My first impression was “the fuck is this?” when stumbling upon it on Amazon.
Then i looked at the cover and a stupid memory emerged, that yes, i recognize these characters, they’re from that middling and unexplicable animated kids film remake of Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles, The Legend Of Hank: Paws Of Fury, which i reviewed last month.
Problem is, that came out in 2022, and i’m fairly sure most people do not even know it exists or already forgot, but apparently it didn’t do nowhere as bad as one would assume in terms of box office and streaming revenue (though according to Wikipedia it didn’t even break even), yet i wonder why a tie-in videogame its coming out 3 years after the film it “tie-ing” into released?
Even more, now dropping the “Legend Of Hank” subtitle and feeling even more like a rejected Bubsy pitch?
This seems like some primo kusoge beef, if you will. It has the stank all over it.
And yes, this is my first PS5 game review, one of shovelware that one would assume its put out by GameMill Entertaiment, but nope, this one is distributed by Maximum Entertaiment, and you can easily get retail physical copies also for Switch, and digital for everything on the market, aside from the PS4. Dunno why, figures this kind of game expecially would have a release on the more popular non-Nintendo home console, but this ain’t the case.
to be honest this review is coming out relatively fast because i saw it on Amazon for 45 bucks, said hell no, but put it in a wishlist for the inevitable price drops later down the line… 3 days later it dropped to like 10 bucks, sure, i can wait 1 month for delivery, the movie it ties into spent like 12 years into development hell.
Also, yes, apparently a videogame adaptation was always planned, but like the film itself, got delayed many times, until it was released in very late November 2025, to absolutely zero marketing at all, which is already a “good” sign but also not surprising at all.
Even weirder, it’s also akin to the Ghostbusters 2015 reboot, since the videogame tie-in for that was actually a follow up of the film events, an actual sequel.
Developed by ZEROlife Games and Fishing Cactus, Paws Of Fury: Samurai Academy does take place after the events of the film, with the plot seeing the Shogun order an army to attack the village of Kakamucho..….. and that’s about it in terms of plot.
/
I’m not kidding, this is it.
Couldn’t cannibalize the plot of another Mel Brooks movie? Come on now.
Then again, it’s clear nobody in the story department checked in with the writers for the dialogues, since the NPC tasked to make you enter the raid missions that talks about “fending off Ika Chu’s army”… that was in the first movie? Is he back from the turlet he was flushed into at the end of the film? Is he actually the new shogun?
Nope, he just learned hypnosis while captive, then used it on the Shogun to have his armies attack Kakamucho (which is basically the same thing the villain did in the film), then later does the thing on an ally character, Emiko, but that’s about it.
Mind you, this reveal comes at the end… and it’s third-hand, since the character telling us in the final cutscene, Jimbo, had to be told after since he fainted at the end of the big final fight, that will conveniently save the developers from having to model either Ika Chu or the Shogun characters.
I’d say SPOILERS…. but then again who else could it be than Ika Chu again behind this ruse, as he appears in the game over screen saying some bollocks, and is IMMEDIATLY spoiled by the raid mission NPC (the one that gives story missions) that just straight up says it’s Ika Chu armies you have to fend off, even the first time you interact with him, well before the plot could imply he’s back or something.
I guess why bother, nobody gives and shit, and – more to the point – Ika Chu is already on the box art, so OOPPS!
More importantly, where is the titled Samurai Academy? Is this that?
Did they forgot there was supposed to be a “Samurai Academy” or something like that, or this is a shonen manga style title like My Hero Academia, implying this period of their lives was the “Samurai Academy” they made along the way?
Most likely due to the raids/challenges presented as tasks to undertake from NPCs, but even that makes little sense, maybe it was just a random title or a holdover from when they planned to have a more proper ensemble of “samurai training facilities” for Hank to go through for upgrades.
Which aren’t thing here, but like the final cutscene, they have the obvious tell-tale stank of a “we had to finish the game yesterday and we ain’t done but still have to end it” situation, that or the publisher fucked them over by asking for it to be done well before the established deadline.
well, nowhere as unfinished as shit like Rise Of Kong, this actually works as intended, even though it feels obviously rushed together, which is extra ironic, why rush a videogame tie in to a decade-delayed film?
the fact in the pre-final cutscene some enemy models just were sliding across the map like that One Punch Man Season 3 clip is indicative, and no i don’t think this was made on purpose for a joke.
Then again presentation is already lacking out of the gate, with no CG trailer or intro cutscene, its loads, main menu which screams cheap and not too different from a baseline menu as given by Unity or something, and a few minutes in it becomes clear they didn’t recast any of the original VAs of the movie, so instead we have impersonators , which is especially noticeable for Jimbo, Samuel L. Jackson character, but they’re okayish, and i get why, it way cheaper this way.
Not that the credits lists anyone of the VAs, which is… alarming but sadly expected.
Long gone are the days of Iron Man 2: The Videogame or Thor: God Of Thunder for the PS3/X360 when you could actually cast Jackson as one of his previous character WITHOUT just his paycheck being thrice the budget of an entire game.
It looks like a PS3/360 era budget game, but in design it’s frankly even more ancient, and honestly not for the better even in this mess that is the current videogames’ scene, and while the art style is consistent with the movie, it’s kinda creepy how the NPC basically almost never blink in either the hubs or the cutscenes, i think they noticed only at the end, before the final cutscene, that NO ONE BLINKS.
Plus characters in the in-game engine only cutscenes are static, feel bolted in place, barely move their bodies at all even for breathing, and despite the occasional nice view in some of the hub areas, it’s definitely a low budget game, with colorful but still bland looking enviroments with repeated assets and an overall cheap feeling to it.
At least it’s mostly bug free, aside from the funny “sliding characters” glitch for one of the final cutscenes nothing of the sort happened, nor it crashed or freezed, performance is okay and load times are very brief…. which is the bare minimum since this looks like a budget PS4 game they released on PS5 and Switch instead, skipping most of the old gen entirely.
In terms of gameplay, fittingly, the videogame of a dated-on-arrival animated kids movie is also sporting some outdated design choices, and goes for the old “buy 1 get 3” approach, after all
why make a single okay thing when you can offer 3 subpar or outright shit gameplay styles instead?
See, by the first minutes of gameplay you’d think this was gonna be a collectathon platformer… not quite really, despite platforming factoring into gameplay.
There are 3 little open hub where to access the village raids and samurai runs, with some platforming gimmicks like the rail grinding to speedily reach other parts of the hub, place for the grapple to latch on, sidequests involving talking to NPCs, fetching collectables, collectable wooden cat targets to shoot at, and some platforming challenges, plus shops where to spend the cat money on cosmetic items for Hank… and Jimbo, since after the intro you can play local co-op
And i’ll give the game credit for this, since it’s actual co-op, the main raid missions are the story ones and are made expecting P1 to be Hank and P2 to be Jimbo, this isn’t one of those “2 players in the sense the second one assists the first one and can do very little”, this has proper local 2 players co-op, instead of shit like Knack, for once, or the Super Mario Galaxy style “multiplayer”.
The hubs are cute and aren’t empty, but also aren’t “open world” nor the main attraction.
That would be the village raids, tower defense sections where you have to defend one or more temples from waves of samurai cats (of the non-pizza variety) by collecting coins to activate or replenish traps like falling pianos on a wire, explosive barrells, fireworks displays or stands of explosives, getting consumable weapons like hammer or special arrows, and actively fighting the hordes in sword combat.
I was hoping to get a knock off Orcs Must Die clone, but this ain’t that, nor it’s a proper hack n slash, even for a kids game the combat is underbaked and lacking:you have a 3 hit combo, a running/dashing attack, a jumping-to-ground stomp attack…and that’s about it for the actual melee combat.
there’s no block or parry, you have a dodge roll, but there’s no strategy besides mindless, boring button mashing to hell and back, it ultimately is the more effective way to deal with the good number of enemies the game throws at you, aside the extra weapons with limited use like the wok, the staff, the boxing glove gun, some that use charged attacks like the hammer, and mostly the explosive and “incredibly gassy” (the game actually calls them “fart bombs”) poison arrows.
oh wait, in the second hub you also learn to hover mid-air for archery shot, which is useful maybe once or twice, is never properly needed or required and honestly aside from the few maps where they had baloon riding airborne ninjas (and the tutorial quest for the ability itself), i immediatly forgot i even had that to be honest.
especially since shooting arrows is clunky as hell and not much satisfying in terms of feedback (which goes for the explosions and combat as a whole), even worse than the melee combat, so once you unlock the grapple you won’t even bother with arrow shots, even to trigger traps, unless they’re “brap poisoned” or explosive arrows, since the grapple can activate traps as well from a ranged position, basically making the regular archery shots pointless fairly soon.
don’t expect anything in terms of upgrades of any kind, the game simply has none, even basic shit like extra health and higher offense/ATK just doesn’t exist here, let alone extra abilities or extra combos. Almost unbelievable, and it does just make a lot of the game feel hollow, as there’s no proper sense of reward to progressing or doing shit, nor the game does a good job or a miracle wirh its limited moveset and abilities’ pool.
Sure, you can also unlock some other playable characters from the film, like Sumo and Emiko, but they are basically swappable summons on cooldown, you can swap to them but mostly they can be used just to swap to a character with a full health bar, not properly playable on their own either.
I’m sure there is no skill tree or upgrades because they couldn’t make one in time, more than a deliberate choice to “balance” and avoid you steamrolling the raids after a few upgrades and some farming, especially since it’s on the easy side of things on the Normal difficulty setting, which i get given the target audience.
Even for “baby first tower defense” is clunky, repetitive and lacking in enemy variety (and also shares the camera issues the open hubs have), not good, but not complete shit either, as you progress they throw some variation in terms of extra weapons, some new enemies, and the grappling hook helps in letting you deal better with more “complex” maps and in activating remotely traps, but it’s really basic, mediocre at best even for a kids game.
From the TD missions you get money and scrolls, and you need to get enough scrolls to unlock the next hub area, which often means also playing the other main gameplay style: Samurai Trials.
These are basically 2.5D platforming challenges in which you race Jimbo to the finishs line, and while they offer some variety (and the sidescrolling view means reprise from the awful camera of the main game modes) and aren’t actually bad, all things considered, it becomes obvious fairly soon the game wasn’t built around or for this, since the double jump kills almost all momentum for Hank, in a trial race where you have to constantly double jump and air dash….unless you get a speed power up, that is, but relying on a power up to fix some stiff jumps isn’t ideal either.
Plus it becomes frustrating to see that the IA for the rival in these races simply doesn’t make mistakes, so you have to simply surpass Jimbo by a LOT, otherwise he might have time to catch up while you fuck up, and he never actually does, and he’s somehow faster and nimble than Hank, despite him being a literal “fat cat”. It’s cheap difficulty.
I would complain more about the very little variety in tactics, systems, the mindless combat, but thankfully is also 2/3 hours long, to beat, i assume 7 hours top to complete it, maybe 9 if i’m stretching it, but still, aside from kids with nothing better to play or completionists, i don’t see anyone else bothering with it after reaching the credits.
This is the kinda of game you’d trade back in to your videogame store back in the 2000s after beating it, and then it would eventually haunt the “used deals” bargain bins in droves.
So, Paws Of Fury: Samurai Academy is, its a perfect adaptation of the source material, as the writing is lazy and dated in the very same way, especially with the overreliance on juvenile puns and the occasional-but-no-so-occasional fourth wall break or poke at videogame (instead of film) logic, it does perfectly represents the film its a sequel of sorts to, which is still warrants quotations mark since the plot is incredibly thin, there’s barely a narrative because the most important things are related to us instead of shown since most likely the studios received an ultimatum to finish the game well before the planned deadline.
and sure why not, it will save the artists from rendering a proper model for two characters they can just mention instead, and who would still be voice by impersonators since getting the cast of the movie would requires double (or more) the budget of actual production for the game itself.
Still less offensive than most crap Game Mill puts out, this is no Rise Of Kong, this is just a PS3/360 era style of licensed tie-in crap that’s at least functional, even if still obviously cheap in terms of presentation, with static, dead-eyed or unblinking character models, and uncredited impersonators as the star actors providing voices in the animated film are definitely NOT returning here, and also obviously unfinished in terms of story (especially the story) and gameplay mechanics , even if it goes for the “3 in 1” pack of gameplay stiles, when instead it should have focused on being a better real time tower defense affair, there was something to it that could have been decent.
Instead of trying to also be a open world-ish platformer and 2D style footrace challenge platformer.
But then it ain’t worse than Ratchet & Clank Q-Force, even if it the comparison to the Ghostbusters game tying into the 2015 Ghostbusters Answer The Call film was apt, as this is also far worse than the actual film its being a sequel too.
Still, asking 40 bucks or more for a retail copy is really taking the piss and reselling it to you cold… or so i would say, but the game is 25 bucks on digital storefronts, and apparently 30-40 (i remember it costing more than 30 bucks before on Amazon) bucks is the MSRP for a retail copy.
Which is arguably still too much, but far less greedy than most of the stuff Game Mill puts out for full price, regardless if it a new game or a cheap ass & barren port of an arcade release.
With some luck, this is the last we’ll hear of Paws Of Fury as a franchise, forever.
Wise Cafe (International) 