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There's something about a pure historical game. Kengo: Legend of the Nine follows nine samurai from historical times — none of the magic or anything else that other games have — and you get to control them in battles against small hordes of enemies.

And, yeah, that's about it. There's a certain style that most reviews follow, where we're supposed to tell you about the story of the game, and I've just summarized it there.

Oh, sure, there are various modes to the game. The main mode is called ... well, Main Mode. That's your "campaign." Then there's combat mode and some others, but don't even bother with those until you've made some process in Main Mode, because you can't do anything with them.

Main Mode basically follows chapters. You come into what's a nicely rendered environment. Some bad guys confront you. You banter back and forth in Japanese with English subtitles, and the battle begins.

For the most part, fights are slow and dull. Lower-level enemies will surround you and then, typically, just back off and wait for you to come and kill them. Oh, sometimes they will slice at you, but you don't really feel threatened.

You can run around the level for a while, and more enemies will come out, and you kill them. It's all really very exciting, and by that, I mean, mind-numbingly boring.

After you're done with the little guys, out comes a boss bad guy. He'll be significantly tougher than the other bad guys and more than happy to take advantage of your faults to instantly kill you. If that happens, it's right back to the main menu with the incredibly annoying menu change noises that are reminiscent of the sound of stepping on a beached jellyfish.

There's not a lot to complain about in the graphics of the game. The sound ... well ... pretty much is repetitious and annoying. The dialogue is lame and in Japanese. That's a plus for some people but not for me. I don't speak Japanese.

And the gameplay ... is ... bad. It's slow. Supposedly it's "deliberately paced" and strategic and maybe even realistic, but in this case, it is boring. Your samurai moves slowly. You've got all these moves that the manual talks over and over about, but you'll just be mashing Y and B over and over, for the most part. Vertical slice. Horizontal slice. Rinse. Repeat.

There's no tutorial or anything resembling one, either. The first time you play, you're pretty much locked into playing the Main Mode until you open up some new characters. And, hey, that means you're going to be getting shot right back to that main menu until you figure out how to fight.

Sure, you can play combat mode. They've got snappy titles, but it's just more of the same.

This is a boring, dull, not overwhelmingly interesting game. Unless you're a massive samurai fan, there's nothing in Kengo: Legend of the Nine for you. If you are a massive samurai fan, odds are, you're going to be annoyed with this game anyways. I can't fathom why someone would want to actually pay for this game, which makes me very excited about selling this game to some poor franchise store and getting it the heck out of my house.