WARDOGS
WARDOGS
Game
Game2024
The Spirit of the Samurai
Developer Digital Mind Games
A village in peril. A samurai reanimated. An Oni advancing. Fight an army of undead warriors and Japanese monsters as a human, a Kodama, and a cat in this 2D stop-motion action adventure. From the Steam store page
207 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Nov 2, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
60
Fresh
115 positive · 76 negative
95% range 53–67%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 115 | 76 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 1 | 0 | 14 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 1 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
118 of 196 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
59% recommend · 113 yes, 77 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 190 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (309 of 503 positive).
Players praise the game's stunning stop-motion visuals and atmosphere. [1][2][3] Some players report game-breaking bugs that hinder progress. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [13]
I'm sorry for how harsh I'm about to be, but this game is awful when I thought it would be great. The presentation IS great and inspired. I love the stop motion animation. The grotesque imagery is brutal and gory. That just doesn't make a good game and honestly the presentation is part of the problem. Why is there so much ♥♥♥♥ in the foreground? It gets so bad in the terrible cemetery level especially during the …
- [20]
It really hurts to vote this as negative. Like, I want to love this game. Even with the mixed reviews the stop-motion art style remind me of some games I loved back in the day (like Neverhood and Skullmonkeys). And to the game's credit, it absolutely nails this aesthetic. And I do not agree with people's complaints about the combat. It is generally pretty fun, but can feel a little cheap from time to time. But the …
- [1]
Overall: 6.75/10 Story: Spirit of the Samurai wastes little time throwing you into the action as a Kitsune narrator recounts the tale of Takeshi, a legendary samurai whose village is suddenly attacked by Oni. The stakes are clear from the start; these demons destroy everything in their path, and Takeshi must rise to protect his home and neighbors. While the narrative isn’t groundbreaking, I found it to be a tight …
- [10]
TL;DR: Despite its shortcomings, I’m heartily recommending this game. For the price, it’s a visually stunning adventure with memorable characters that outweigh its clunky combat and occasional lag. If you’re drawn to atmosphere and storytelling, this one’s definitely worth your time. I stumbled upon this game during a sale for less than $3. The beautiful visuals caught my eye, so I watched the trailer. The plot …
- [2]
This is a recommendation in case the game is on sale. I have created a video review of it, which you can watch by following this link: https://youtu.be/xnZU3PVSjCY For those who do not wish to watch the video: Playtime: 5 hours and 8 minutes Completion Rate: Almost 100% (I think I missed one secret, but I could be wrong) Price: 19.99 euros (20% off on release) Pros: - Beautifully rendered cut-scenes that were a …
Summarised from 34 of the 207 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
The Spirit of the Samurai sits at 60% positive across 191 opinionated reactions from 3 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Reactions
60 of 207 · most liked firstThe Spirit Of The Samurai - slay stop-motion monsters in this stylish 2.5D side-scrolling samurai action horror game! www.alphabetagamer.com/the-spirit-o... Gameplay Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkwA... by #gamedev Digital Mind Games #indiedev #indiegame #gaming
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm sorry for how harsh I'm about to be, but this game is awful when I thought it would be great. The presentation IS great and inspired. I love the stop motion animation. The grotesque imagery is brutal and gory. That just doesn't make a good game and honestly the presentation is part of the problem. Why is there so much ♥♥♥♥ in the foreground? It gets so bad in the terrible cemetery level especially during the boss fight when your vision is almost entirely obscured by objects in the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall: 6.75/10 Story: Spirit of the Samurai wastes little time throwing you into the action as a Kitsune narrator recounts the tale of Takeshi, a legendary samurai whose village is suddenly attacked by Oni. The stakes are clear from the start; these demons destroy everything in their path, and Takeshi must rise to protect his home and neighbors. While the narrative isn’t groundbreaking, I found it to be a tight and straightforward story that serves its purpose well as a foundation, which…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a recommendation in case the game is on sale. I have created a video review of it, which you can watch by following this link: https://youtu.be/xnZU3PVSjCY For those who do not wish to watch the video: Playtime: 5 hours and 8 minutes Completion Rate: Almost 100% (I think I missed one secret, but I could be wrong) Price: 19.99 euros (20% off on release) Pros: - Beautifully rendered cut-scenes that were a feast for the eyes, with top-notch cinematic direction that had me forgetting…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This Would Be Better As Horror Than Action Funny thing is, playing poorly designed games actually helps me learn more about myself. I used to have a rule for myself that no matter how bad the game is, I will at least play it through before declaring my opinion. Yet, that is no longer the case here. I simply do not have the patience to endure through the counter-intuitive combat, confusing designs, and the general lack of direction. The Spirit of The Samurai is such game, and sadly, I am not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Another undercooked project. This one is very unique looking art stop motion surreal nightmare. It has great atmosphere and feel. Sadly the game is not even on alpha stage. So many bugs and combat feels very somewhat unfinished. Had to many bug breaking scenarios where I couldn’t surpass my progress because game just freezes and glitches out. It’s a shame another one bites the dust by developers who thinks that releasing this stage of a product is ok
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Let's get the good out of the way: Cat. How Cat looks in the cutscenes. Brave Cat. The main character's voice actor. Slaughter animations. The small variety in what you are doing and who you are playing. As to the bad, everything else. As much as I liked the cutscenes and how brutal and Japanese-horror-like they are, I sincerely believe they should have used that budget to polish the game. This is a 2D platformer adventure game, I have never played a good 2D game with cutscenes of this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tried to give this game the benefit of doubt and ignored the bad steam reviews chopping them off as people being whiney. I was wrong this game is garage. Aesthetically it looks nice, the combat is a bit clunky but i could of looked passes it until i ran into a terrible game breaking bug extremely early into the game where my characters’s main combos were Gone making him completely unable to react or attack. I figured ♥♥♥♥ ill close the game boot it up again. Nope apparently if you some bow…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Spirit of the Samurai is an impressive work of stop-motion art paired with a dissatisfying, frustrating action game.
negative · AI labelView post →insta-kill traps tedious looting for the sake of it hold forward level design clunky, unsatisfying combat
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It really hurts to vote this as negative. Like, I want to love this game. Even with the mixed reviews the stop-motion art style remind me of some games I loved back in the day (like Neverhood and Skullmonkeys). And to the game's credit, it absolutely nails this aesthetic. And I do not agree with people's complaints about the combat. It is generally pretty fun, but can feel a little cheap from time to time. But the build-a-combo system is awesome, and it was fun experimenting with what you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A beautiful and unique action game with moments of wonderful combat absolutely ruined by excruciatingly miserable platforming, input delay, overtuned enemies, random one shots, and one of the worst final bosses I have ever experienced. Your stats don't matter. Even with everything maxed, you die in one hit and enemies have too much health.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game, the art style and all the aesthetics are top notch but man the combat is so clunky and unresponsive. Any depth to combat (parry, block, combos) is pretty much negated by dodge roll and heavy hitting single attacks. Enemies either super responsive to you or stand there the entire fight while you pummel them to the ground. Super noticeable with the archers. Trying to roll in anticipation for an arrow shot to close the distance, but instead on the last frame…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I cannot recommend this game to anyone, which is sad because it is potentially a great game. Right near the end of the game, I need a lever to put into a device to open a door. I have the lever, but no option to put this in. I've looked online and others have the same issue and there is no resolution. It's March. This game came out in November? December? On top of this, at a certain point, the game severely lags, like, incredibly bad. I didn't know how to resolve this but several solutions…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The hardest thing here is to choose - recommend it or not. Some minor number of people will love this game, truly. But most of players will feel only pain and irritation from it. Pros (questionable): - Visual style and graphics stunned me well. I love this kind of thing and it's a rare opal nowadays. - Combat is not perfect at all, yet I found it entertaining. I don't understand the point of making my own combos and experiment a lot, but parry and trying to manage with multiple enemies…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For the record, I was talking about The Spirit of the Samurai as a game that's almost good. Good graphics, good atmosphere, cool monster designs, and then every other part of it is excessively fiddly in a way that detracts from it all. It tries to add Nioh's looting and levelling to a 3-4 hour game
neutral · AI labelView post →I played the demo of this game and was impressed by its visuals/art style. And i think they could have had a winner here except for some extremely wonky combat mechanics, and i mean almost to the point of unplayable out of frustration. Will you hit the enemy? duno. Will the parry connect? duno. Will i actually roll thru, or go mindlessly jumping, slashing, or rolling in the wrong direction. And you better have a sixth sense to see where you are going when doing the platforming, and jumps. Is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i really wanted to like this game. i bear myself to be not bothered with the rough edges. The art and visual are nice, the combat wasn't bad. but so many game breaking bugs that super frustrating in early game. after cutscenes post first fighting training, Takeshi just stuck can't walk go anywhere. After jumping and rolling it just slide like roller skating, this is reproducible even with new save file. Sometimes you can't just enter the well to meet Anako even when you have already get the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Summary A friend recommended this game and I really wanted to try to enjoy it but I really couldn't. I've played the game all the way through and it was more frustrating than fun. I enjoyed the art style but the controls and gameplay were frustration for me. It felt really unpolished, it didn't really have a great feel to it. Pros: - Unique art style - Cutscenes are cool - Has some good horror elements Cons: - Really poor controls - feels super janky and doesn't register input…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →54th game beat of 2025: The Spirit of the Samurai (PC)
neutral · AI labelView post →I personally don't think this game deserves the ire that has been sent its way. The Spirit of the Samurai is a genuinely fun and challenging game. The combat is great and smooth, story is fun, and the art is great. I enjoyed the level and encounter design; this was probably one of its main strengths in my playthrough. The main negatives are that the game is poor at communicating some elements, such as what exactly the stats do. You can reasonably assume for most, but stats like toughness…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a game with a lot of potential and an interesting concept, but right now it's like playing a slightly improved version of Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero. I'll try it again when they fix the hitbox issues and the incredibly frustrating savepoints. Example: After going through an area full of enemies that becomes extremely challenging, not because of the design, but because of the awkward controls, you reach a boss. When you die you have to watch a CG again (skippable, but the game still goes back…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was wanting to play this game since i seen the trailer last year and ive been let down. The combat is clunky and drops inputs if you put them in too fast and enemies like archers can attack outside of your screenspace which just isnt fun getting killed by a arrow you legitimately could not see and thus have zero way to counter besides just spamming the parry button.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I genuinely can't fathom where these negative reviews are coming from, and what people expected from this. I'd give this game ten thumbs up if I could - here's why: The game runs on Unity. I absolutely hate it as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ engine, because it's severely limited and ugly - but The Spirit of the Samurai looks like it's running on Godot or something more sophisticated, that's how great the graphics are. Stop-motion style animation. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ google how hard that is to achieve, and then…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, I am looking at other reviews and... Bruh, what? Like, really, are we playing the same game? With all my love for traditional japaneese aestethics, I do not have enough copium to call this a good game or even play it any longer. Maybe the game *really* opens up after few hours in, but as of right now, I had one hour of pure suffering. Visually it was fluctuating between tolerable and painful, animations are janky, torn, and somewhat weird when they chain one into another. But "Fine", I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game hit my heart. Very stylish and atmospheric game. Nice combat. I will talk about story later. But I faced with one big issue for me: Problem with 3840x2140 resolution. Only this resolution runs with black bars from all sides during cutscenes and gameplay. Other resolutions play fine.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A wonderful and marbelous art direction, an attractive history and visceral and dloddy combat. It requieres a little more balance and dogging and jumping in some edges and of course a local map. Bosses are not very challenging but very nice design and presentation, ambience music ok but background, textures and art is wonderful, a beautiful journey awaits for you
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really like the striking artstyle and i wanted to like this game But the Kodama section broke me. Your health bar also being your magic bar and not regenerating, coupled with a boss you can only harm with magic is just miserable. The boss takes a life away with each hit, so do the adds, and combined with the clunkiness of the combat system it is just not fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TL;DR: Despite its shortcomings, I’m heartily recommending this game. For the price, it’s a visually stunning adventure with memorable characters that outweigh its clunky combat and occasional lag. If you’re drawn to atmosphere and storytelling, this one’s definitely worth your time. I stumbled upon this game during a sale for less than $3. The beautiful visuals caught my eye, so I watched the trailer. The plot seemed promising too, which left me curious about all the hate this game was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You'll have more fun committing seppuku than playing this atrocious game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First off, I finished the game after the third big update, and even then, the performance was poor at times (I can remember three parts where it happened, always when the scenario had a heavy fog effect). I found a bug with a lever that's been happening for quite some time, and I had to delete some files in my save folder just to progress. The combat is funny—I enjoyed it—but at times it was frustrating. The enemy is always walking backwards, and you almost never land your full combo because of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can kind of see why this is getting mixed to negative reviews but I don’t think the game truly deserves it. The game is stylistically very cool with the realistic but stop motion visuals. The combat is good but kind of more like an old school beat-em up than a soulslike. There is a satisfying rigor to it but enemies take a ton of hits. It does feel a bit deliberately off putting at times, I just went through a frankly bad platforming section where the game never specified that I could climb…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Mostly Negative?" That’s why I’ve reached the point where I don’t trust reviews. The Spirit of the Samurai is a fantastic game—its gameplay is engaging, the soundtrack is beautiful, and the spooky environments are immersive. Support indie games like this!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have such a love hate relationship with this game. on one hand, the art style is amazing, animations and voice acting are wonderful, and the stop-motion adds to it all. on the other, the platforming and combat are a bit frustrating, and the fact enemies can spawn next to some checkpoints after they have been beaten makes some parts almost impossible to pass. Game starts and ends strong, but it feels like there is a lot of unnecessary filler in between some of the acts, with some parts of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is gorgeous, it's stop motion animation is smooth and well crafted. Plot-wise it's pretty short and hardly unique at a good 6 to 8 hours. Combat and game-play is enjoyable and well polished but hardly innovative; think of it as a PrinceOfPersia/Metroidvania-Souls game. Most frustrating aspect however is the camera; too much of the fight is blocked by foreground. The platforming is good (has bugs though) and mixes things up with different characters but like most 2D-platformers it has…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is full of bugs, even after all the patches. Cheap deaths. Art and story are great but not worth it. Was a torture to finish.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TL;DR: Beautiful and creative game with huge potential, but still plagued by game-breaking bugs, clunky controls, and technical issues a year after release. Not recommended. I was excited for this game ever since I saw the trailer. A stop-motion samurai game with a cat is an incredible concept, and visually the game is genuinely stunning. Unfortunately, despite how much I wanted to love it, I can’t recommend it. A year after release, there are still multiple game-breaking bugs. Some…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can sum up why I’m not recommending this game with a common phrase, and it will sound vague until you experience this developer’s idea of platforming: I didn’t know what I was jumping into
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Man, as much as it saddens me to give this game a thumbs-down (the first one in my history of reviews - and I very rarely give reviews), I can't help but to not recommend it. The art style is absolutely GORGEOUS and the atmosphere fantastic. Unfortunately, this is marred by awkward and floaty controls, some kind of probable memory leak wihch makes the game run like absolutely crap after a couple hours and, more importantly, game-breaking bugs that seem to have been known for a while and are…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite its flaws, I’d recommend The Spirit of The Samurai. The depth of the combat and the intriguing characters kept me engaged and leading to a positive experience. https://youtu.be/gWb7J8kXWeY?si=g4w9X-QSGz0YUxQk
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Beautiful and very fun ! not sure why this game is rated mixed .its very good and had me hooked two seconds in. Combat is challenging and versatile ,graphics and soundtrack are very high quality and immersive. story is also very good this is a 10/10 for me!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Review: @nairon.bsky.social cautiously recommends 2D action adventure game, The Spirit Of The Samurai, by Digital Mind Games and Kwalee. Read the full review: gameluster.com/the-spirit-o... #indiegame #indiegaming #indiedev
neutral · AI labelView post →Do not buy in current state, the combat is not at all refined. Im mega disappointed with how bad it is. This isn't the kinda of game where I feel like "Oh I just have to get gud" this is like "What the hell how can a basic enemy I've killed before suddenly spam a light attack faster than any of the previous ones?" You feel so dramatically slower than the enemies and you at most can only get hit like 3-5 times. Which sounds fine right? but what if the enemy can do 5 hits in 1 second while…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"The real enemies were the checkpoints we found along the way." I swear some of the checkpoints in the game will drive you mad; almost threw a fit after spending like an hour not being able to complete a 4 minute section. With that being said, I did enjoy the whole thing, I really like it. This reminds me of Kubo & the Two Strings because of its stop motion-ish visuals and the samurai stuff and so maybe I'm a little bit biased because of that. Always had a lot of respect & love towards stop…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Spirit of the Samurai is emblematic of why Steam needs a "Maybe" Recommend option. I loved certain sequences and elements of The Spirit of the Samurai (namely the atmosphere and story/cutscenes) while others were simply dreadful (woeful precision platforming, repetitive combat, and a padded 2nd act) The Spirit of the Samurai's most appealing selling point is its distinct artstyle and setting. At times reminiscent of Little Nightmares (in gameplay, artstyle, and macabre content) while…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The gameplay is terrible, the difficulty is unfair, the controls are unresponsive, and the whole experience is just repetitive and boring. I absolutely cannot recommend this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Spirit of the Samurai, developed by Digital Mind Games and published by Kwalee, is an ambitious side-scrolling action-adventure that combines Japanese mythology, spiritual folklore, and a cinematic visual style inspired by stop-motion animation. Released in December 2024, the game invites players into a supernatural retelling of feudal Japan, where an ancient Oni has awakened, unleashing its army of the undead to destroy a peaceful village. You play as Takeshi, a fallen samurai whose spirit…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Loved every minute of this game. The hate is bs
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →OMFG! i thought the reviews of this game is just those who dont have any skills in this game it turns out the reviews are true enough to justify this abomination of a game, let me summarize what this game's problem. first i notice that this game's camera is abnormal your character is in the frontal side when running and the camera is like a snail in moving pace when following the character its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ irritating did anyone of you devs played any metroidvania or souls-vania games? i think…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Amaizing and beautiful looking game ! i really enjoyed from the beginning to the end . Gameplay is simple but fun the art direction in this game is beautiful the stop motion animation is amaizing. If you are into metroidvania and samurai games give this one a try.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've never been more torn on how I wanted to review a game, and ultimately decided to give Spirit of the Samurai a positive review but need to definitely mention a handful of shortcomings that I definitely need to mention. Spirit of the Samurai is a BEAUTIFUL game, it's seriously a master class in art style, presentation, story telling, pacing, sound and voice acting. I've never played a game before where I felt like it could have genuinely been a movie as easily as it had been made into a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Feels sluggish and clumsy in its current state unfortunately. Was so excited to play but I felt like it was boring chore. Sorry
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →7.5/10 this game looks so unique because of the stop animation. Lots of cool ideas, animations and story. some stretches of the game seem underdeveloped. im happy to support something like this and so should the rest of you. if youre into stop animation or samurai's, its worth the asking price. i hear this described as a metroidvania. but so far i see nothing that would justify this deemed a metroidvania. seems like a true labor of love. i cant wait to see more games that utilize this stop…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was really hyped for this game. Watched it for over a Year. I love the stop frame aesthetic but it's sadly not enough. I wanted this game to be great but it's not. Constant frame drops are making this unplayable for me. They got really bad not so long after the 2 hour mark, almost feels intentional due the the refund window. Combat is clunky. You get hit randomly by enemies. Hit boxes are super weird. You get various custom combos but they're all pointless. Roll then hit tends to beat…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like most reviews on this page, I really wanted to like The Spirit of the Samurai, and in some respects, I do - I like the look of the game, it's enemies and some of the environments are pretty cool - but there are just too many frustrations that are hard to ignore. Putting aside the marketing frustration where the game is constantly cited as being "stop-motion" (it isn't, it just has some interesting animation technique plastered on CGI models), top amongst my legitimate complaints is the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's very easy to see why this game has its mixed rating. I am coming into this game after numerous patches and updates, so I can't speak for how much more frustrating it would have been had I played it closer to launch. With that being said, the difficulty varies wildly from ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (that damn spider boss when you are a Kodama), to piss easy (the main antagonist). The platforming is, chunky, to say the least, and navigation, even with the updates, can sometimes be a little unclear.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →+ Nice Nice graphics + Story is OK - Character controls move, turn, strike like a tank. - Worst gameplay ever. only frustration Hit detection is not registered by enemies. Sometime 1 hit instant Player death other times 6-7 hits from the same enemy both without blocking ??? I Know the some strikes have different dammage. Does not make it better. - Front Texture Layers blocking the View of playable Character in the later levels. By Fights you see not the enemy and you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A flawed master piece. There's are some questionable design and gameplay decision that hinder this games greatness, but it is still a journey worth taking. An obvious labour of love that deserves recognition.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An imbalance between visual style+directing of cutscenes and the gameplay. The former is outstanding, the latter is mediocre and sometimes buggy. Nevertheless, I was totally hooked on the story and beat the game. The last third is artificially dragged out which is always a sign of lack of experience in gamedev. I forgave everything for the story, cutscenes, and the visual style. I saw tons of stop motion projects, but never seen when 3D graphics mimics stop motion, this is new and very…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wow that was one of the most boring game i have played in a while. The ,,story'' is not worth mentioning. Just a samurai who needs to kill some evil demon or so but thats all there is to it. I am sure some people had this on their radar for the art style but imo the style is just not pleasing to look at, at first you think ,,wow that looks pretty good but it gets super stale and boring really quickly. The combat is obviously the wrost part of this game. It feels unresponsive and clunky and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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