Kenseiden

Kenseiden casts the player as a samurai warrior who, in a hunt for mystical swords, fights through a series of interconnected levels inspired by Japanese folklore and demonology. The game combines close-range sword combat with thrown ranged weapons such as shuriken and spears, and the player gradually finds stronger swords and abilities that ease the path against increasingly dangerous opponents and bosses drawn from Japanese legends of spirits, demons, and supernatural beings. The individual levels are broken into shorter segments that must be completed without losing all lives, which brings the game closer to an arcade than a purely adventure pace, and the player must learn to recognize the safe moments to attack and to retreat.

The game's pace is fast and arcade-like, emphasizing precise timing of strikes, dodging enemy attacks, and planning your way through each screen, while the backdrops of temples, graveyards, mountains, and caves lend the game a grimly exotic atmosphere underscored by orientally flavored music that stays true to the theme of the whole quest. The graphical presentation ranks among the Master System's above-average, and the game makes good use of the console's color palette to render varied environments from snowy peaks down to underground crypts, through which the player gradually climbs closer to the final opponent.

Kenseiden was never among the console's best-selling titles, but among fans of action games with an adventure edge it holds a reputation as a well-crafted game with striking visual style and an unmistakable atmosphere. Even years later, players value mainly its mood, detailed environments, and demanding yet fair combat pace, which makes the game work as an interesting glimpse into Japanese mythology on an eight-bit console and as proof of how Sega handled a theme that was fairly unusual and exotic-seeming outside Japan.

Why play: For fans of action games with an adventure edge who'll appreciate the striking visual style and the demanding yet fair combat pace inspired by Japanese mythology.