The samurai has become one of Japan’s top pop culture icons. They’re probably number three on the list, just behind pervy vending machines full of *ahem* on street corners, and a taste for lurid entertainment.

Unlike the latter two, there’s a nobility, an all-pervasive sense of strength and honour about the samurai. These warriors from the feudal days are an inscrutable and fascinating bunch, not to mention –and this is key, here, let’s be honest—they were beyond tough-as-nails. Like dinosaurs (albeit dinosaurs with really, really freaking sharp swords and distinctive helmets.

Now, I never thought I’d be comparing dinosaurs and samurai, but that’s an analogy you’ve just got to jump on board with. Much like the long-extinct reptiles, we look back on these fighters with a sense of respect, of fascination with something mystical we can’t quite understand. Also like dinosaurs, it’s a horrible idea to build a theme park to house genetically-engineered samurai, the birth of each exhibit presided over by Richard Attenborough. Stop it, Richard. You’re dead, you can’t coo over every samurai egg that hatches while Sam Neil watches, horrified, over your shoulder.

Anyway. Long story short, samurais are cool. And visceral. That’s a winning combination if ever I’ve seen one, so it’s no surprise that they’ve been the focus of many video games over the years. The question is, how many of said games are worth your time? Maybe you’ve already polished off Dark Souls-like Nioh, and you’re looking to scratch your katana-waving itch again. We’re here to help, friends.

15 Katanas, Combos, Stockings, And Suspenders: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Samurai Video Games Muramasa The Demon Blade
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Muramasa: The Demon Blade hit the Wii in 2009, arriving on the Vita four years later. It’s a side-scrolling action RPG from VanillaWare (Dragon’s Crown, Odin’s Sphere), and you know what that means: 2D visuals so gorgeous you want to add them to your ‘celebrities-I-can-have-my-way-with-if-they-come-to-town-and-my-partner-can’t-get-mad list (which is a thing, Friends told me so).

Muramasa is the story of Princess Momohime, who is inadvertently possessed by the spirit of a wandering samurai. He was aiming for her lover, another samurai, but you know how it is when you’re trying to possess samurais. You always shoot a little to the left. We’ve all been there. She gets herself in trouble, and the result is a super fun brawler with over 100 blades to collect and customize.

14 Cel-Shaded Slashin' With Afro Samurai

Afro Samurai In-Game Art
Via: images2.fanpop.com

For people of a certain age, there’s nothing cooler than an afro. Just ask your mama; she’ll tell you what a raging stud muffin The Simpsons’ Disco Stu was back in the day. Presumably, you had to have cojones like cannonballs to even consider going out in public with that on your head, hence all the virility-based claims that come with it.

Combine this hairstyle with the always-awesome samurais and you’ve surely got a hit on your hands. That was the reasoning behind anime/manga series Afro Samurai, which then spawned a cel-shaded hack and slash of its own. The plot follows Afro on his journey to avenge the death of his father, who was killed by an enigmatic sharpshooter named Justice. The game itself was nothing special, true enough, but the afro/samurai combo is like a shot of awesome whiskey straight to the jugular of the Irish coffee of badassery.

13 Finish Him In Style With Samurai Shodown

Samurai Video Games Samurai Shodown
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Samurai Shodown, triggering you with its intentional misspellings since 1993. If you’re the kind of stickler who vomits in their mouth just a little bit whenever Mortal Kombat wantonly messes around with Ks and Cs, look away now. Sure, it’s a play on the word Shogun, but that’s no excuse.

Samurai Shodown (sorry, my bad) is a series of fighting games developed by genre masters SNK. The original was the first game to equip the fighters with weapons and utilize true weapon-based combat. So that’s a unique little sub-genre created right there. The likes of Soul Calibur (which, spoiler alert, we’re going to be taking a look at later in the list) owe a great debt to this one, itself a long-running and successful franchise.

12 Noble Warrior Or Katana-Flailing Killer? Way of the Samurai

Samurai Video Games Way Of The Samurai
Via: nichegamer.com

Much like Masamune, this one’s a relatively straightforward hack and slash with RPG elements. It centres around a wandering ronin named Kenji, who arrives in a small town in the midst of a power struggle between rival factions. It’s very much a story-driven affair, in which the player’s actions determine both the way the plot unfolds and the kind of man Kenji is. Will you be a goodly hero or the most dastardly and bastardly villain this side of the sushi store? That’s entirely your choice, buddy boy.

Way of the Samurai is a deeply customizable experience in all kinds of ways. Defeated enemies drop their swords, which you can collect and enhance to your liking. The original title also featured a versus battle mode for two players, which hasn’t returned in any installment to date.

11 Hot Samurai On Viking On Knight Action: For Honor

Samurai Video Games For Honor
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And now for something a little more intense. As hardcore as juggling flaming chainsaws, rabid wolverines and unstable nuclear warheads with your feet, it’s For Honor.

This multiplayer-centric Ubisoft title is a tactical fighter, which plays out in a very similar way to Dark Souls PVP. The warlord Apollyon has manipulated the samurai, knight and Viking factions into declaring war on each other, so as to slake his lust for blood. You take control of a combatant from one of the three groups and engage in arena battles against other foes. These matches take the form of 1-on-1 duels, 2-on-2 skirmishes or an all-out batcrap crazy 4-on-4 rumble. The first rule of Medieval Fight Club is don’t talk about Medieval Fight Club. The second rule is don’t let the beardy Viking slice your torso into spam with a battle-ax the size of the Chrysler building.

10 The Most Stylish Demon Slaying You Ever Saw: Onimusha

Samurai Video Games Onimusha
Via: capcom-unity.com

In Japanese culture, the Oni are a sort of supernatural, demon-esque creature. You know the sort of thing: horns, claws, general enormous-ness, questionable sense of personal morality and/or hygiene… in short, they’re not the sorts of guys and gals you want to bring home to meet your mama. These traits do make them suitably awesome enemies for video games, though.

The Onimusha (‘demon warrior’) series is one of Capcom’s biggest IPs, action adventures which see you slaying all manner of ghastly-ass Oni as a legendary swordsman. There are some horror elements to the games, as such, but it’s more about raw action and sending demon limbs, torsos, and heads flying about the place like confetti at a very macabre wedding. A good time is had by all.

9 The Only FPS/Swordfighting Simulator To Date:  Red Steel

Samurai Video Games Red Steel
Via: destructoid.com

I know, I hear you. This is a bit of a curveball entry, but I think Red Steel warrants a place for a number of reasons. This Wii launch title was the first game to bring us funky motion-sensey katana duels, via the Wii remote and Nunchuk. Dual-wielding a katana and a gun, no less, which is a level of cool you’d never expect from a Nintendo console. After all, what’s more awesome than a katana? Two katanas. What’s —at the very least— 75% as cool as two katanas? A katana and a firearm, that’s what.

The protagonist is no samurai, rather an American gaijin by the name of Scott Munroe. Through his Japanese fiancée (and the assassination of her gangland father), Scott becomes embroiled in all kinds of dodgy Yakuza doings. Quite the culture shock, and an unusually ‘grown up’ FPS to arrive at the Wii launch. In a way, Red Steel played a huge part in selling the console to adult gamers.

8 Turn-Based Tactical Peasant-Bothering:  Sword Of The Samurai

Samurai Video Games Sword of the Samurai
Via: wingamestore.com

And now, something for the oldies. I don’t know about you, but I was born right at the ass-end of the eighties. As such, I’m a nineties child through and through, unable to remember anything of the previous decade other than my mom’s huge and terrifying hair/glasses. But if you’re a little older than I, you might be familiar with Sword of the Samurai.

This MS-DOS strategy game released in 1989, and was a kind of primitive lovechild of The Sims and Total War. Making a family was your first task, so as to have an heir to continue your line. Your ultimate goal, though, was to become Daimyo through any means necessary. As with Way of the Samurai, you can build your reputation as an honorable warrior or rise to the top by means of betrayal and murder of your superiors. The latter of which is, naturally, much more fun. Seppuku my ass.

7 One Of The Greatest RTS Titles Ever:  Shogun: Total War

Samurai Video Games Shogun Total War
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Speaking of Total War, feudal Japan was where one of PC gaming’s biggest strategy series was born. Arriving in the year 2000, this first instalment introduced us to all the familiar trappings of Total War: Building and reinforcing cities, developing armies, Spending more and more gold trying to bribe away armies who’d serve you your gonads on a platter if you tried to fight them directly… good times all around.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get to be the Shogun of all Japan in a past life. If I even had one, I’d probably have been a Medieval toilet cleaner who fell into the crap pit of some rich family and drowned. That’s just the way my luck goes. The closest I can get, then, is experiencing that thrill vicariously through the game. I’ve followed Total War through Ancient Rome, the Napoleonic Wars and all of that, hooked immediately on the campaign/battle mix of Shogun.

6 Because Mitsurugi's Man-tastic Beard Is Still The Stuff Of Legend: Soul Calibur

Samurai Video Games Soul Calibur
Via: capsulecomputers.com.au

Once again, friends, I hear you. Soul Calibur isn’t a samurai game per se. As a weapon fighter, as I say, it owes so much to the earlier Samurai Shodown, but that’s a pretty loose link in terms of giving it a legit place on the list. Loose enough to drop right off and roll under the couch.

No. Namco’s iconic fighter is here for one main reason: It features gaming’s studliest, man-bun-iest samurai of all, Mitsurugi. A top tier character whichever way you slice it, Heishiro Mitsurugi is a series staple. He’s been pursuing the infamous swordsman Nightmare, hoping for a fight worthy of his skill, since the series began. Character motivations in this series can be utterly nutty, but this I can respect. That’s the samurai way.

5 Ravaging Your Trigger Finger Worse Than Track And Field:  Samurai Warriors

Samurai Video Games Samurai Warriors
Via: freepcgamesden.com

By this point in the list, you’ll have noticed a very obvious pattern has formed. It’s a hard life being a samurai. A hard, heavy-on-the-butt-kickings life. These guys live for violence and bloodshed. If a samurai hasn’t sliced twelve of their enemies into sad, broken, blood-leaking chunks before breakfast, their day is already wasted. That’s certainly the impression you get from the video games, particularly the likes of Samurai Warriors.

A hack and slash series cut from the same cloth as Dynasty Warriors, these titles put you in the role of a battlefield commander. Your goal is to eviscerate and decapitate (and various other ‘ates’ which are unpleasant to watch) your way through the hordes to the enemy commanders, besting them to clear the mission. It’s vaguely historically-based, but don’t worry; there’s no danger of you inadvertently learning anything.

4 Super Savage Weapon-Based Fighting:  Bushido Blade

Samurai Video Games Bushido Blade
Via: killapenguin.com

Here we have another 3D weapon-based fighter, but one much more innovative than most other titles the sub-genre has to offer. There are no fancy-ass flashy light shows accompanying attacks here, nor gravity-defying acrobatic moves. Bushido Blade puts realistic combat at the forefront. It dispenses with super meters, health bars, and all the usual trappings. Most attacks can be fatal to foes, just as you’d expect of a katana or naginata thrust to the man-plums.

Combat is governed by the unique ‘Body Damage System,’ which allows you to wound certain parts of the enemy to reduce their fighting ability. Then you finish them off, while they’re about as threatening as a one-legged kitten in a coma. This layer of strategy really set Bushido Blade apart, as did its implementation of the samurai code of honor, the Bushido. Hitting an opponent in the back, for instance, isn’t honorable, and so you’d get an on-screen warning for doing so. A good effort all around, this one.

3 It's Total War, Jim, But Not As We Know It:  Sengoku

Samurai Video Games Sengoku
Via: manapool.co.uk

In Japanese history, the Sengoku period was a time of social and political uproar, as well as constant warfare (“What’s it like outside, Ryu?” “Oh, you know. Same as always. War, war and a little war. I don’t know how much war is too much war, but we must be getting perilously close here. The neighbors just declared war on us for the eighth time this week”).

In video games, Sengoku (‘warring states’) is a PC strategy title from Paradox. It casts you as a noble of that turbulent time, aiming to build relationships with those close to you, foster trade and build forces to become a dominant power. The way your hero behaves governs your successes, as his traits will determine the success of your diplomacy and such.

2 You're DARN Right Kirby's A Samurai:  Kirby Super Star

Samurai Video Games Kirby Super Star
Via: mobygames.com

Before Wario was freaking us out with the high-speed nose-picking, cucumber-chopping batcrap crazy of WarioWare, Kirby ruled the world of Nintendo minigame compilations. For me, Kirby Super Star is still the highlight of the little pink guy’s career.

The game had seven main modes, consisting of races against King Dedede (Gourmet Race), treasure hunting Metroidvania style (The Great Cave Offensive) and the like. The game was also replete with unlockable minigames, the best of which naturally being Samurai Kirby.

As the most adorable Kirby form of all (read that super-cute man bun and weep, friends), you’re pitted against a range of foes form the series. It’s a quick draw game where timing is everything; first to hit the button when ‘!’ appears wins the duel. Simple as it is, this is one of the most addictive and tense minigames I’ve ever played.

1 Deep, Beautiful, Vicious, Hilarious: Skulls of the Shogun

Samurai Video Games Skulls of the Shogun
Via: cdn3.denofgeek.us

Finally, here’s a criminally underrated samurai game that deserves your attention. Skulls of the Shogun is a turn-based strategy game that will tickle the katanas of any Advance Wars or Fire Emblem fan. Its star, General Akamoto, was on the brink of becoming Shogun when he was betrayed and killed by his lieutenant. Said underling then falls on his own spear accidentally, and so the two meet again in the afterlife. And so the scene is set for a skeletal skirmish.

While a grisly premise, Skulls of the Shogun has a great sense of humor and bombastic art style, as well as a few innovative mechanics all its own. During battles, units can consume the skulls of vanquished warriors to regain health and power up, as well as activate shrines and other traditional samurai elements for various advantages. Any genre fans unfamiliar with the game will want to give it a try for sure.