Ganryu resurrects legendarily unbeaten Japanese warrior Miyamoto Musashi for one final fight. The problem is, in this ugly, lazy, soulless, Frankenstein of game...everyone loses
What hurts most in playing this near-perfectly ported Dreamcast edition of Neo-Geo game Ganryu is that the original creators seemingly just didn't care. They didn't care that they were besmirching and cynically exploiting the name and legendary story of,
Genji aside, arguably Japan's greatest historical hero. The bloody life of
Miyamoto Musashi and his epic duel-of-duels with
Sasaki Kojirō on
Ganryū-jima, an island located between Honshū and Kyūshū, is literally the stuff of Japanese legend and here, in this side-scrolling 2D hack-and-slash, it is used as inspiration for what, simply put, is a poor and crassly unimaginative title.
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| Giant floating doll's head? Coming right up, sir! |
A legendary tale
This duel, which has been dramatised many times in film - including in the
final movie of an epic three-part series staring famous Japanese actor
Toshiro Mifune as Musashi - is often seen as the greatest of Musashi's victories as Kojirō was a lethal swordsman himself, with his deadly use of a nodachi, a Japanese great sword, earning him the title of The Demon of the Western Provinces.
While his deeds have reached mythological proportions, Musashi was very much a real person and one who, arguably, perfected the two-blade fighting style. Musashi's
Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu technique (two heavens as one), as detailed in his epic
The Book of Five Rings (anyone with an interest in kenjutsu should read a modern a translation), was revolutionary for the time and, no doubt, a large part of how the greatest Japanese swordsman of all remained undefeated in over 60 duels.
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| The cutscenes are nicely drawn. |
Musashi wasn't just the ultimate swordsman either. In his later life he mastered numerous arts and crafts - with arguably the finest being his beautiful broken ink pieces such as
Shrike Perched on a Withered Branch. Simply put, Miyamoto Musashi is one of Japan's most well-known and beloved historical figures.
Why then would original creators
Visco Corporation - a Japanese software house no less - use him and his most famous adventure as a vehicle to publish what is essentially a shoddy, cheap, bolted together Shinobi clone devoid of all soul?
The answer, of course, is money...
