The Spirit of the Samurai is an impressive work of stop-motion art paired with a dissatisfying, frustrating action game

Even going into the final stretch of The Spirit of the Samurai, I was still unsure if I had understood the fundamentals of its combat. Enemies were every bit as twitchy and unpredictable as they had been at the start of the game, but I still had no idea whether my custom combos were good or bad. Merely that I was getting by, with an increasing reliance on spamming consumable projectiles and chugging my way through a stream of healing potions. It was working, so maybe this was intended? I honestly still don’t know.