Saiyuki: Journey West is a tactical role-playing video game released for the Sony PlayStation by Koei. It is based loosely on the Chinese novel Journey to the West. The game's Japanese title is simply Saiyūki (西遊記), which is the Japanese name of Journey to the West.
It follows the basic outline of the plot of the novel, in which the main character, a Buddhist practitioner named Sanzo, travels from China to India on a religious mission and has a variety of adventures along the way. The game also features several other characters from the novel, including Son Goku, the monkey king. In contrast to other renditions of the story, the game allows Sanzo to be played as either a male or a female character at the player's choice.
A gameplay twist is that every character except Sanzo can transform into a monstrous form for a limited time. Instead of transforming, Sanzo has access to summon spells that each boost the party's stats in different ways for a number of rounds and allows him/her to use an extra spell at will. Furthermore, each character has a native element that powers their spells and weakens them to opposing elements.
The game softens the original story, with most of the heroes' negative characteristics removed, and most of the villains surviving at the end.
The game's plot are heavily based between Buddhism and Hinduism. Buddhism is the main religion in this game where Sanzo and his party member must save Buddha, while gods from Hinduism are the main antagonists.
