Red Steel

Oh, look at those fish! Are they not pre-?

Red Steel is not about fish, sorry.

You, Scott Monroe, begin the game viewing some fish with your fianceé, Miyu Sato, right before a nice dinner the day you are to meet her father, Isao Sato. Unfortunately, rival Yakuza aiming to take over the Organization (that Isao turns out to lead), kill Isao Sato, and get the Katana Giri, Sato's sword and symbol of his leadership. This ends in Miyu being kidnapped, and Isao being betrayed and dying, but not before entrusting the sword to you. You shoot and slice through Los Angeles to LAX where you get knocked out right after seeing the plane with your fiancee take off.

You then follow your fianceé to Tokyo, where you get acknowledged as Sato's successor by the Sanro Kai, a Yakuza board of directors (after shooting or slicing their subordinates), which then asks for your help in defeating Tokai, the Big Bad and the one holding your fiancee captive. You proceed to slice, shoot, and/or spare his subordinates.

Red Steel is a First-Person Shooter game released by Ubisoft, and the first game ever designed specifically for the Wii. This game has become infamous for its allegedly bad gameplay mechanics since before it came out due to its rushed release (the bane of every launch game), late design changes, and unfamiliarity with the new motion control scheme (especially expectations of 1:1 motion).

If you're looking for the sequel In Name Only, try visiting Red Steel 2's page.

---

Tropes used in Red Steel include:

• Body Armor as Hit Points: Picking up body armor will give the player a second life bar. This life bar does not regenerate
• Bodyguard Crush: What got Miyu and Scott together.
• Breakable Weapons: All katanas may be broken. With the exception of a couple enemies who use the Katana Giri against you when it gets stolen.
• Crate Expectations: Use them for cover, while they still hold.
• Engrish
• Every Car Is a Pinto and Exploding Barrels: The enemies set these off against themselves occasionally.
• Fission Mailed: At the beginning, versus Ryuichi the first time, in the fridge, and so on...
• Five-Man Band: The Sanro Kai!
  • The Hero: Akira Matsubara
  • The Lancer: Inoue Makoto
  • The Smart Guy: Kenzo Chiba
  • The Big Guy: Tetsuo Misumi
  • The Chick: Mama San Reiko
• Gratuitous Japanese: All the menu options are in English, but transliterated into katakana. Fortunately, pointing at them provides a translation.
• Heir to the Dojo: Mariko
• Heroic Mime: Scott
• Hostage for Macguffin: Miyu for the Katana Giri, now! Starts fifteen minutes into the game and drives the whole plot.
• Informed Flaw: As noted in the intro, the controls were blasted as being awful, and that may well be the only thing that most people know about the game. However, being the first shooter and a launch title, it is likely that most of this sentiment was due to incorrect expectations and unfamiliarity with the motion controls; later games such as the Resident Evil 4 port had similar schemes and responsiveness but suffered from no such criticism
• Japanese Honorifics
• Katanas Are Just Better: Averted
• Lady in Red: Miyu
• Loading Screen: With tips you probably already memorized because of how much they get repeated!
• Locked Door: Awful, considering you shoot many locks open and these just won't budge!
• Los Angeles: Setting of the first third of the game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:

"You think this is over? I can get that sword whenever I want. As long as I have your girlfriend, the game isn't over."

• Mafia Princess: Miyu, of the Yakuza variety, but a good girl.
• Mercy Rewarded: Katana duels and swarms of shooters alike (disarm them instead of killing them).
• Mighty Whitey: Scott Monroe
• Musical Spoiler: Slightly off, though.
• Ninja: The Komori.
• No OSHA Compliance
• Old Master: Otori, master of the dojo.
• Poisoned Weapons
• Retired Badass: Sato, maybe. Otori, definitely.
• Scripted Event: Everything! The only thing you can change is the ending, letting Tokai die or protecting him.
• Seppuku: Triggered Tokai's revenge upon the Sato Gumi and the Sanro Kai.
• Sniping Mission: Several, preceded by armor if particularly hard.
• Space-Filling Path
• Standard FPS Guns: Few, with the notorious appearance of the broken katana for parrying in the role of the knife.
• Too Dumb to Live: Those guys with the shining white masks at the entirely dark corridor deserve a special mention, even when all shooting enemies are this at some level.
• Treacherous Advisor: Harry Tanner.
• Walk It Off
• Yakuza
• Zettai Ryouiki: Mariko and Mama San Satori.