Upon first glance at Samurai Warriors Katana, it looked like pretty much like Samurai Warriors on rails with outdated graphics and probably horrific waggle controls that would ruin the game from the get-go. In other words, for this fan of the franchise, expectations were pretty, pretty low.

Katana did exceed those expectations, but not by great leaps and bounds. It's not a shovelware title like many other Wii offerings have turned out to be, but rather what appears to be a rushed or half-finished game, one with potential that's untapped. If only they paid me a dollar every time I've said that in a review. I'd be a millionaire off my Wii reviews by now...

For those of you who thought Katana it looked like pretty much like Samurai Warriors on rails, don't be surprised because... well, that's what it is. Not for the entire time, mind you, as there are a few times you do get full movement, but a lot of the game does kind of carry you along on rails or holds your hand. You do get to use a ton of weapons across each of the five different stories, from bows and arrows to swords and poleaxes, which is awesome.

The bad part, though, comes in regards to the A.I. and programming. There are plenty of bugs and idiotic A.I. moves here, enough to really take away from the experience. The controls do sometimes seem more like a light gun game than an action game, but its when you get to waggle the Wii remote around like a sword that the game shines a bit brighter.

The graphics and sound are a throwback to the first Samurai Warriors game on the PS2... except I don't think Koei was going for that, to be honest. The voice acting is perhaps even more annoying than in past games (and as a fan of the series, that says a lot). It literally does look like they built this thing on a PS2 dev kit, then slapped some Wii remote controls on it, put it in a box and said, "Done!" And the voice acting... don't even start there. They've bright many of the same voice actors along with them from the series' other games, but they really do need to change some of the more annoying characters and quickly.

Multiplayer doesn't really come into play here, as there are few modes and it's limited to 2 players only. There's about 10-15 hours of content in this game, which isn't bad for what's essentially a first shot as designing a Wii title, but still feels a little on the repetitive side.

Koei shouldn't be deterred that Katana didn't rise above mediocrity. Instead, let's see a third-person, more traditional Samurai Warriors title on the Wii that utilizes Wii controls better. That, or they can keep the first-person perspective, but the graphics, the voice acting and the controls will all need to be brought to a much higher standard. A good future bargain bin title, though, for what it's worth.

Pros: Nice diversity of game interactions. Wii controls aren't horrible.

Cons: Graphics and voice acting are, though. Feels like some of the potential here is wasted.

Samurai Warriors Katana is rated T (Teen) by the ESRB for Mild Violence and Language.