Samurai Maiden Reviews
If it was a budget title, Samurai Maiden might be worth someone's time as a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, it's not.
SAMURAI MAIDEN mixes two completely opposite genres (action and visual novel) and fails to excel in either one. It is a weak, boring game with awful graphics, bad music, unresponsive controls and a monotonous story. The character models are very nice and the action is a little pleasing after evolving a lot and unlocking different moves, but it's not worth it.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Very little about Samurai Maiden makes the game appealing. When you combine overtly simplified and imbalanced combat with slow attacks, fast enemies, and an incredibly humdrum storyline, a bad time is unavoidable. Unless you want something with mindless anime girls and half-baked gameplay, Samurai Maiden is not the game for you.
Simple and to the point with its yuri-flavoured storyline and trappings: That's Samurai Maiden in a nutshell. It's also quite a chore to play, as you can only get the best skills and powerups through grinding for relationship points with the three ninjas. And that means replaying the same levels over and over ad nauseam
Every time you use your partners’ skills, your relationship with them rises. They're pleasantly designed in a way that means you don't have ton rely on them, acting more as stun mechanics. In addition, these attacks help mask the game's numerous frame rate dips. Sadly, these drops, alongside your main character's stiff attacks, make Samurai Maiden's encounters much more frustrating than they should be.
Samurai Maiden would have been a fun and satisfying RPG if its several stark issues didn't hinder the experience so significantly.
An Exercise in apathy, neither solid nor liquid. Not exactly bad, but not very good either. Just a bit 'meh,' really.
Samurai Maiden’s action may feel generic and its story is lacking but some great characters and interactions help make this anime action game at least a bit enjoyable.
Despite some clunkiness in its controls and camera, along with a surface-level narrative, "Samurai Maiden" knows exactly what it is and what it's trying to do.
There's no denying that Samurai Maiden manages to deliver on its flagship role: an accessible hack and slash featuring beautiful anime-style schoolgirls, ninjas, and samurai. In fact, it even goes further, bringing some good qualities to players in general, such as challenging fights and interesting content. Unfortunately, a half-assed technical production and lack of focus on important elements leave the recommendation limited only to ardent fans of what it really has to offer.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Devotees of yuri, musou, or anime visual novels might find something to enjoy in Samurai Maiden. Aside from its genre trappings, fans of action RPGs won’t be impressed. The game’s combat is simply too frustrating, repetitive, and janky. Samurai Maiden doesn’t take any chances. The result is an overpriced, low-budget game with tepid combat bound to a collection of familiar genre tropes.
Samurai Maiden, in terms of content and action, is a competent hack 'n' slash, even more so for including different gameplay options thanks to Tsumugi's interaction with Iyo, Hagane and Komimi. In addition, the game has an interesting story, even if it relies on narrative clichés and fanservice. However, as much as the visual presentation is impeccable, even more so taking into account the dated hardware of the Switch, the game suffers from serious performance problems, making the hybrid console not the best option for Samurai Maiden.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Samurai Maiden gives players a goofy mix of hack-and-slash action, light platforming, and yuri fan service. Surprisingly, it also gives us some pretty fun combat when it's not being overly frustrating. The game will appeal more to achievement completionists than those seeking a good (or even coherent) story, so consider that when looking at this game at full price.
At the end of the day, Samurai Maiden is a mediocre game that could’ve been better with just a few tweaks. There should’ve been some unlockable costumes, more enemy variety and a few tweaks could’ve been done to combat to make it feel less cheap. In the latter stages where the bigger enemies get a ton of minions, you will see just how cheap this can all be when you’re getting hacked on and juggled by things you cannot see. That being said, this is still a decent action game that has a great soundtrack, some good looking graphics and an amazing voice cast. I feel like the price tag is a bit much, but if you picked this one up on sale I think most folks would be satisfied with it. I know I really loved seeing Tsumugi and these girls grow closer on this grand adventure, even if it certainly wasn’t a perfect one.
So overall, SHADE Inc. and D3Publisher’s Samurai Maiden was a fun title to go through. While the gameplay visuals may have been a bit bland over time as you’ll only ever see the same color palette swapped enemies, there’s a ton of dialog and story to make up for it as Tsumugi travels with Iyo, Hagane and Komimi to defeat the Demon Lord.
Samurai Maiden is a fun but also flawed hack’n slash that embraces all the beloved anime tropes. On one hand, it’s a fun over the top game with mesmerizing visuals. On the other hand, it has flaws that should not exist in such a game.
Samurai Maiden is a really fun girls sword-fighting action game that focuses more on characters and combat than a strong narrative experience. The fully voiced dialogue, frantic combat, and endearing cast of characters make for a solid action game experience from D3 Publisher and SHADE. Nintendo Switch performance is lacking with its frame rate stutters and dips, however.
I thoroughly enjoyed SAMURAI MAIDEN's combat with its wealth of skills and charming cast of lovely ladies. However, it does have its issues, especially if you want to take photos of the characters' panties because you'll end up incredibly disappointed. 📸
I actually would recommend it if you’re a fan of Waifu Hack ‘n’ Slashers, but the Switch’s framerate issues keep me from issuing a full-throated endorsement. If you have access to other modern consoles, maybe check out some gameplay videos. If it’s way smoother during combat situations, maybe go for that version. I’m enjoying the game on Switch, and will be buying some of the DLC, but it suffers a lot on the performance side. That and the terrible platforming segments that, thankfully, are pretty rare.