Intended as a follow-up to a 2022 CGI movie, Paws of Fury is in essence a combination of Hong Kong Phooey (ask your dad) and Kung Fu Panda, starring unlikely hero Hank – the sole canine in a world populated by felines. If you haven’t heard of the movie, that’s understandable. It was in production for almost a decade, faced numerous delays due to COVID, and is yet to recoup its $45 million budget.
Despite standing in the shadow of the far more successful Kung Fu Panda franchise, Samurai Academy has all the ingredients for a sturdy video game adaptation: ninjas, samurai, a rich feudal Japan setting, and a wry mentor to teach the ropes. By being based on a movie already a few years old, the groundwork is already established. All the developers had to do is explain why Hank is yet again battling the Shogun’s cat armies.
Curiously, what we have here isn’t a collectathon platformer. Instead, Paws of Fury is a peculiar proposition, seemingly designed with today’s easily distracted youth in mind by offering a handful of different gameplay styles. You’re presented with a small village hub which has a bunch of challenges to complete, along with wave-based tower-defence battles, and side-scrolling obstacle courses that pit you against your mentor Jimbo.
After earning enough scrolls by clearing objectives, the next two hub locations become accessible, with the second being a mountain side village – in which Hank gains two new moves – and eventually a sizeable coastal town. The challenges within these vary from having to find and shoot hidden cat targets, to chasing butterflies across rooftops against the clock. When it comes to finding hidden items though, you’re on your own – not even the map will help you here, forcing you to look high and low.
The side-scrolling races – or Samurai Trials, as they’re known – see you leaping over spikes, avoiding swinging hammers, flicking switches to activate traps, and timing jumps perfectly. If Jimbo reaches the finishing line first, it’s a simple case of trying again. Speed boost power-ups give a handy advantage, and to obtain a gold medal on each requires practise. If you’re old enough to remember Doritos Crash Course on Xbox 360, you’ll feel a sense of familiarity.
The tower-defence mode meanwhile is the meat of the experience, with battle arenas soon growing in size and complexity while the number of enemy units swell. The idea is to collect coins and find treasure chests that then allow Hank to purchase traps in marked areas – with every battle showing the route enemies plan to take. This means you’re able to plan ahead, purchasing explosives close to the temples you’re trying to protect. Limited use weapons can also be found, while explosive pots can be thrown, often turning the tide of a loosing battle. Dropping a piano onto a group of adversaries and watching them fly is oddly satisfying, and the game engine copes with the carnage well. That said, it is a generation or two behind the times visually.
Outside of these two modes and the hub’s challenges lies…not much else. You’re able to talk to a few key characters – with two eventually summonable in battle – and purchase an array of daft clothing for Hank and Jimbo to wear. On the subject of Jimbo, they’re playable in local co-op, which makes this ideal for families who game together. As the difficulty of the tower-defence mode gradually rises, eventually featuring enemies that disembark from ships that sail around the vicinity, having a second player is definitely beneficial for completing later battles.
For something based on a movie that flopped, and has apparently in development since 2019, Samurai Academy: Paws of Fury is surprisingly robust. I didn’t find the side-scrolling races vastly compelling despite their difficulty being well balanced, but the tower-defence battles have enough depth to engage, forcing you to save weapons for the final wave and summon characters when your health is low. Having to search the hub worlds for hidden items, which could be just about anywhere, is a bit of a drag but thankfully it’s possible to progress without having to 100% each hub. I can’t imagine younger gamers sticking around to see and find anything, but there’s still plenty here to keep small fingers busy. Not bad at all.
Maximum Entertainment’s Samurai Academy: Paws of Fury is out now on all formats. Developed by Fishing Cactus and ZEROlife Games.