GloatingSwine said:
Shogun: Total War.
About the only actually realistic portrayal of feudal Japan. And even that's heavily abstracted.
That was basically going to be my post. Any truly "realistic" game would either have to be on the more commanding armies scale, or have to be pretty short. The average lifespan or a Samurai or Ninja in combat was short. And since all the OP talks about is combat related activities, I can only assume he's not looking for realism in the "cultured, sophisticated, artistic" sense. It's worth remembering that the Samurai were also the aristocracy, and actually did a lot more than fight.
In addition to Shogun: Total War, you might check out the original Kessen (before Koei went nuts with mysticism and meteorology). But, if you really want to play as one lone soldier, you're not going to ever find a realistic game. The realism has to (at the very least) take a hairline fracture in that if you die the level resets. But, then again, you don't want to be some redshirt, you want to be a hero.
@Imperialwar:
It might work, fixed-camera rarely works, since you also wouldn't be able to turn your character if you're using the second analog stick for sword swinging. You make a few historical misstatements (ninja were not members of the samurai caste, that's the entire point. They were peasants, using whatever items they had access to. Also, any samurai (excluding the few Ronin) would have a Diamyo to begin with). The problem as before is how you deal with needing the player character to survive. Either you'd be really realistic (in which case getting hit is gonna suck, and you will get hit) and the character dies, or you give up on that, and let the character become better. On the same subject, being part of samurai military tactics would be fairly boring. Using a yari would be basically walking straight forward, using a bow would be shooting toward the enemy and hoping (less straight, more arced), and using a no-dachi or katana would be an exercise in dying.
