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Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamus Dororo Review - PS2

Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo, a third-person action adventure, combines all of the samurai-style fighting of Onimusha with the combo-linking and high-flying action of Devil May Cry, throwing a few role-playing game elements and storytelling on top as a garnish. Being a borrower rather than an inventor, though, the game is taking a risk in the sense that it brings little to nothing new to the market, and has, ultimately, fallen into such a trap.

Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo is set on Earth during a war-ravaged period, the people under attack by overpowering and vicious demons and the gods of darkness, the Fiends. One day, the violence still as abundant as ever, two suns rose, one bright and one dark, the Fiends claiming that they foretold the imminent birth of a child who would cripple their destructive campaign. Believing they could corrupt the child's birth father, they offered him intense power and authority in return for his unborn son and, after some reluctance, he agreed. The moment the child was born it was enveloped in shadows, forty-eight of its body parts slowly stripped from its undeveloped body. Days later, the child was found abandoned by a jack of all trades known as Jyukai, who decided to feed the tampered being. Seeing it was still as healthy as ever, Jyukai decided to raise the child and discovered it had special abilities when it began to speak into his mind and even run around as a normal child despite bearing no eyes. Jyukai decided to operate on the child and attempted to give it everything it was missing, from eyes to ears, and named it Hyakkimaru. Despite his artificial body, Hyakkimaru continued to grow and eventually discovered that the demons - who still abused the entire world - had stolen his body parts. Determined to end the war and retrieve what was rightfully his, Hyakkimaru, now a developed Samurai, set out to destroy the forty-eight fiends, once and for all, before doing so having Jyukai fit his body with an arsenal of weapons.

While the game's story is - without a doubt - strange, it's well-told through an abundance of cut scenes, character interaction and dialogue. Character development is also present, though more physically rather than emotionally; as you progress through the game and obtain more and more of Hyakkimaru's body parts, he'll grow stronger and more developed.

Gameplay

Not long into the game you'll come across a young child and supposed "master thief", Dororo. Admittedly, seeing and hearing the kid's ponytail and high-pitched voice respectively led me to believe - for a good hour or so - that Dororo was a girl, but is apparently male according to the in-game dialogue. Anyway, Dororo will tag along behind you - without permission, as every curious and adventure-hungry young boy would - after your first encounter with him, and Hyakkimaru - despite having the ability to lop off the kid's head with ease - accepts the (continued next page)