Set in a feudal-era Japan that straddles history and myth, the Genji: Days of the Blade is a good showcase for the PlayStation3's graphical capabilities, boasting near-flawless character models, smooth animations and stunning otherworldly environments that drip with atmosphere.

It's a sequel to 2005's Dawn of the Samurai for PlayStation 2, a game that detailed the bitter rivalry between the Genji and Heishi clans where players controlled two Genji clan members, the young samurai Yoshitsune and the club-carrying brawler Benkei, on a quest to bring down the Heishi by acquiring magical Amahagane gemstones that grant special powers to their owners.

Anyway, three years have passed, and Days of the Blade picks up the narrative after it's discovered that the Heishi, previously thought to have been defeated, have apparently regrouped and allied themselves with evil demons to acquire a new source of power: evil Mashogane gem shards that are like dark versions of Amahagane.

Yoshitsune and Benkei return as central characters, and, much like the first game, the bulk of gameplay involves beating up waves of Heishi henchmen (many of whom are now warped into grotesque superhuman creatures by the unholy power of the Mashogane). Characters have three types of attack as well as block and jump at their disposal, and fighting style changes depending on the particular weapon equipped. Weapons and characters stats can be also be upgraded.

Two new playable characters have also been added to the rotation. The priestess Shizuka (who was present but not playable in the first outing) is an agile fighter who excels at ranged attacks with a bladed chain weapon, while the fourth character, double-saber wielding Lord Buson, God of War (not to be confused with the game of the same name), assumes the mortal form of deceased former Heishi clan leader, Kagekiyo, to help the Genji clan.

It's possible to switch between any of the four characters on-the-fly using the controller's directional pad in what turns out to be a seamless and well-implemented swap system.

Sounds sweet, but the game is ultimately flawed, largely due to an utterly dysfunctional in-game camera. The view is too low, too close, swerves erratically, and can't be manually adjusted as it conspires to make everything from fighting to jumping across ledges unnecessarily difficult.

Expect to spend a lot of time fighting enemies that you can't actually see because they're hidden somewhere off-screen (with no way to swivel the camera around). This is not only boring -- why create all these nice-looking enemies if you spend the majority of your time at the edge of the screen fighting thin air? --, but it discourages advanced fighting strategy in favor of button-mashing (which is frighteningly effective, for shame).

Too, it frequently proves easier to navigate by simply following the little icons in the mini-map instead of actually looking at the characters in the game world as provided by the hapless camera work. For a game with such pretty environments, it's ironic that the player is actively discouraged from actually looking at them.

Days of the Blade also boasts other deal-breaking flaws like a dearth of save points (it'd be nice if you could save your progress right before a major boss battle, for example, but you can't); directions that are sparse and leave you with only a vague sense of where to go next, and tightly constricted environments are full of illogical and arbitrary invisible barriers.

Still, despite borderline disastrous gameplay, Days of the Blade does manage to nail the concept of atmosphere. There's no denying the fact that it's visually gorgeous, and the exotic soundtrack performed on traditional Japanese instruments can also be added to the list of positives, while characters' special Kamui feats, where time slows down and brutal lightning-quick attacks are juxtaposed with detached and ethereal music, are things of beauty.

Unfortunately, pretty window dressing doesn't make up for the fact that the gameplay is shallow and fundamentally flawed.