Samurai Bloodshow, a twelfth-century-Japan-themed tower defense/trading card game, joins the Sega iOS lineup today in the United States.
Inspired by the historical conflict between the Taira and Minamoto clans in medieval Japan and rendered in a distinctive style reminiscent of medieval Japanese scrollwork, Samurai Bloodshow has the player arraying forces of samurai and other warriors against a hostile onslaught upon their general. The game combines the unit placement and strategy of tower defense with card-game draw and deck mechanics. Unlike some other tower defense titles, furthermore, Samurai Bloodshow allows the player to order their units to advance or reposition them to other squares for small resource expenditures, incorporating a greater tactical element.
Samurai Bloodshow includes both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer mode. Single-player consists of one hundred levels, and successfully-completed levels reward players with new unit cards to customize their decks. Players can also trade cards with others, or purchase them through a planned in-app store. The game features 64 distinct cards, with possible plans for expansion over time.
Multiplayer can be played over Bluetooth connections or through the Game Center over Wi-Fi. Multiplayer adds an offensive dimension to the game, as players must send their defending units forward, sacrificing them as defenders in hopes of defeating the opponent.
Samurai Bloodshow will eventually feature a free Lite version in addition to its paid version. The Lite version will reduce the single-player campaign’s length. The paid version is available on all iOS devices with iOS 4 or higher.
Trauben’s Impressions
Samurai Bloodshow has the unenviable luck of competing with fellow tower defense title Plants vs. Zombies, and it’s almost impossible to remove the comparison from my mind. Both are side-scrolling tower defense titles with a focus on resource management and lane-based attackers. Both also feature relatively robust single-player experiences for a mobile casual title.
But Samurai Bloodshow has a few unusual tricks. Combining tower defense with trading card game mechanics may well have been a stroke of diabolical genius- two addictive genres for the price of one, potentially. Having essentially randomized resources at any given time makes for an interesting gameplay dynamic, and the ability to construct decks, trade cards, and have to pay to draw cards randomly all make matches far more different from case to case than some of its competitors. Card units are quite diverse, each with their own ranges, attack power, unique qualities, and so forth, so deck construction is a valid aspect of gameplay.
The real clever addition is the ability to move your defenses over time. This makes it much more tactical than fixed-defense tower defense games, though moving your troops is sluggish and costs a small resource expenditure. It allows you to move up soldiers to support each other, replace the fallen, or send them charging forward in multiplayer games, all interesting additions to the genre. You can also place duplicate cards on the same spot to upgrade a unit and heal it simultaneously, further enriching the tactical game.
Production values are surprisingly high. The promised decapitations and blood geysers are silly and really don’t bear mention, but the well-animated scroll-styled art is charming and the sound quality rather catchy. It’s a genuinely pretty game to watch for a little while.
If Samurai Bloodshow has a flaw aside from its silly name, it’s that the touch mechanics can get a little finicky when playing cards from your hand. Still, as mobile games go, this one looks entertaining. I’m glad that it’s coming to the States – too much dominance by one title in any genre is a bad sign.