http://ps2.ign.com/articles/509/509776p1.html
April 28, 2004 - If you've been down with the idea of ripping through hordes of people in period costume, you're either fed up with Renaissance Fairs or you've been playing the Dynasty Warriors games for the past few years. After rampaging through the bloody history of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era of China, developer Omega Force has moved the action across the water to Japan for some old-fashioned feudal warfare in Samurai Warriors. The hordes of playable characters in the previous games have been scaled down for the new series, but with some new RPG elements and a different art style this is another evolutionary step in the world of the button-mashing hack'n'slash.
Gameplay
If you're not familiar with the Dynasty Warrior games, the action involves fighting entire armies across whole battlefields. With one to four bodyguards by one's side, it's entirely possible to see the body count pile up well into the hundreds. Each character of the 15 playable characters here gets five missions in his or her story to follow a story arc through to the end. Sure, it's possible to finish these missions in just a few hours for each character, but Samurai Warriors is all about the replay value and there's plenty to keep digging through after the first time through.
Having 15 characters may sound like a lot, but this pales in comparison to the 42 that were available in Dynasty Warriors 4. Right off the bat, this is a drawback that holds Samurai Warriors back from being the full-on hack'n'slash freakout that the other games were, but there is some more differentiation between the characters to help them stand out. The characters are young and old, male and female, and their weapons range from the swords and pikes to yo-yos and muskets. Each character also gets his or her own set of missions that are unique. Some scenarios will get recycled with different characters, but by playing a different side in a conflict the different missions have their own feel as well.
With branching paths in the missions for some of the characters, there's some replay value in finding the different ways of getting through to the end. Each mission in and of itself carries a variety of mission objectives both primary and secondary. While the primary objectives are needed to continue, the secondary objectives can determine what path the missions will take as well as provide extra goodies to look out for.
The primary objectives often involve keeping the commanding officer of one's own army alive and killing off the opposing side's leader. Occasionally, this can be as simple as running straight to the leader and having a quick fight to the death (hopefully his), but it often involves a lot of give and take as forces are clashing all over the battlefield and many allies need assistance in far flung areas. These situations require lots of running or horse-riding to make sure that the battle is going well on all sides.
Occasionally, missions don't involve large-scale battles with two armies, but instead focus on fighting through a castle or other massive building. These give the player freedom to run around lone-gunman-style and take care of business without having to put out fires at the same time. While these mix up the gameplay a little and add in some exploration since there is no map provided to figure out how to move through the hallways, they tend to be some of the weaker levels overall. Without the complexities of the battle scenarios, these missions bring the game down to its button-mashing core and get more repetitive.
The opposite of these solo missions are the new missions that involve three armies on the same battlefield. As the third army in a battle, it's possible to wage war against everyone else and rack up the kills or only fight against one side and forge an alliance with the other. Basically, as the third party, your role here is to break up the party and affect the outcome of someone else's fight or take over completely.
Beyond the battles and the third-party ruckus, the core element of Samurai Warriors is the same as all of the Dynasty Warriors games, button-mash and fight loads of enemies. If the idea of constantly facing hordes of enemies and tapping through them doesn't appeal to you, then you've probably made it too far through this review already. For those who appreciate the chaos and the sheer difficulty that the harder levels of difficulty and extra challenges provide, then there is plenty of the same action included here. There are also some new RPG-style additions to make things interesting and add some new life to the genre.
New skills and moves can be bought with skill points that are awarded at the end of each mission. Instead of picking up orbs like before, these skill points are earned by doing well in each mission. Kill lots of enemies, cover all the objectives, and do it quickly and more points will be awarded. Each of these skills has minimum attributes that are required, such as a minimum attack power, before they can be bought, but with so many different choices there's never shortage of options.
Each character can buy 28 different skills and eight different elemental attacks. With multiple levels of the skills and attacks, there's plenty to keep adding to characters and this provides more incentive to replay levels and build up some serious skill points. While this replaying can get tedious, the added bonus of seeing the character grow and pull off ever cooler moves definitely adds to the appeal. To enhance the characters even more, it's still possible to pick up different items, 30 in total, and equip them before a battle.
For those that truly want to take their characters as far as possible, there are five different levels of weapon for each and the fifth is only available by fulfilling a character-specific requirement. To make it even harder, they must be completed while playing the game in the hard difficulty mode. Where the easy mode here is an utter cakewalk and the normal mode is moderately difficult, the hard and chaos modes ramp up the strength of the opponents to absurd levels and are for the hardcore audience that is looking for a challenge.
There are a few other additions as well that add a bit to the gameplay from the previous games. Horses can now jump and do damage to units that they land on and when in a deadlock with an enemy, there is a deadlock gauge that shows how well you're doing in the face-off. Both of these sound minor, but have a big effect on the game itself by bringing in better elements to each area. The horse riding becomes more tactical and the deadlocks actually make sense. Players can tell if they're doing well and can ease up or can see if they're about to get thrown and fight harder.
With the RPG elements of the character advancement, the variety in the characters, and the four levels of difficulty, Samurai Warriors is catering to an audience that the Dynasty Warriors games has held onto for the past few years. The massive battles and extensive button-mashing are not for the faint of heart who want a slower paced game, but Samurai Warriors makes no apologies for that either. Instead, the gameplay offers even deeper gameplay to those who are willing to dig into it and takes the genre further.
There's no a way to prove one's own samurai skills with new Internet listings. After completing the Survival Mode, a code is given that can be entered in the official website. This code will register top scores in the Survival Mode and allow Samurai Warrior champs to compare their strength against others in the world. It's a far cry from actually taking the game online and truly taking the game to the next level, but it's a baby step in the right direction. We can only hope that true online play is in the future.
Beyond just the competitive urge, the strength of the game is the addictive nature of wading into battle against hundreds of enemies and still coming out on top. Sure, this may be taking a historical era and tweaking it to spastic videogame levels, but it's still fun and compelling in a way that makes hours disappear before you even realize it.
Graphics
The graphics have been given a stylistic change and an overall upgrade that makes the game look and feel better. With the move to Japan, the costumes and the scenery have taken on more detail even if the colors are a little more muted than before with outfits that aren't quite as gaudy as before. The even bigger change is with the special effects and the particle effects that light up the screen. The Musou attacks are much more elaborate than before and sometimes cause some severe slowdown with the action. Each character glows with power and the weapons leave bright trails with flares coming out of each impact.
To deal with the large amount of people on screen, Samurai Warriors keeps people invisible until they reach a certain draw distance and they fade into view. The effect is a fog of war without the fog. It can be disconcerting at first, but once you get used to it, it makes sense even though it really shouldn't. The bigger problem is playing split-screen with two players where there's more slowdown and the draw distance drops to ten feet sometimes. This can make fighting an officer in a group of enemies almost impossible since they keep disappearing and reappearing during the fight.
The biggest problem here is the camera that does a decent job most of the time, but when backed up against a wall or pushed into a corner it tends to freak out. Up against the wall, the camera will spin around and even up so that it looks down on the character. With so much movement, it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. The corners are even worse and the best tactic is to first run away into a clearing and then get down to the business at hand of kicking ass.
Sound
Thank the lord and praise the translators because Samurai Warriors includes the original Japanese audio as an option. The English audio tends towards the cheesy lines and goofy dialogue so it's a pleasure to keep the audio in Japanese and read the subtitles instead. If only more developers would keep in the original audio, at least as an option, to preserve some of the flavor of the original games. Not everyone wants to subject themselves to some local voice acting that makes the characters sound more than a little constipated.
As for the music, it tends to favor the constant drums of war that gets gamers in the mood for killing. It can get old quick if you listen to it, but the near constant sound effects of battle drowns it out 90% of the time. With so much battling going on, it would have been better if a bigger variety of sound effects had been included, but what is here still provides a solid audio backdrop and fills the air with battle cries and moans of pain.
Closing Comments
Samurai Warriors takes the Dynasty Warriors formula and refines it even further. The change of location is mostly for looks, but it's the newer RPG elements of the character advancement that really push the genre in a new direction. Fans of the series should find more to dig into than before with these new additions. The only drawback is that more wasn't included in the game. The Internet scoreboard is a tease for an online option that's not included.
Samurai Warriors makes a strong showing and takes the hack'n'slash genre a little further even though it's still not making any big changes to the action at hand. What it all boils down to is whether or not a button-mashing title is appealing. If so, this is still one of the best ones available. If not, the inherently repetitive nature of the gameplay will be an impossibly high hurdle. For all the hardcore button-mashers out there, this one's for you.
