Super Samurai Sweeper
One of Nerdook's first games was the minesweeper-inspired mystery puzzle ClueSweeper, and obviously he has a soft spot for the genre because he's dipping in that well again to bring you Super Samurai Sweeper. Turn over tiles to fight mooks and earn silver to upgrade yourself. You'll need to make every click count to defeat seven daimyos on your way to the shogun.
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I've never quite figured out why people go so crazy over Nerdook's games. They're usually quite simplistic and about as visually/graphically appealing as Windows 1.1.
Oh this is *fun*. Best of Nerdook. I did run into some oddness after several games -- I've had footprints leading nowhere, causing me to lose a province.
Oh yeah, now I'm getting it all the time. Footprints leading nowhere, and I suppose no daimyo on the board.
I liked this one thoroughly.
With the good powerup-system, it could do with some more provinces.
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Super Samurai Sweeper Walkthrough: Tips and Tricks
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If you play on "normal" difficulty, you probably won't have any difficulty beating the game, so you might want to start with that difficulty level and try the other two for a challenge after.
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Of the three special abilities, the shadow clone is the most useful. There's no guarantee that the daggers will hit enemies, and the strike is a one-time screen clearer that is mostly good against mooks, and it's expensive.
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In boss battles, make sure that you save chakra to revive a party member once everything is killed except for the daimyo/shogun, because you only get chakras for kills.
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Spend experience primarily to expand your party (so that mooks will have someone to focus on other than you) and buffing yourself (since you're the one whose death causes game over). Buffing other party members is secondary to this.
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Buy permanent upgrades rather than wasting silver on more clicks or heals, especially the upgrade that allows party members to heal between battles and the upgrade that enables the samurai to heal from kills.
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Leftover clicks translate into big experience bonuses, so if you think you're buff enough to take the daimyo, go straight to it. However, in the shogun level, beating him is beating the game, so go ahead and use all the clicks.
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When you first enter, concentrate on finding the daimyo/shogun first by finding footprints. On larger levels if you have bad luck you may take a while to find him, and if you don't find him before you run out of clicks it's automatic loss.
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If you have some extra clicks and you want to fight some mooks that you see around places you've already clicked, choose to fight mooks that are on special tiles such as mountains rather than blank or forest tiles. Avoid mooks on booby traps altogether; eliminating the mooks is not worth the hit to your HP.
I've actually had quite a good amount of success prioritizing the ally regeneration skill. At normal difficulty, I had problems related to learning the game, but once I beat it once, I was able to finish the other difficulties without defeats, despite some rather dicey situations.
This is yet another quality offering from developer nerdook. But the one thing I am compelled to say is that it certainly is "minesweeper-inspired" in that it takes a few notes, but does not function much like a minesweeper type puzzler except for the notion of tracking the Daimyo with his footsteps. Discovering that was my one note of disappointment in an otherwise enjoyable title.
Interesting game, tricky though. Apparently I'm really good at finding the Daimyo, but really bad at beating him. Which made me realize that those "permanent" upgrades are only permanent if you defeat him.
@LittleGhost
All remaining Mooks join the Daimyo fight so fight them if you can, thanks to joye for this info.
Very strange bug ... (on Hardcore, so far) though I don't have any defeats, my campaign eventually shows me with 2 defeats. Some odd saving thing, I suppose.
My previous report with the footprints may be due to my own error.
Some random notes.
+ Going for the "10 clicks or less" star is best on the second province, with an ally.
+ The Market
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My first buys are Multi Strike, Expert Tracker, and Miner.
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Then I prioritize the 100$ buys. Except Daimyo Killer.
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Defensive buys: Arrow Slash and Wine Flask.
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Samurai speed: Light Feet and Quick Strike.
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And by the end, you'll need to conserve HP: Souldrinker and Scavenger.
+ I don't know how much of a difference it makes, but as soon as a warrior type is added, I buy the samurai's offense upgrade for that type.
+ I'm not a whiz on Training upgrades, but this is how I do it. If the Samurai dies, it's Game Over, so I max out Health whenever possible. I got stuck with an impossible game without enough HP. Brute doesn't seem to need much upgrading. I've not been able to max out Monk yet; he does not seem to dodge as much as advertised, an AI thing. Anyway, my priority is wiping out the field: Samurai's attack speed and Archer's damage. Swords and arrows have to get there, and be lethal.
If I have time, I'll come back and list the additions (enemies, terrain) to each level. Feel free to crib any helpful bits if you're doing a full guide.
Two things which might not have been mentioned (I've read through twice, but I'm fuzzy today).
Every conquered province will add an enemy advantage.
And surrounding each daimyo are the sum of all the remaining mooks in the province.
Both points should affect strategy. For instance, if a warrior type has yet to be introduced, adding a buff to them won't matter.
I agree on the archery thing.
I do wish there were some way to change strike/avoid priorities with the archer (standing in front of an enemy bowman and shooting the other way is my favorite ehhh moment), or prioritizing attacks on the enemy bowmen. The allies do a routine sweep back and forth of the field, but they often miss those guys who keep shooting their projectiles.
A wild suggestion, just for verisimilitude: make the samurai only pick adjacent tiles to explore, like he's actually scouting the land on foot. Now that would be *difficult*. And it would be awesome in a hex grid, too.
By the way: the art and music are quite beautiful. Recommended for a late night snack after watching melodramatic samurai anime.
I am having an issue where once I click on a province, I can't do anything else.
At the two lower difficulties, the Brute is kind of worthless. I frequently saw him lumber toward an enemy while my Samurai finished fighting a different enemy, turned around, passed the Brute, and killed his target for him. But on Nightmare, enemies have much more HP, so you spend more time whacking them and less time running from target to target. Then the Brute starts to shine. Meanwhile the Monk becomes less effective, unless you have enough energy to keep reviving him.
I agree that the archer is pitiful. The super samurai should commit super seppuku for commanding his allies so poorly.
I use the Brute to keep the Archer alive. The Monk seems to need lots of speed and damage to do any good, but later I need him as another body for the same deal... keep the Archer alive.
Here's the thing... if you click on a square with mooks, and then leave it to fight later:
1. When you come back, you don't lose clicks.
2. When you come back, you don't gain any HP bonus.
3. Mooks can move around, and that revealed troop number can increase.
4. When you leave that square, you don't gain the experience... and more importantly, you don't gain the silver from the battle (delaying a permanent upgrade).
5. If you click around after (read: blindly), the HP bonuses from other squares cannot go over your HP limit.
6. So generally speaking, if you have at least one ally, I would recommend only skipping over the squares with FEWER mooks, because they don't yield much EXP/HP/$$$. You're unlikely to die before the boss battle anyway. Over time you lose more HP bonuses by delaying battles, and then a string of those battles will drain HP with no clicks/squares left to bring it back up.
Wooo, broke 400,000! There's a surprising amount of replayability (read: help, I am addicted) just in trying different strategies. And you really have to watch the battle, too; though the movements are random, even 2 notches of experience boosting does make a difference.
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Super Samurai Sweeper Walkthrough: Tips and Tricks
If you play on "normal" difficulty, you probably won't have any difficulty beating the game, so you might want to start with that difficulty level and try the other two for a challenge after.
Of the three special abilities, the shadow clone is the most useful. There's no guarantee that the daggers will hit enemies, and the strike is a one-time screen clearer that is mostly good against mooks, and it's expensive.
In boss battles, make sure that you save chakra to revive a party member once everything is killed except for the daimyo/shogun, because you only get chakras for kills.
Spend experience primarily to expand your party (so that mooks will have someone to focus on other than you) and buffing yourself (since you're the one whose death causes game over). Buffing other party members is secondary to this.
Buy permanent upgrades rather than wasting silver on more clicks or heals, especially the upgrade that allows party members to heal between battles and the upgrade that enables the samurai to heal from kills.
Leftover clicks translate into big experience bonuses, so if you think you're buff enough to take the daimyo, go straight to it. However, in the shogun level, beating him is beating the game, so go ahead and use all the clicks.
When you first enter, concentrate on finding the daimyo/shogun first by finding footprints. On larger levels if you have bad luck you may take a while to find him, and if you don't find him before you run out of clicks it's automatic loss.
If you have some extra clicks and you want to fight some mooks that you see around places you've already clicked, choose to fight mooks that are on special tiles such as mountains rather than blank or forest tiles. Avoid mooks on booby traps altogether; eliminating the mooks is not worth the hit to your HP.
Posted by: joye
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February 15, 2012 11:42 PM