Samurai Jack, show creator Genndy Tartakovsky’s dramatic and stylish epic about a samurai warrior lost in time, debuted on Cartoon Network in 2001, capturing the imagination of a generation of kids. When those kids grew up, they got to see Jack’s story come to a definitive and worthy close when the series aired its final season on Adult Swim in 2017. But in Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, the titular hero is back for one last hurrah.
Battle Through Time was first announced earlier this year and developed by Soleil Games. The game’s plot revolves around Aku trapping Jack one last time to force him to relieve some of the series’ most iconic fight scenes. In essence, the game functions as a greatest-hits of all the battles fans remember from the series, including the last season, putting players in nine linear levels punctuated by occasional boss fights. The game marks Jack’s first video game adventure since 2004’s The Shadow of Aku.
The gameplay is a straightforward hack-and-slash, with critics either praising or deriding the game for its simplicity. Players must use Samurai Jack’s magic katana, skills, and techniques to fight their way through various types of enemies in linear levels. Players can pick up weapons along the way, though they will degrade quickly, forcing players to either find a new weapon of revert to their trusty katana.
Many critics said the game feels out-of-the-past itself, with several drawing comparisons to the PS2 era character action games that peaked during the time of the show’s original run. This can be both good and bad. Some critics said they enjoyed the nostalgia of playing a simple and straightforward brawler, while others complained that Battle Through Time is an out-of-date bore.
Even if you’re not a Samurai Jack superfan, Battle Through Time may be worth a playthrough just for the refresher course in how action games used to work and how vital that style can still be in 2020. There are plenty of quirks that come with the game’s curious dedication to the past, but the overall package excels despite them. Following so many slow, tanky duels with skeletons that can take you out in one hit, it’s a blast to tear through countless rock creatures with a single smash of a spiked club.
Ultimately, this isn’t the Samurai Jack game of your dreams. But despite its flaws, this is a good action game that will please fans, and its simplistic nature may even introduce the property to a younger audience.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time ended up being an incredibly mixed bag. Though it may have been great to play during the series’ original heyday, it doesn’t entirely hold up to modern standards. Like any blade, the combat becomes dull over time, but the graphics and systems are there to keep players slicing-and-dicing until the conclusion.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a weak adaptation of the series, but the action mechanics just aren’t all there either, dragging it down even further. With a few tweaks it could be a fun little weekend mascot game, but as is, this adaption isn’t going to appeal to just about anyone.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is ultimately a relic of a time since past, fitting nicely into the history of character action games from a generation or two ago. It doesn’t take many risks with the formula and unfortunately, the risks it does take with weapon durability aren’t well-executed, but this is one journey that fans have been waiting a long time to see through to the end.
Overall, Battle Through Time received mixed reviews. Based on six reviews so far, Metacritic has it at a 65, a moderate score. The nostalgic – or out-of-date, depending on who you ask – gameplay was a major point of contention for most critics. However, most agreed that the game is a faithful video game adaption to the beloved television series, and that fans would likely enjoy the experience, even if only for a weekend. But for more casual fans of the show, or players who did not watch Samurai Jack at all, this looks like a title that could be left back in the past.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is available on PC, Switch, Xbox One and PS4.
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