Warriors Orochi 2

"The Serpent King Rises Again"

When I saw the previews of this game I was more than willing to go drop my hard earned cash on Koei's most recent release. After some experience and plenty of hours dropped into the game, I can honestly say this is a solid hack and slash game. Allow me to break down areas where the game was amazing and where it lacked certain things.

Stages

Each story mode has eight stages plus additional stages through dream mode and vs. mode. There are five story modes to choose from; Shu, Wei, Wu, Samurai (Sengoku), and Orochi.

Pros

Each stage has an unquie feel and flavor to it, while there are new stages they all are, for the most point familar and easy to navigate through. Not to mention for the final stage of every story mode, the battle ground is one that highlighted either the rise to fame or down fall that kingdom or sengoku point.

Cons

Like all Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, the stages begin to blend into one another after a few consistant hours of play. Though there are a couple slight changes, there is nothing here to really note for the most point.

Overall Stage Rating

*** out of *****

Characters

Remember all of those old characters from both series have returned to bring back the slice and combos of old and create some new ones.

Pros

In Warriors Orochi 2, you are introduced to seven new characters to unlock. Each one has their own style and techniques thus adding to the already huge character count, not to mention characters that never made it in the sequels of each of their own respected games.

Cons

Though there are more characters this time around, the attacks have been slowed down thus either to present more of a challenge to tackle head on the thousands of troops or just to make their players more frustrated than necessary. Two of the "new characters" were playable in Dynasty Warriors 4 and Dynasty Warriors Xtreme Legends 5, (Nu Wa, Fu Xi) as creatable characters.

Overall Character Rating

**** out of *****

Sound

The music is beautiful and has the classic guitar riffs of the Dynasty Warriors and oriental feel with a western touch.

Pros

As stated above, the sound is excellent and gets you into the game. When you hear Lu Bu's theme you become more alert to the danger of being slaughted, or when the battle starts to work to your favor you feel part of that accomplishment.

Cons

There is little say against the over all feel except, the voice acting is pitful though (to be fair not all the voice actors were horrible but the one for Toshiie Maeda in particular). Other than this tiny flaw, the sound quality is excellent.

Overall Sound Rating

**** out of *****

Game Play

Now to the important part, the game play is the reason you purchase games. Let's see how it held up.

Pros

The stages are great, there are so many characters in this to work with there is plenty of replay value not to mention vs. mode face off and survival. Each character stands to become something of legendand have their special moves to stick out from the rest of the cast. You also are able to use three characters per stage when it starts to get dicey. Music is gives the game a great feel, and new mechanics (Triple musou, etc.) are awesome to behold. To make this even better Koei brings certain enchantments into existance so items of the past such "way of musou" are somewhat duplicated once more if not improved.

Cons

Although the game has great potential and various new mechanics and methods of play, I must say that the AI is lacking and when you have enough shared "abilities" even the hard differculty becomes mere child's play. There are no special harnesses or such so you have to rely on the shared abilities once more (thus making some characters feel out of place and not so individual). If you are also looking for on-line multi-player, this isn't your game (though this does not phase me) and serious lack of story might hurt this if it wasn't for the fact that Koei does not make games for story but rather historic fiction and hack and slash games. The graphics for this game will not make you stand up and shout and the game begins to slow down when there are so many soldiers in play or on the screen at the same time.

Overall Gameplay

**** out of *****

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/08

Game Release: Warriors Orochi 2 (US, 09/23/08)