I think I've just seen enough extremely shit adaptations of Seven Samurai that I set a very low bar for "inspired by the works of Akira Kurosawa" lol. That, and I have very low expectations of high-budget, mass market slop :)

I enjoyed the game, but I liked it in a similar way to how I enjoyed the earlier Assassin's Creed games - relatively compelling adventure gameplay in a kinda neat historical-ish setting . You're right, though, the storytelling hasn't advanced too much from Ninja Gaiden on the NES