Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers Review

Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers is a fighting game for the PS3 that is based on the Japanese anime/manga. It is also known as “Knights of the Zodiac” in some countries and its best described as something fans of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto would love. The game is published by Namco Bandai so there’s already a connection there too.

I consider myself to be a fan of Japanese anime, but I was surprised I had never heard of Saint Seiya before. I guess this is mainly because it was made in the ‘80s and the fact that New Zealand doesn’t air much anime on TV these days too. Nevertheless, the introduction cinematic for Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers impressed me and I was looking forward to play a game based on an anime that I’m sure other people have never heard of either.

Let me start off by saying that the graphics in Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers are excellent. 2D cel-shaded games always look bright and colorful and Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers is animated with perfection. Since the original anime was made in the ‘80s, you could say that the game looks better than he cartoon since it was made in 2013 and presented is HD. The special moves and arenas are in 3D and they look great too.

Usually when I play fighting games, I would pick my favorite character and play against the A.I. for a while to get a feel for the game. Since I knew nothing about Saint Seiya, I went to the training mode first to get a feel for the characters and the gameplay. The game is quite stingy at the start because only two levels and five characters are available. There are several more level s and over 50 characters in the total game. You’ll have to unlock them all in the game’s single player story mode which I will talk about later…

The game plays very similarly to the recent Dragon Ball Z games more than anything. This is to be expected since the game is developed by Dimps who also worked on several of the Dragon Ball Z game as well. Much like the recent Dragon Ball Z games, this game is played via the over-the-shoulder camera in lieu of a traditional side-on view. The shoulder camera allows your fighter to move more freely during battles and makes fights more fast and unpredictable. The only downside to this is the fact that sometimes fighters get separated too far from one another and you’ll be punching the air instead. There were many times the A.I. would move around so quickly that I ended up making a fool of myself by battling the air…

The controls are surprisingly easy to master as there are no complicated buttons combinations that you need to press to execute super moves. The super moves are called “Big Bang Attacks” and all you need to do to use them is by pressing the R2 button. You can earn “Big Bang Attacks” by filling up your special meter at the bottom of the screen. The special attacks are all unique and they are beautiful to see in action.

The main single player story mode is quite lengthy and follows episodes from the actual anime. There are no cutscenes to see, but you will be hearing the characters talk a lot and see stills from the anime instead. It would have been better if they added actual clips and excerpts from the anime as it would have been more exciting. It was kind of hard for me to follow the story since I am unfamiliar with Saint Seiya in the first place.