Ghostlight Blog
Wed, 23rd Mar 2016 | Posted by Ross
I’m delighted to be able to say that Way of the Samurai 3 has now been released on Steam priced at $19.99 (£14.99), with 3 DLC items each priced at $1.99. There is also a 20% launch discount on both the base game and on the DLC. So quickly head over to the Steam Store to take advantage of this great deal!
I hope you all enjoy our latest Steam release and that you all have a trouble free game, but if you do encounter any problems then please check out the known issues thread on the Steam Forum and email us if you cannot find a solution there.
Honour, sacrifice, betrayal… Your choices make you who you are. How will history remember you?
Jump into the sandals of a mysterious lone samurai during Japan’s turbulent Sengoku era, in one of the most atmospheric action RPGs ever created!
Explore the villages, body-strewn battlefields, bandit fortresses, immense castles and local town of Amana, in an open world bustling with a rich cast of colourful characters that you can help, ignore or victimise.
Choose your friends and enemies carefully in a game where every decision has far-reaching consequences, and where finishing the game is just the beginning of your journey…
- The Butterfly Effect – More than 20 different endings. Your every action, no matter how subtle or ludicrous, could set in motion a huge variety of events, allowing for huge replayability. Explore new narrative paths, reveal new allies… and enemies!
- Huge Customization - Craft your own unique weapons from over 200 different parts. Create the ultimate unbreakable weapon to suit your preferred fighting style. Forge lethal swords, spears, pole axes and more outlandish weaponry and discover hundreds of new abilities as you become a true master of each weapon!
- Reward System and Samurai Rating – Your actions and conduct will reward you with Samurai Points and Titles, all of which unlock new game features, customisation options, outfits and accessories. Live as an honourable samurai, wallow in the low life of a bandit or strike your own path! Your choices lead to new endings, strange followers and other unexpected outcomes.
- The Pen Can Be Mightier Than the Sword - Fight your enemies by force or take the diplomatic route, using subtle gestures like the unsheathing of your sword or kowtowing. Featuring an extensive dialogue tree, combo system and much, much more!
That’s all from me. I’ll be back soon, but until then why not follow us on our Twitter and Facebook pages, our Youtube Channel and our Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight You can also follow me on Twitter for a more personal take on all things Ghostlight.
Tue, 22nd Mar 2016 | Posted by Ross
Hi everyone,
I hope you’re all looking forward to tomorrow’s Steam release of Way of the Samurai 3? Way of the Samurai 3 will launch at $19.99 (£14.99), with 3 DLC items each priced at $1.99. There will also be a 20% launch discount on both the base game and on the DLC.
We will be offering the following DLC packs:
Way of the Samurai 3 - Accessory Set
This pack includes a comprehensive 27 exclusive accessories to create even more unique and outlandish characters.
Way of the Samurai 3 - Head and Outfit Set
Including 1 exclusive Head and 10 exclusive outfits will help you create truly unique characters.
Way of the Samurai 3 - Weapon Set
This set has a massive 40 exclusive weapon parts to create 9 unique swords and the ‘Arquebus’ spear.
We’re all very excited about getting Way of the Samurai 3 into your hands. While it may not seem like a long time since we originally announced the game, we’d actually been working on it for quite a while before we were able to announce it.
That’s not to say this hasn’t been a really smooth porting process, because it really has! I’d like to say a big thank you to all our beta testers for their help. It really is appreciated. :)
If you can’t wait for the release of the game, or simply aren’t sure of the differences between Way of the Samurai 3 and Way of the Samurai 4, then I’d really recommend Al’s blog post comparing the two games. Personally, I think they’re both definitely worth playing, not that I’m biased or anything. :)
If you’ve read Al’s piece and still want more Way of the Samurai 3 info, then you can also check out the Way of the Samurai 3 Steam forum, where you can chat to your fellow fans.
Honour, sacrifice, betrayal… Your choices make you who you are. How will history remember you?
Jump into the sandals of a mysterious lone samurai during Japan’s turbulent Sengoku era, in one of the most atmospheric action RPGs ever created.
Explore the villages, body-strewn battlefields, bandit fortresses, immense castles and local town of Amana, in an open world bustling with a rich cast of colourful characters that you can help, ignore or victimise.
Choose your friends and enemies carefully in a game where every decision has far-reaching consequences, and where finishing the game is just the beginning of your journey…
- The Butterfly Effect – More than 20 different endings. Your every action, no matter how subtle or ludicrous, could set in motion a huge variety of events, allowing for huge replayability. Explore new narrative paths, reveal new allies… and enemies!
- Huge Customization - Craft your own unique weapons from over 200 different parts. Create the ultimate unbreakable weapon to suit your preferred fighting style. Forge lethal swords, spears, pole axes and more outlandish weaponry and discover hundreds of new abilities as you become a true master of each weapon!
- Reward System and Samurai Rating – Your actions and conduct will reward you with Samurai Points and Titles, all of which unlock new game features, customisation options, outfits and accessories. Live as an honourable samurai, wallow in the low life of a bandit or strike your own path! Your choices lead to new endings, strange followers and other unexpected outcomes.
- The Pen Can Be Mightier Than the Sword - Fight your enemies by force or take the diplomatic route, using subtle gestures like the unsheathing of your sword or kowtowing. Featuring an extensive dialogue tree, combo system and much, much more!
That’s all from me. I’ll be back soon, but until then why not follow us on our Twitter and Facebook pages, our Youtube Channel and our Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight? You can also follow me on Twitter for a more personal take on all things Ghostlight.
Fri, 18th Mar 2016 | Posted by Al
Hi everyone,
As you all probably know, we recently revealed that following last year’s successful Steam release of prestigious ‘Famitsu Gold Award’ winner, Way of the Samurai 4, we will be bringing its mighty prequel, Way of the Samurai 3 to Steam next Wednesday 23rd March 2016. Developed and published in Japan by Acquire and Spike Chunsoft, Way of the Samurai 3 is a key part of the million+ selling Way of the Samurai series and we’re delighted to again be working alongside both Acquire and Spike Chunsoft in continuing this popular series! So, I thought now was a good time to give you guys some info on the game and what separates it from Way of the Samurai 4. I’ve played over 200 hours each of both games in the process of localising them to PC, so I feel I’m in a pretty good position to share my thoughts with you :)
Fair warning: I’m going to assume you’re familiar with WotS4, so if you’re not, then why not visit the Way of the Samurai 4 Wikipedia page?
So here are the main differences that, I think, make Way of the Samurai 3 the greatest in the series so far:
- A more traditional story:
Way of the Samurai 3’s story is grounded in a far more traditional setting than the admittedly-very-interesting story of foreign integration found in WotS4. In WotS3, you are the lone survivor on the losing side of a battle that took place immediately prior to the start of the game. After waking up in the poor, peace-loving Takatane village, the people make it clear that, as a samurai, you’re far from welcome. Over the course of the next few days the player will interact with the villagers, Fujimori clan, who’s Lord, Shuzen, rules Amana with an iron fist and with the hedonistic Ouka Clan bandits who don’t want to be ruled by Shuzen, or anyone else.
These three factions, and some other interesting side-players, feature eccentric characters that interact in many interesting ways. The wealth of choices you have in WotS3 can be a little overwhelming initially, but I came to look on the game as a kind of ‘Groundhog Day’ version of a classic samurai tale.The story plays out over just a few days, and it’s in experimenting with different choices on successive playthroughs that the game really comes alive. It feels like a game you ‘live in’ which is something that fans of the series have loved all along but I think WotS3 shows this aspect of the series at its best.
- Greater player agency:
As I mentioned briefly above, I feel like I’m able to make more choices more often in Way of the Samurai 3 than in other entries. You can choose to help, ignore, kill or knock out other key figures in the story pretty much whenever you want, and the game always seems to have an eventuality prepared for whatever crazy thing you do.
It’s really fun trying to test the game in this way, and with so many endings it’s awesome seeing where decisions take you. The day/night cycle also influences what decisions you’ll be able to make and gives you massive incentive to play over and over again, trying to see everything that’s on offer.
This huge trust in the player and greater feeling of agency was scaled back in WotS4, and compensated for with a greater variety of crazy outfits for your samurai which were a lot of fun. I prefer the looser approach taken by WotS3 though, and you can still create some awesome characters, especially if you make use of the wealth of costumes and accessories on offer. ;D
- Faster-paced combat:
In some ways WotS3 has a less complex combat system than WotS4. For example, swords you create are limited in terms of the stance you can use, but I find the overall combat system more streamlined and fun. Pushing and pulling remain an important consideration (especially at higher difficulties!) and you can appreciate this when you go and challenge Sensei and her assistants at the Guard Gate area. The game also benefits from an awesome ‘Instant Kill’ system which you can activate in the options, enabling you to QTE-kill masses of enemies.This is provided you block the first attack at the exact instant it hits your blade, and can then keep up with the button prompts that assail you thereafter. It makes extended combat sessions less of a grind and arguably more streamlined and fun than they were in WotS4, which I personally find a huge improvement.
- TONS of endings:
WotS3 features an incredible 22 different endings! That’s not a typo: there are TWENTY TWO genuinely different endings for you to find and STACKS of titles for you to try and unlock by acting in varying ways during the game. You’ll most likely need to use a guide to find everything, but luckily an amazing player called EVERYTHING69 has you covered with an incredible guide on GameFAQs, which you can find here. One ending requires you to kill EVERY major character in the game except yourself, and figuring out just HOW to do that is really fun. The ‘best’ ending, which provides the best outcome for more-or-less every character in the game, is also great fun to achieve and probably the most satisfying in terms of storytelling. The feeling of living the same few days over and over and trying to achieve better and better outcomes is really cool, and using your aggregated money and parts to create ever-greater weapons also keeps things exciting and fresh. :)
- More secretive secrets:
As I’ve already mentioned, Way of the Samurai 3 can overwhelm newcomers at first, but that’s in service of an amazing feeling of discovery and ‘place’ in the world of Amana for those who persist. There are exclusive weapons hidden in some crazy places, and some awesome side missions that result in really enjoyable and memorable encounters. Perhaps the most fun ‘secrets’ are in finding each of the partners in the game who help you in differing ways and even move into your hut for a while if you do the right things. Taking your time to get a feel for the world and learn its secrets is probably the main reason that this is my favourite entry in the series. And who doesn’t want to try and charm every cat in the game world? I mean, how cool is that??
Well, that’s it: my reasons why I think Way of the Samurai 3 is the greatest edition in this franchise although I should say that I really enjoyed WotS4 too of course – both are awesome for different reasons J And next Wednesday you’ll be able to try it out on Steam for yourselves with all the usual benefits the PC version brings (Steam Trading Cards, Steam Achievements, Cloud Saves, and mouse/keyboard/controller support) making it the best way to experience WotS3. If you’ve never played it before, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and if you’ve previous experience on console, get ready to welcome an old friend back into your life. See you in Amana! :)