Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time

Genre: Spectacle Fighter

Players: 1

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Review:

Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a Spectacle Fighter released in 2020 on PC, mobile devices, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Taking place during the final episode of the animated television series, Battle Through Time sends Jack on a detour during his final trip back in time to defeat the villainous Aku, having Jack fight in a “time outside of time”, consisting of characters and places from throughout his journeys.

What this contrived story means is that this game’s story is technically canon to the franchise, but in a way that has little bearing on the plot of the series itself. However, those who haven’t watched through the Samurai Jack series in its entirety will still find this game’s story to be filled with spoilers, so if you have not yet watched through the full show, you may want to do that first (and I recommend it – the animated series is quite good).

In one way, Battle Through Time is very faithful to the franchise that spawned it, bringing back pretty much the entire voice cast of the show (including archival clips from the late, great Mako, and getting Greg Baldwin to voice new dialogue for the character of Aku), as well as writers for the series. Having said that, these writers and voice actors can only do so much when everything feels like it’s agonizingly bent over backwards to work as a videogame.

The other half of the presentation, the visuals, unfortunately fares worse. While I understand the desire to create a 3D game in the Samurai Jack world, surely a simple cel-shaded style would have better fit the simple animation style of the TV show this game is derived from? Unfortunately, this is not the route this game took, instead opting for odd, artificial-looking 3D characters in some truly ugly 3D settings. I suppose at the very least this game’s visuals work well enough on a technical level, but this feels like a far cry from the elegant artistry of the series.

At the very least the Spectacle Fighter gameplay works well enough, though that’s not to say it’s especially great or even noteworthy within the genre. Bayonetta and Devil May Cry this most certainly is not, as Jack’s combat moves are clunky and combat overall feels limited and too repetitive. This is not to say that it’s outright bad – fans of the show may still get a kick out of this, but I have trouble seeing many players engaging with this game without the license.

There are other problems too – there are far too many different types of currencies and gauges for me to keep track of here, and I have to think younger kids will feel completely lost with all this. Furthermore, the challenge level is a bit too high for young kids, which seems odd to me as I would have assumed that would be a prime target audience for this game.

In the end, I think fans of the Samurai Jack franchise will still likely find this game to be a good time, but it’s definitely not a great one. It’s ugly, with clunky combat, and as much as you can tell that love was put into this game to try and make it faithful to the TV show, that love is counter-balanced by some design choices that simply don’t work well with this franchise or its story. Definitely a mixed bag.

tl;dr – Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a Spectacle Fighter that sends the titular hero on a time-travelling diversion that takes place during the final episode of the TV series. While there has clearly been some care given to making this game faithful to the series, there are also sadly some poor design choices and clunky combat that make this feel like less than the celebration of the franchise it wants to be. Samurai Jack fans may still enjoy it, but those who don’t follow the franchise won’t be missing much by skipping this.

Grade: C

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