Shuyan Saga Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Shuyan Saga (Xbox One)

Wednesday, November 22, 2023.
by Adam Dileva

I’m always intrigued when a developer is willing to try something new. Maybe it’s a cool new mechanic, or maybe, like in Shuyan Saga, it’s a genre mash-up that I’ve never come across before. Blending a visual novel with a beat-em-up wasn’t something I was expecting. While it tells a wonderful tale, showcases martial arts, and has some Chinese culture as its backdrop, even after the credits have rolled, I’m still not sure if I’m sold on the idea of the genres melding together.

You are Shuyan, a young princess who has trained many years in Kung Fu. Your peaceful home was invaded by the Guer army, led by the evil Ganbaatar. He aims to search for other Guardian Spirits so that he can take over the Five Kingdoms. It’s going to take more than basic martial arts for Shuyan to save the realm, which she will learn along the way.

Ganbaatar has killed your father, the King, so you must flee if you stand any chance at surviving, but do you decide to help your mother, or one of your best friends escape? There are choices you’ll make along the way with at least two endings to unfold. Told as a visual novel, there’s no animation when its the story segments, illustrated by over 1,400 panels by renowned comic book artist, Daxiong. His beautiful artwork is sure to impress if you’re a comic book fan, though if visual novels bore you, this isn’t going to help much. While it may not be animated, it is voiced, quite well actually, and has an accompanying soundtrack that fits the tone.

Shuyan Saga is a game of two parts. The first is the visual novel aspect, taking up about half your time, watching a tale unfold as you make a few choices here and there. The other half is the beat-em-up fighting, which given the martial arts backdrop seems to make sense, but is by far the weakest portion of the game by a large margin. As for the story segments, the panels flow together well, there’s plenty of sound effects and the voiced dialogue does help raise it a bit. Thankfully you can quick skip scenes if you’re a fast reader or are working on a second playthrough for the other ending and achievements.

Then we get to the meat of the gameplay, the fighting. One thing I will say is that I applaud developers Lofty Sky Entertainment for wanting the combat to be as real as possible. They’ve gone above and beyond by actually motion capturing combat maneuvers from Shifu Longfei Yang, Master of the Shanxi Praying Mantis Style. This of course brings a sense of authenticity to the experience for those that know their martial arts.

Shuyan begins by simply knowing some basic punches and kicks, eventually learning some combos to unleash much more damage against her foes. As you train with a new master halfway through the narrative, you’ll unlock more of Shuyan’s potential with new abilities and special moves. Combat takes place in two different ways though, a 1 versus 1 duel, and then a top down view where you’ll fight numerous enemies at once.

The top down fighting is where you’ll generally need to clear a wave of enemies before another appears, eventually triggering the next story segment to kick in. You can maneuver Shuyan around a small arena as the brainless enemies come at you until defeated. They’ll have a small indicator above their head to show they’re about to do a special move, which is your cue to either dodge out of the way or prepare to grab and toss them, once you learn how to do so with the Right Stick. This combat really doesn’t have much to it, as you kick and punch your way through enemies until there’s none left and rewarded with story progress.

Then there’s the 1-on-1 fights that plays more like a rock-paper-scissors match. While opponents early in the game will be defeated by simply button mashing, eventually you’re going to know how to block and evade attacks. The Left and Right bumpers are how you’ll block high and low attacks, and using the Left and Right D-Pad will be how you Evade and Counter once you’ve learned how to do so. For the first half of the game I was getting by just fine by simply using combo attacks of punches and kicks (X and Y button), but eventually enemies got a little more challenging and was blocking my attacks more.

If an enemy is guarding high, then you’ll want to kick, if they are guarding low, then a good punch in the head will suffice. Once you’ve gotten used to the odd timing and awkward animations, combat becomes trivial, as I was able to counter every attack thrown at me, even the final confrontation with Ganbaatar. For a game focused on martial arts and even motion captured from an actual Master, the animations are quite rigid and don’t always flow together quite well, making for a jarring experience.

The star of Shuyan Saga is clearly the hand drawn artistry comic book style narrative. Even though the writing wasn’t amazing, each panel was done well and quite colorful. This is a stark contrast to the 3D fighting sections with basic models and rigid animations. With a soundtrack from composer Aaron Tsang, it plays beautiful melodies with its orchestral sound, fitting the culture’s backdrop. Even more surprising is that Kristen Kreuk (Lana Lang from Smallville) voices the titular Shuyan, so there was clearly a heavy focus on making the audio as a whole as top notch as it could be.

While Shuyan Saga uses the simple good versus evil trope for its main backdrop, the narrative flows nicely, being broken into three separate chapters. While I didn’t find the climactic final battle all that exciting, actually quite a letdown, I did enjoy seeing all the artwork start to finish. The odd very anglicized pronunciation of some Chinese names and places did seem 'off' at times, and I wish the quality of the combat matched the storyboard artwork.

An odd blend of visual novel and brawler, Shuyan Saga is certainly unique in its own right elevated with its great artwork and colors, though brought back down with its combat and gameplay. For a martial art that’s all about fluidity, it feels quite rigid at times. With an arena mode, a quick side mission after the story is complete, and two endings, there’s surely some reasons to play again if you’re really trying to get your value’s worth.

**Shuyan Saga was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 6.5 / 10
Gameplay: 4.0 / 10
Visuals: 8.0 / 10
Sound: 8.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Shuyan Saga (Xbox One)

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