This is one of few if not the only Psikyo games that was not an arcade port, originally appearing on the PSP (PlayStation Portable) as a possible Japan-only release. It's the 3rd and final title in the Samurai Aces series and is a sequel to Tengai, the prior arcade release in the series, and continues the storyline from the original two titles as a side-scrolling bullet hell shooter.
With this being a mid-2000s PSP release, compared to prior Psikyo titles there are notable improvements in the presentation, while it remains a 2D shooter the graphics take advantage of the PSP's capabilities to present 3D backgrounds and also makes for a better appearance on HD displays, and there is also a greatly enhanced orchestra-like soundtrack and the original Japanese voice work is also present. IN-game cutscenes present high-quality character art, and the female details provide nice fanservice for male players. While the framerate is not as smooth as prior arcade games that is intentional from the original and does not detract from the experience. Controls are responsive and the 4-button layout works well with most control pads and the layout can be customized. The only slight downsides are, initially there are just 2 difficulty levels and 4 characters, but the in-game manual contains 2 cheat codes you can enter, one of which unlocks a 3rd difficulty and two more characters for 6 total, which offsets the latter. Since this is a mid-2000s bullet hell game, even the Easy level presents a decent challenge but not overwhelming for beginners. The only other downside that remains is, being a horizontal scrolling handheld game there is no multplayer or co-op.
For being the most recent Psikyo port from these developers, once again they have done an outstanding job with a near-perfect recreation of the original game, and also making it more accessible to English-language players who can't understand Japanese text. Another definite buy and a good warm-up for when Sol Divide arrives on Steam (expected in late July as of this review)

Good port of a bad game. Basically this used to be a PSP game (nowhere written on the steam page) which was very under the usual quality of a Psikyo game. Only for hardcore fan for the collection, for curious you'll be better off on Samurai Ace 1 or 2

I'm kind of on the fence with this one. The game was made by X-Nauts (with apparently some, although I don't know how much, involvement from Psikyo) for the PSP in 2005. It uses terribly rudimentary 3D backgrounds, only runs at 30fps, and relies a lot more on cheap deaths (although it at least cleans up the slowdown present in the PSP game). I have never liked 2D sprites on top of 3D backgrounds, and I never will. I do find playing it at windowed 720p improves image quality quite a bit, owing to the fact it was designed for the small screen of the PSP.

No question it is 100% a step backward compared to Tengai. That said, the Steam version is probably the best of the available versions of the game with the least amount of input delay, depending on your setup. However, the game does not remember your input bindings, so you have to configure your buttons every time you start the game, which is a pain.

Still, the art direction is very nice, and we get a continuation of the story and characters...I really enjoy the setting and world of Samurai Aces. So for me, it kind of completes the collection, even if it is kind of a black sheep. So as a fan of the genre and the series, I recommend it. But if you are new to shmups and not invested in this series, and just looking for a good one to try, definitely go with Tengai instead.

As much as I appreciate City Connection working their hardest to port the Psikyo shooters on PC, this ain't worth getting. This feels like a step back compared to their other games, and is especially bad compared to the older Samurai Aces games. Even worse is the fact that this version appears to retain the 30fps lock that the original PSP had despite being a shoot-em-up, which you really need 60fps for. Avoid.

TL;DR: This game is the sequel to Tengai but it's easy enough for newcomers, so I recommend it to anyone that likes that game but is not good enough to beat it (like me lol).

I wanted to write a review since I feel like the amount of negative reviews this game gets is a little unfair. It is true that the game framerate is locked at 30 FPS, since apparently this is a port based on a PSP game. However, I'd like to emphasize how good this game is for people that are not very good at SHMUPs, since the difficulty patterns are relatively easy to react to and memorize compared to the previous two games in the trilogy.

The difficulty options are well done, since there are some differences between the 3 of them (Easy, Normal and Hard), which is something that also couldn't really be said about the previous two games. At no point I personally felt like the 30 FPS lock made the game too hard to react to, and that's simply because the patterns are very forgiving for the most part.

If you are more of a SHMUP expert, maybe this game wouldn't be as appealing to you since it doesn't feature a second loop, and the difficulty of the Hard mode doesn't seem as elevated as those. But I guess you could still play for scoring, since the "Cannon" mechanic the game has allows for a lot of potential scoring that requires a good amount of planning to fully take advantage of it. The way it works is that you need deliver the final hit to an enemy with that Cannon button in order to get a score bonus, and you get more score the more bullets that enemy has active on screen (also making them disappear).

Overall, I think this game is fun to play regardless of your skill level, and might be even a good introduction to anyone that wants to get into horizontal SHMUPs.

Better than OK, but not a good or great experience is to be had with Samurai Aces III. As far as shooters go, Samurai Aces III is on the easy side. The game runs at 30fps, but I didn't experience any difficulty maneuvering given the "precise" fire button option for firing/moving around. Some don't care for the 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds, but I liked it in this game. I recommend setting the scan-line option to maximum for smoothing out the rough edges.

For a non-arcade game, the endings for each of the characters, frankly, stinks. A written summary personalized for each character? No drawings or anything substantial? Outside of filling out your achievement stack, there is no incentive to play again after beating the game once since there is nothing memorable about it.

Pick this one up if you're in the mood for a better-than-medicore PSP-to-PC shooter, otherwise skip it.


Summary Rating: 6

God bless this company for porting all these amazing Psykio games! It's so amazing to see the Sengoku trilogy on Steam! Psykio, and especially the Sengoku trilogy need a lot more love. One of the best shmup series' from one of the best shmup creators. I think these Steam ports are much more seamless than the Switch ports. One bug report though: I put in the code to unlock the extra characters and it worked, but when I choose Junis sometimes the game crashes. Otherwise perfect though.