into girls’ himitsu’, those sort of things. The writings is kinda fun.
No bugs, like zero

Bad part
Horrible level design, repetitive like a hell. You often need to speed run a level to reach the highest score once. Then do it agin for objectives like killing certain number of enemies, finding hidden treasues within the level for other gold ratings & achievements. The dumb part is, minions are only continuously summoned around elite creatures or bosses. In order to kill enough enemies, you’re forced not to kill these monsters until you have enough kills. But these bad guys aren’t there for the show, their attack value are high, sounds like a challenge to do? In reality, not as romantic as it sounds. There are 27 levels in the main story, 3 different difficulties across all of them, not to mention 15 bubble pockets levels for characters which are extra stages. So you’re not doing this just a few times, it's a large number. Now you can imagine how tedious the gameplay is.

The level designs are pretty much forced you grinding, in order to farm materials for weapon upgrades while doing these gold ratings. If you have no interest to do so, the later stage’s enemies would be too powerful to beat.

Battle, the control is clunky. The auto lock up an enemy’ has issues. Boss battles are the worst. When there are too many enemies around, the aim of the locker isn’t accurate enough to focus on whom you want to attack, it sometimes switches automatically for whom you facing in front of you. It's pretty useless again mankind bosses, when you're too far away from the boss, you lose focus. If boss does jump attack, you lose focus again. It's horrible.

My advice: if you’re looking for an anime ARPG similar to this game to play, I’d suggest play Scarlet Nexus, Tales of Arise, Samurai Warrior 5 Onee Chanbara Origin or Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars instead, because all of them did way better in terms of an ARPG or H&S genre. Gameplay wise speaking, Samurai Maiden isn’t a good showcase at all here. Unless you’ve done all these 5, and still interested in SM, then considering buying it when the price is right for you. Full price is still too high for the value SM offers from my perspective.
After all, game isn’t an anime or movie, if it’s not fun to play, art style can’t cover all the cost you’ve spent on it, this is the vital problem of this game.


*Some side note I just want to add: I like the concept of anime girls, maybe it’s not my place to say this, but ARPGs or H&S genres might be popular these days, they’re not some kind of fancy genre without flaws. They have two major problems: One, there’re too many in the market these years. Just 2022 alone, I’ve completed 47 games, 30+ were ARPGs, I can pretty much call myself a master of this genre, but even it’s me, after a year’s ‘training’ like this, I get very tired, and prefer to play other genres with the same concept instead of ARPGs if possible. Two, it’s not a genre that easily can be made by anyone or any group. A good one is nothing short of a hard achievement. Despite I am not a professional video game developer, however, from a player’s end, I know what a great ARPG is when I played one. If we talk about japan only, all the real good ones almost all coming from companies who have the traditions and years of history of making them. E.g Bandai Namco, Capcom, Koei Tecmo. It took Square years’ effort transforming from a turn based on rpg maker to an ARPG developer. If you consider Nier Automata not a story-driving game but an ARPG, it would be another problematic unfinished product. FFVIIRI is still considered being a semi-arpg for many occasions. Lately FFVII CCR is good enough as a true ARPG like FF XV have done, but look at how many years Square has been spending on developing this genre alone? If we talk about outside of Japan, why Batman Arkham series are so positively received as an ARPG? Because the combat moves are very accurate, you never miss a hit because the lock system ‘accidentally ‘ locked the wrong target; moves connected to each other flawlessly resulting the entire combo flow can go as long as you like if you don’t make mistake yourself. Why Marvel’s Spider-Man is overwhelming rated? Pretty much for the same reason.

You want a game with anime girls? Nice. In Sengoku era? No problem. But does it have to be an ARPG? From the product we’ve brought and played, the answer is really not so. You know, Yakuza Like a dragon abandoned ARPG tradition, went to a turn based on combat style, it doesn’t stop it becoming a critically claimed title for once more. SM could have be much better game if it were a pure VN. It has gorgeous art, brilliant VAs, interesting story, but not the action part.

As I have promised my friend MOJI to write a review for SM a while back, so here I am. Despite usually, I don’t write a review for a game if itself is caught between good and bad these days, I’d only make a review either the game’s extremely enjoyable or horrible to play, there’s no between. If the game’s content is too subjective, recommendation would also be hard to evaluate. To sum up, the mixed reviews on the game’s store page is very accurate. SM has its charms along with some hard to ignore problems. Good Part Gorgeous art, not too much to explain Excellent voice acting, 4 girls, 4 total different personalities, VAs have managed to make them sound real enough Light humor between girls, if you’re into girls’ himitsu’, those sort of things. The writings is kinda fun. No bugs, like zero Bad part Horrible level design, repetitive like a hell. You often need to speed run a level to reach the highest score once. Then do it agin for objectives like killing certain number of enemies, finding hidden treasues within the level for other gold ratings & achievements. The dumb part is, minions are only continuously summoned around elite creatures or bosses. In order to kill enough enemies, you’re forced not to kill these monsters until you have enough kills. But these bad guys aren’t there for the show, their attack value are high, sounds like a challenge to do? In reality, not as romantic as it sounds. There are 27 levels in the main story, 3 different difficulties across all of them, not to mention 15 bubble pockets levels for characters which are extra stages. So you’re not doing this just a few times, it's a large number. Now you can imagine how tedious the gameplay is. The level designs are pretty much forced you grinding, in order to farm materials for weapon upgrades while doing these gold ratings. If you have no interest to do so, the later stage’s enemies would be too powerful to beat. Battle, the control is clunky. The auto lock up an enemy’ has issues. Boss battles are the worst. When there are too many enemies around, the aim of the locker isn’t accurate enough to focus on whom you want to attack, it sometimes switches automatically for whom you facing in front of you. It's pretty useless again mankind bosses, when you're too far away from the boss, you lose focus. If boss does jump attack, you lose focus again. It's horrible. My advice: if you’re looking for an anime ARPG similar to this game to play, I’d suggest play Scarlet Nexus, Tales of Arise, Samurai Warrior 5 Onee Chanbara Origin or Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars instead, because all of them did way better in terms of an ARPG or H&S genre. Gameplay wise speaking, Samurai Maiden isn’t a good showcase at all here. Unless you’ve done all these 5, and still interested in SM, then considering buying it when the price is right for you. Full price is still too high for the value SM offers from my perspective. After all, game isn’t an anime or movie, if it’s not fun to play, art style can’t cover all the cost you’ve spent on it, this is the vital problem of this game. *Some side note I just want to add: I like the concept of anime girls, maybe it’s not my place to say this, but ARPGs or H&S genres might be popular these days, they’re not some kind of fancy genre without flaws. They have two major problems: One, there’re too many in the market these years. Just 2022 alone, I’ve completed 47 games, 30+ were ARPGs, I can pretty much call myself a master of this genre, but even it’s me, after a year’s ‘training’ like this, I get very tired, and prefer to play other genres with the same concept instead of ARPGs if possible. Two, it’s not a genre that easily can be made by anyone or any group. A good one is nothing short of a hard achievement. Despite I am not a professional video game developer, however, from a player’s end, I know what a great ARPG is when I played one. If we talk about japan only, all the real good ones almost all coming from companies who have the traditions and years of history of making them. E.g Bandai Namco, Capcom, Koei Tecmo. It took Square years’ effort transforming from a turn based on rpg maker to an ARPG developer. If you consider Nier Automata not a story-driving game but an ARPG, it would be another problematic unfinished product. FFVIIRI is still considered being a semi-arpg for many occasions. Lately FFVII CCR is good enough as a true ARPG like FF XV have done, but look at how many years Square has been spending on developing this genre alone? If we talk about outside of Japan, why Batman Arkham series are so positively received as an ARPG? Because the combat moves are very accurate, you never miss a hit because the lock system ‘accidentally ‘ locked the wrong target; moves connected to each other flawlessly resulting the entire combo flow can go as long as you like if you don’t make mistake yourself. Why Marvel’s Spider-Man is overwhelming rated? Pretty much for the same reason. You want a game with anime girls? Nice. In Sengoku era? No problem. But does it have to be an ARPG? From the product we’ve brought and played, the answer is really not so. You know, Yakuza Like a dragon abandoned ARPG tradition, went to a turn based on combat style, it doesn’t stop it becoming a critically claimed title for once more. SM could have be much better game if it were a pure VN. It has gorgeous art, brilliant VAs, interesting story, but not the action part.