Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword is a new downloadable action/adventure/rpg for the 3DS. You'll find it for $6.99 in the 3DS eshop.
Sakura Samurai takes place in Feudal Japan. You're a young samurai who happens to be able to hear the voice of a legendary
kappa who sends you on a quest across countryside to free Princess Cherryblossom the daughter of a god. You'll traverse 3 areas, talking to people in towns, playing street minigames, battling various unique groups of samurais and ninja's, collecting gold and "precision points", as well as various useful items, swords, and armor. Oh yeah, and you get to build a nice relaxing beautiful rock garden. :)
Unfortunately, due to the fact that this is a downloadable game and not a cart, there were some size issues that the creators had to deal with. One way they worked around this was by scaling back the overworld. Instead of freely roaming the feudal hillsides, the overworld consists kind of a Map/Gameboard. As you move to a new space on the map along your path to the next town or goal and enter it the map opens up to a sizable 3D clearing where you fight the various samurais that inhabit this game to gain "precision points" and gold and other various loot, and to power up your sword. There are also towns where you can talk to the various townspeople, buy items, upgrade your sword, and play minigames for gold and other various useful prizes. There are also boss castles with lots of baddies and a powerful boss at the end.
Battling in Sakura Samurai is simple, but surprisingly challenging. All battles take place in real time on a sizable 3D clearing. You'll most often face substantial groups of enemies. You'll auto lock onto whoever is 1) closest and 2) attacking you. Unless you press X to run around without locking onto anything, only 1 guy will ever be able to attack you at any one time. If you do press X to run around freely, you'd better watch out, cuz any of them could swing at you if you get too close. Combat basically consists of dodging, attacking, and blocking. You'll eventually get powerful field attacks, as well as disposable items like throwing daggers and frogs (lol). Dodging, attacking, and blocking sounds very simple until you realize that you very literally only have a moment to land an attack. If you just run at an enemy, swinging away, he's going to block literally every swing of your sword, and then slash you. Pretty much the only chance you have to attack is right as they raise up their sword, or right after they slash their sword. The key to this style of battling is to wait as long as you possibly can to dodge, and then to attack them back after they have swung. Enemy AI is surprisingly complex. They start out simple, but before even the first castle you'll have one guy run at you from the front, you prepare to doge him, and then he stops while a guy right behind you lifts his sword to slash you. You then block or dodge only to have him hesitate several times and slash you when you're not prepared. I probably battled the same group of guys 50 times while grinding for gold and "precision points" early in the game and I don't believe any of the battles were ever the same. They always came at me from different sides and at different times. Eventually you'll face enemies with long distance attacks, and bosses with very complex and confusing AI. You'll often think they're going to do one thing and they'll do something completely different. Stock up on invisible armor. :x
Sakura Samurai is no PS3 cinematic masterpiece. It generally features very bland textures (except for the forest backgrounds which are surprisingly realistic). But considering that it's just an eshop download and not a full cartridge game, its visuals aren't bad. It kind of reminds me of a cross between the old Goemon64 and Zelda64. Unlike some 3D games, this game very much benefits from the 3DS's 3D visuals. I tried battling and some of the minigames without the 3D on and it was much easier to tell how far enemies and objects were with the 3D on. I was more easily able to tell how far away that samurai who was rushing at me was, so I could better judge when to step aside at the last minute. With the 3D off he often ran right up to me before I could zip to the side. They also do a fine job making you feel like you really are in Feudal Japan with all the backgrounds and textures and music and characters. The character and enemy animation are also pretty good.
Sakura Samurai includes a surprising amount of extras for a decently cheap eshop download. Firstly, once you beat the game you'll unlock a hard mode where all the enemies do double damage, you only have 3 hearts, and you can't buy or win Rice Cakes (restores health). That's my kind of hard mode. :3 You'll also eventually unlock different challenges like "beat 30 enemies in a row" or "beat 100 enemies in a row". You also get your own personal rock garden right from the start. As your 3DS pedometer racks up steps, you can use those steps to decorate your garden. Using your steps doesn't effect your 3DS playcoins, its separate. Its actually fairly relaxing after failing against a tough boss or new enemy.
I'm having a ton of fun with this game. It's a great value at $7. Looking past its graphical and overall limitations as an eshop download, it's a seriously great game. It has a decently long playtime (I'm expecting 20 hours for a completionist playthrough followed by maybe another 10 for the difficult mode playthrough), quite a few extras, challenging battles, and makes excellent use of the 3DS's 3D visual capability. It might actually have something to do with the nostalgia of playing a game that reminds me of Dragon Ball Z / Goemon / Zelda / Various Animes I watched as a kid too. Either way, you'd be doing yourself a favor by at least taking a look at this game.
Now, off to grind for more items. :3