Warriors Orochi

"The zazzy, star-studded cross-over event the world has been waiting for!!"

Marvel and DC? Nah! Jason and Freddy? Wussies I say!! Square Enix and Disney…well, actually that one was pretty cool. However, there is only one super, mega cross-over everyone wanted to see: Dynasty and Samurai warriors. Together. In one game. Now thanks to our gaming overlords Koei, we finally have it, and it is called Warriors Orochi. In what I'm calling Koei's PS2 swan song, we have here your typical Warriors game with an all-star studded cast of pretty much every character that has appeared in a Dynasty or Samurai Warriors game. That's 77 ass-kicking machines, but are they enough to entice you to go out to the slaughter fields once more? Or maybe I'm just going insane because this is my second Warriors game in less than a month (the other being Dynasty Warriors: Gundam). Let's find out.

STAR-STUDDED STORY

The serpent king Orochi is bored. Apparently, he's defeated all who oppose him in his evil dimension, and wants to fight someone who will give him a challenge. There is only one thing to do: open up a rift in space and time, suck up the lands and armies of ancient China and feudal Japan, and test his might against them. Of course, Orochi defeats the mighty armies of both lands, but all is not lost for the warriors. Although some have surrendered to Orochi and now serve him, others have banded together to form a resistance in a last ditch effort to defeat the serpent king and make everything right in the universe.

Yeah, it's pretty generic…. and it is. But I must say that for fans of the Warriors games, seeing these characters interact with each other can be a treat. Especially if you, let's say as a Dynasty Warrior, come across a Samurai Warrior on the battlefield. They may let out a couple lines of dialogue that are actually pretty humorous. Fans of the games will probably get a kick out of this, but everyone else will have to make due with the generic story to keep them motivated.

STAR-STUDDED GAMEPLAY

Story mode is divided into four different ones: one for each of the Dynasty Warrior kingdoms (Shu, Wei, and Wu), and one for the Samurai Warriors (which is led by Nobunaga Oda). You should know what you do in a Warriors game by now: take your warrior and lay waste to thousands on a battlefield hack-and-slash style. Controls remain the same for the most part: square does your combos, triangle does your charge attacks, and you mix these up to perform the more powerful crowd clearing moves. Circle does your all-powerful musou attack, L1 blocks and centers the camera, and R3 changes the size of the always helpful mini-map in the right corner of the screen.

There are some welcomed changes added to the formula. As I said before, your roster will eventually get up to 77 playable warriors, so just taking one warrior out at a time just isn't going to cut it. Warriors Orochi allows you to take 3 Dynasty or Samurai (or a combination of both) Warriors out onto a field at once. Switching between your dream team is as easy as pressing L2 and R2, and you can even chain musou attacks together by switching and doing each characters musou in a row, ending in a true musou attack. I should point out that in story mode, you just can't pick any warrior you want, as each story mode has it's own specific set of warriors to use. In the Warriors game staple free mode, however, you can play any level with any three warriors you want. One of the best parts of Orochi is being able to put your favorite characters on one team and just destroying anything in your path, and with 77, the variety is astounding. Besides a few of them I noticed with slightly changed animations and extended combos, each warrior plays similarly to whatever previous Warrior game they were in.

Each warrior is put into one of three groups: speed, power, and technique. Whatever group a warrior is in will determine what type of special attack he/she will have, which is activated with the R1 button. Power warriors have powerful, unblockable attacks that use up part of the musou gauge. Technical warriors can use part of their musou gauge to strengthen their charge attacks and to counter-attack. Speed warriors, however, are kinda weird to me. Besides each one being able to double-jump, each one has two different special attacks, but the thing is some warriors require the musou gauge to execute these attacks, while others do not. For example, Mitsunari attacks are pretty powerful, but require part of his musou gauge to perform. On the other hand, Taishi ci has equally as powerful special attacks, but he can do his without using up any of his musou gauge. A lot of characters in the speed category are like this, and for the life of me I don't know why. Another new feature that is welcome is the ability to call a horse whenever you want by pushing the select button. Definitely helps get around the maps faster.

Leveling up and collecting new weapons and items is done in classic fashion, by killing soldiers and collecting pick-ups that generals usually drop after being defeated. Each warrior still has to be leveled-up individually, so the experience points aren't divided up between the three warriors you are currently using. So believe me when I say that Orochi will throw more fodder at you than any of the previous Warriors games. I got 1000 kills easily is almost every level, so leveling up your favorite warriors to MAX should be quite fun. Enemies are still controlled by brain dead AI though, so don't expect much resistance unless your on a higher difficulty. Weapon pick-ups do give you a new weapon for each of your three warriors though. You can earn abilities that increase strength, raise the life and musou bars, etc. as well by leveling up and killing enemies. These abilities are shared will ALL the warriors, so you don't need to unlock them with each one.You even earn extra experience at the end of a level, how much you get depending on how you did in the level. You can use this experience to pump up any of the games warriors a few extra levels, or you can fuse weapons together with the new weapons fusion system. To tell you the truth, I picked up a ton of weapons doing it in the classic fashion, so I barely spent any time fusing weapons. I sure some people have taken a liking to it, though.

Now for the complaints, starting with the most generic one: yes, it's repetitive. You do nothing but hack-and-slash for hours on end, just like every other Warrior game. If you already hated it before, your mind will not be changed with this one. The main complaint I have though is with unlocking new warriors. Although a lot of the roster can be unlocked just by beating levels, a bunch more can only be unlocked on specific levels and by doing crazy-ass objectives. Each warrior has a special item, and I can see where you would need to go the extra mile for those, but for new warriors it shouldn't be this tedious. Whether I have to keep someone alive, kill specific people, keep someone alive WHILE killing specific people, do something within a time limit, rescue someone, whatever. It shouldn't take such steps just to unlock someone. Can't we just beat levels on different difficulties? Don't get me started on unlocking Tadakatsu Honda…

STAR-STUDDED GRAPHICS

Time has not been kind to the Warriors games. Poor, bland, and ugly are the three best words to describe it. Battlefields are all mostly recycled from previous Dynasty/Samurai Warriors games (remember, Orochi sucked up all their lands as well :p). Character models don't fare any better as well. Every story opens with the same FMV, but they all end with a story specific one. In-game cut-scenes don't cut it either. Good thing no one plays these games to be “ooh” and “awed”.

STAR-STUDDED SOUND

Once again, we get generic butt-rock and decent to bad voice acting. No Japanese language option here, unfortunately. Sound effects are OK, especially when utilizing Dolby pro logic II surround sound. Dolby digital 5.1 for FMVs is always nice. Listening to your own tunes while playing makes any Warriors game a lot better anyway.

ONE ZAZZY EVENT, INDEED

As typical with Warriors games, replay value is through the roof. Story modes will take maybe 3-5 hours each to complete. There are multiple difficulty settings, free mode, co-op mode, a gallery, and all that good stuff. Most of your time though will be spent leveling up your favorite warriors to the MAX (or for the super hardcore, EVERY warrior), and collecting all their weapons and special items. Fans definitely get their money's worth with this one.

Warriors Orochi is the most fun I've had with a Warriors game since Dynasty Warriors 3. The sheer variety in characters and the ability to take three of your favorites at a time onto a battlefield makes this one a winner, especially with fans. Haters can continue to hate if they want, but I still find these games to be a guilty pleasure. Like I said before: it's the perfect swan song to the Warriors games on the PS2.

KEWL
+Still a blast to play
+Huge roster of characters with lots of variety
+Easy-to-use maps still rule
+Control 3 warriors at once! (Mitsuhida Akechi, Zhou Tai, and Zhang He on the same team at the same time=greatness)
+Replay value through the roof

LAME
Cue generic Warriors game complaints:
-Repetitive
-Brain dead AI
-Poor graphics
-Poor Music and voice acting

-Crazy and tedious character unlocking

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/07

Game Release: Warriors Orochi (US, 09/18/07)