I’ve been spending the last week or so watching a lot of older anime, mostly from the early-mid 2000s. Catching up on and finally catching various shows has been a good time. I’ve enjoyed my time rewatching stuff like Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop and .hack. You’ve probably figured out by now that I’ve also been watching a lot of Samurai Champloo. You’re probably also thinking that I’m going to do my routine “I somehow have never experienced this!” bit, but that’s where you’re wrong. No, I watched the fuck out of Samurai Champloo. I goddamn love that show. Another absolute masterclass in animation, music, and characterization from Shinichiro Watanabe, and more than a worthy follow up to Cowboy Bebop. Had Champloo branded clothes that I wore. In public. I would clock in and out of work wearing my zip-up hoodie with the classic image of Mugen and Jin in the sunset, with both men on either side of the zipper.
Now, while I have watched and re-watched and re-watched and re-watched Champloo the anime, I was never able to play the Playstation 2 game that was based off of it, Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked. Could never find a copy of it anywhere. At least, anywhere where it was a sold at a price a normal person could afford. This was a disappointment, because not only was this a game for an anime that I really like, but this was a game that was developed by none other than Grasshopper Manufacture. And unlike the last time I wrote about a GhM anime title (Evangelion 3nd Impact), this was a Grasshopper that was in the process of showing us its final form. This was almost a year after the release of Killer7, and one year before blessing us with No More Heroes, which holds the title of Lonely Frontier Dot Net Game That Is Actually Among The Greatest Of All Time. Anyways, while going back through the anime, I remembered that oh yeah, PS2 emulation doesn’t fucking suck anymore, so I should finally try out the game.
Let me go ahead and kill the suspense and just say that Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked is awesome. It’s a great game, and if I ever put together a tier of anime licensed games, it would be sitting right at the top along with Astro Boy on the GBA. It’s not just good as something you press buttons to, Sidetracked is about as close to a playable episode of the show as you can get. It’s a game full of sword-based combat, where hip-hop beats are integral to the entire experience, as the background music dictates your movelist (you can switch between two songs on the fly). Despite the plot being a non-canon side story, the characters act no different than if this were an episode right in the middle of the series. As you would expect, you play as both Mugen and Jin (plus a third hidden character, but I want to focus on these two), each of whom not only has their own fighting style, but their own method of control. For example, Jin has evasive rolls going forward and backward to avoid attacks that he (or you) can’t block or counter. Mugen, on the other hand, doesn’t have this, but he is instead able to jump very high in the air, leading to him either doing a dive attack or landing behind an enemy for a combo. It’s not just movement tech, either. Pressing the attack button right before an enemy hits you is how you counter attack. In my time playing Sidetracked, I found counters so much easier to land with Jin, whereas I had to rely more on evasion with Mugen because I found the timing window for parries much harder with him. Like, even my experience as a player was thematic to the show; Jin’s calm, methodical Iaito style of swordfighting led to me feeling like some master swordsman quicker than my opponents, while Mugen’s wild, out of control sword swinging made me feel like I was overwhelming enemies with brute force alone. On that level alone, Sidetracked is an all-timer.
But there’s more to Sidetracked than just being a great adaptation. While I was playing this game, I couldn’t help but notice just how many aspects of this game have appeared or would appear in other Grasshopper games. Two scenarios that you should play concurrently, much like in The Silver Case. Levels have their own version of the Vinculum Gate from Killer7. And honestly, the combat, the between stage town exploration, the particular “small record store with a wall covered in posters and flyers for local shows” aesthetic of loading screen transitions, and the use of musical samples in lieu of standard sound effects all came together and felt as if Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked was a trial run for a lot of features that would later appear in No More Heroes. Hell, it even has similar “[Boss] Is Dead” that would be in NMH2 and on, and an entire level that takes place on a 2D plane.
Sidetracked is such a Grasshopper style game. I admit that it’s a cliched writing cop-out to describe a game as having a consistent style with other games made by the same people, but with a licensed game like this, it’s a bit unusual. Having come off of playing GhM’s Evangelion PSP game, there wasn’t really much there that said that it was a game made by Grasshopper, and I feel like the developer of a licensed game is just as important as the property it’s based on. I don’t fucking care about The Punisher, the Marvel Comics character, but I will play the arcade game he’s in because Capcom made it, and they made a number of excellent brawlers that The Punisher was molded from. Or think of how you would (or should) have your ears perk up for the Konami Ninja Turtles games, or Neversoft’s work on Spider-Man and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. A Grasshopper Manufacture game based on Neon Genesis Evangelion should have been more than just a competent rhythm game.
Luckily, that mistake was not made with Sidetracked. It’s not just a good game that went to great lengths to make its game mechanics as thematically appropriate to the show as possible, but this was something that had care put into it. This wasn’t something pushed out the door to help pay some bills, this was a game given the same amount of attention and love as the actual artistically inclined passion projects that Grasshopper are known for. I know I said that it felt like a precursor to No More Heroes, but I don’t mean that in a bad way; it is a precursor the same way The Silver Case and Flower, Sun, and Rain is a precursor to Killer7. Similar ideas being reused in a different way to make a different kind of game. I completely believe that Samurai Champloo should be as recognized in the Grasshopper Manufacture canon as anything else they have ever made. I’m glad I finally had the chance to play it. You should play it too. Also rewatch the anime while you’re at it.
