Samurai Ghost, released in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 as , is a 1992 action game

Action game

Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...

 released by Namco

Namco

is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...

 for the TurboGrafx-16

TurboGrafx-16

TurboGrafx-16, fully titled as TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem and known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....

. The game is the sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

 to Genpei Tōma Den, and is the first game in the series to be released outside Japan. It was released on the Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

's Virtual Console

Virtual console

A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...

 in North America on October 29, 2007 and in Europe on November 2 2007.

Overview

As with the previous game, the player controls the resurrected samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 Taira no Kagekiyo

Taira no Kagekiyo

Taira no Kagekiyo , also known as Kazusa no Shichirō , was a samurai of the Taira clan who took part in the Genpei War of Japan, against the Minamoto clan....

, defeating demons and monsters across several levels. Given his undead

Undead

Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...

 nature, Kagekiyo has access to supernatural powers such as levitation and the ability to cast energy projectiles.

Samurai Ghost has a similar plot to its prequel, in that Kagekiyo fights against Minamoto no Yoshitsune

Minamoto no Yoshitsune

was a general of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura period. Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, and the third and final son and child that Yoshitomo would father with Tokiwa Gozen. Yoshitsune's older brother Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura...

, Saitō Musashibō Benkei

Saito Musashibo Benkei

, popularly called Benkei, was a Japanese warrior monk who served Minamoto no Yoshitsune. He is commonly depicted as a man of great strength and loyalty, and a popular subject of Japanese folklore.-Biography:...

, and his arch enemy Minamoto no Yoritomo

Minamoto no Yoritomo

was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan. He ruled from 1192 until 1199.-Early life and exile :Yoritomo was the third son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, heir of the Minamoto clan, and his official wife, a daughter of Fujiwara no Suenori, who was a member of the...

. In Samurai Ghost, Kagekiyo also faces Minamoto no Yoshinaka

Minamoto no Yoshinaka

was a general of the late Heian Period of Japanese history. A member of the Minamoto samurai clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo was his cousin and rival during the Genpei War between the Minamoto and the Taira clans....

 (also known as Kiso no Yoshinaka), who commits seppuku

Seppuku

is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...

when defeated.