One of the best Samurai games of all time and also the most underrated franchise ever.
A MUST OWN for Samurai fans, please buy this so they can make Way Of The Samurai 5.
Also buy 3 if you can :)
It starts off ridiculously slow but it'll get better as soon as you learn new techniques and styles and ofcourse unlock new weapons.

About a dozen wildy different endings, some are amazing, some are lack-lustre, one in paticular is actually a tear-jerking heartfelt masterpiece, and a few others are just plain dark and dreary. Pretty awesome character customization(once you unlock more options), fairly average overarching story thats held up by the sheer amount of perspectives that can be seen. Pretty good combat, with over a bakers-dozen different sword-spear-fist styles to use that are all pretty much completely unique, maybe 4 or five sharing the same basic X and Y moves.
Satisfying progression throughout multiple playthroughs (Even though you are weak as all hell at the start).
Rather suprising depth on the world, its economy and character interaction.
For example without spoilers, if you defeat a certain enemy earlier, said enemy can no longer man a cannon which was preventing another character from interacting during a battle. Has a sort of "Go back in time and change history" feel to it when you know what other characters are going to do on what day, so you can either stop them, or support them according to whatever you want to do.
Weird as ♥♥♥♥ but hillarious Japanese humor as well. Needs to be mentioned.


All around, a pretty great game, I actually prefer it immensely over it's incredibly dated and nonsensical predecessor Way of The Samurai 3, otherwise known as "YOU NEED A WALKTHROUGH: THE GAME"

Hands down one of the best action games I've ever played. There are a few bugs and such, but such as life when you play a game ported from console.

So in depth as far as the details, story is enjoyable. I'd say this is a definite buy if you enjoy samurais, this culture, or character actions games in general.

Nightcrawling sex game? Check.
Amazing dialogue? Check.
Going around kicking ♥♥♥ as a samurai? Check.
Woman by the name of Melinda Megamelons? Double Check. Heh.
Being able to have your own dojo and just be a badass? Check.

This game is just good. And replayable too. Different endings, styles, moves, etc.

hey, how many games do you get to sword fight in 1st person? not many out there to choose from. have fun doing the difrent ways to win

Let's just get this out of the way first. If you think Way of the Samurai 4 is a serious samurai game, you're carving up the wrong tree.

Acquire/XSEED Games' 2011 third-person action adventure (ported here by Ghostlight Games, who have done a stellar job addressing a number of bugs and deficiencies in the original release) balances a deep exploration of post-isolationist Japan... with BDSM torture minigames and supporting characters like "Melinda Megamelons" and "Jet Jenkins".

The story is fairly straightforward. You (a wandering samurai) arrive at the Amihama Harbor just as a conflict is breaking out between British emissaries, the local shogunate and a band of nationalistic rebels. After an initial tutorial and understanding of the various factions involved in this conflict, you have free reign to do what you want. You can choose to ally with one or more of these factions, carry out side missions for characters or simply say "screw it" and train up for the local fighting tournament on the third day. Even though there is a timer involved, the game clock is fairly slow and you'll almost always run into one or more plot events that advance the story.

The best way I can describe this game is Grand Theft Auto-meets-Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. While there isn't a huge area to explore (there are a handful of different districts in the city, along with a couple of forest areas and caves), you can pretty much do anything you want. Take on jobs for certain NPCs, rob shopkeepers, double-cross factions at certain points, farm for money to upgrade your weapon, enlist people for your dojo, get arrested and tortured, go "nightcrawling" (ask women out on dates, then try to seduce/wrestle them) or anything in-between.

As far as the impact of the story goes, know that first and foremost, you won't see the majority of content in one, two or even five playthroughs. This is a game that requires you to complete it many times over, whether for unlockable items and costumes (obtained by points that are given out after each playthrough is done) or to see certain variations of plot events that can only be "triggered" by playing the storyline in a certain order.

In fact, unlocking most of the endings either requires you to use a guide or have extreme patience, as some events aren't even accessible unless certain buildings are functioning a certain way and you know enough to go against the beaten path to do things you might not otherwise expect.

I admit that there were parts of this game that are genuinely heartwarming, such as the Flames of Prajna ending (where you side with the mercenaries against an inevitable truth) or the interactions with some of the side characters. It's a game that definitely wears its heart on its sleeve, and balances moments of lighter or absurd humor with a complicated plot that allows each faction to be thoroughly explored and understood.

I'll be the first to tell you that I have very limited experience with the series, having only played the original back on the Playstation 2 in the mid 00s. WotS4 definitely lives up to the premise and plot of that game, though it doesn't have quite the same "open world" feeling. Regardless, there's still a massive number of things to see and do, and it can be almost overwhelming for new players.

The weapon and style customization options are also back in full force. You can upgrade and hone your weapons to deal more damage or not break as quickly. I quickly found myself maxing out one of the "Black Mark't" swords you get for completing a side mission in a certain way, and using that to chainsaw through enemies for a good number of future playthroughs.

The combat might also be a "make it or break it" situation for some people. You can't always go into battle and expect to mindlessly slash at people, especially on higher difficulties. Enemy encounters often require you to master parrying, block and effective use of your special meter, which allows you to execute whirlwind-like attacks against blocks of enemies. While I found that simply spamming my forward thrust attack was enough to get me by on the lowest difficulties, it was downright infuriating when I cranked up the difficulty and found myself getting schooled by high-level enemies who melted my defense (and sword durability) down.

As far as the port itself goes, Ghostlight did a great job soliciting feedback from the community and scrubbing out a number of major bugs and graphical issues. I was part of the beta testing team for the game, and saw just how polished it became by release. Ghostlight's always had a knack for producing high-quality ports, and this is no exception.

Will you like this game? If you can past the somewhat absurd tonal shifts and the chore of doing multiple playthroughs to see all the endings, there's a wealth of content to discover and play through. The customization and character interaction will also keep you coming back for more. This is definitely worth a look for the price, and so far, it's my favorite PC port this year.

-Started a new game+
-Play as a fist samurai who doesn't want to get involved in anything
-go to back roads
-bump into character I made on first playthrough and he killed me.

-Trust no one, not even yourself.

10/10

I opened a dojo for women.

To recruit the women, I must find them on the street, beat the hell out of them with either the flat of my sword or my fists, and inform them that I am now their Sensei.

My Stockholm syndrome moe harem dojo shall bring honor to Glorious Nippon!

十/十

(10/10 for you hairy gaijin)

So today, I assaulted the elderly and forced them as my student-minions in my dojo. Then I made a bunch of false promises to women that I would sleep with them, when in fact I was fist-fighting my doppleganger in a graveyard in some type of opium-fueled haze.

After that I was asked to protect some british girl while she tries our cuisine, after a few murders of the royal gaurd to show off my powerful protection skills, I was banished from the British Embassy for some reason...

After running into what I believed was my undead doppleganger, a little kid asked me to find an item in the harbor. After finding said item, I celebrated with what I call "The Happy Time Crimson Dance". There were no survivors at the harbor that day.

Then some type of competition happened where I ended up beating my oppenents to death with a fish. Impressed with my fish-wielding abilities, some old guy ended up inviting me for some stew.

10/10 Would become stew for the elderly again.

Do you like samurai? Do you like spaghetti westerns? How about having sex with women? This game has all of this and the ability to make your own SUPERIOR JAPANESE STEEL WEAPON and eat steamed buns straight off the ground.

Way of the Samurai's a weird beast of a 3D action game -- it's kind of threading the needle between the open-world nature of something like Grand Theft Auto or Just Cause, the clear territorial restrictions and boxing-in you might feel with a more standard JRPG like The World Ends With You or your average Final Fantasy-type game, and the complex, unforgiving combat of Bushido Blade. The other reviews are right, you're presented with a lot of decisions that can alter the flow of the story, but Way of the Samurai 4, in a departure from those other games and indeed other entrants in its own series, has one really nice mechanic that helps make all of this open-world nonsense a little bit easier to parse: An event log.

Most of the time, if you're making a decision, you don't really know what the ramifications of that decision might be, and it's often difficult to figure out if you've made a decision that brings you to a section of the plot that you actually want to see, or if you're about to be tossed into a pit of boiling oil for having the audacity to win a swordsmanship tournament. Spoilers, sure, but you probably don't want this to happen to you and I guarantee you'll be disappointed when it does.

Way of the Samurai 4, thankfully, has a helpful event log that lets you know that yes, you have the choice to participate in other events that have opened up to you based on a decision that you have made, and kindly lets you know when you're supposed to do that. While a lot of people disdain this level of hand-holding in a game whose primary feature is meant to be exploration, I find it refreshing and am willing to admit that as I get older, I don't have time to play through a game six or seven times before I can even get to the main meat of a plot that I might actually want to experience instead of being forced into my own sad, unavoidable doom.

This game's good. It's not 50 dollars good. It might not even be 25 dollars good, if you're the type of pearl-clutching reactionary who needs every game released on steam in 2015 to have 60fps graphics -- even ones that originally came out in 2011 -- but it's definitely good at the price it's at now, and if you're patient, it's a clear pickup for a steam sale that puts it at even 15 dollars. It's cheap, it's a stable port, it's got really good combat, and you can wear weird flower-covered robes and not have other people discriminate against your sexual tastes. What's not to like?