Neko Samurai Review

Cats Vs. Frogs

Have you ever wanted to be a cat swinging a samurai sword cutting down giant frogs? Yeah, me neither. But if you are one of the few people who have, look no further; Neko Samurai by Bit Egg, Inc is worth checking out. This arcade indie hack and slasher adds an exciting and comedic piece to the casual mobile gaming arena.

You play as Nyanjuro, a cat samurai defending the land from evil ninja frogs who want to kill him. The narrative isn’t developed beyond that, and for a casual game like this, it never will be.

Samurai Vs. Ninjas

The entire point of Neko Samurai is to kill as many ninja frogs as possible and keep yourself from being stabbed more than three times. At first, these frogs charge you with giant swords, and with precision and strategic timing, you must cut them down. Each frog you slice in half gives you a point, but if you cut them with perfect timing, you get double points. After hitting 110 points, frogs throw out shuriken that you must redirect back at them. The higher your score is, the more challenging the game becomes. Frogs charge at you faster, come at you from both directions, and sometimes pause in-between attacks to trip up your timing.

Every now and again, you get pots of health thrown at you. Although, they are there for you to smash and heal yourself with. If you miss it and it hits you, it reduces a heart rather than giving one. To say the least, the gameplay is entertaining and becomes very difficult very quickly.

As you slice and dice frogs in half, you gather in-game currency that can be used for different things. You can purchase various types of katanas to help you on your journey and other random abilities. Katanas offer different abilities like shielding or slowing down enemies. Other skills help gather more gold or provide you extra opportunities to gather health.

Never Ending

Neko Samurai is free, aside from the occasional opportunity to watch ads for extra coins or extra lives during battle. It’s a game that challenges players to continually beat their own high scores. Although this can be fun for a lot of casual gamers, it burned me out quickly. After playing Neko Samurai for about an hour or two, I was nearly done with it. It was fun at first when I could buy new Katanas, backgrounds, and smaller abilities. However, since it was such a small selection, it couldn’t keep my attention for long. The gameplay is challenging, but it’s also redundant. Perhaps if the game offered a wider variety of cosmetics, weapons, or even a boss fight, it would have kept my attention.

Neko Samurai has a lot of potential. The gameplay is alluring, the small number of characters are memorable, and the hand-drawn animations look fantastic. However, its biggest downfall is the lack of actual content the title has to offer.