Samurai Warriors

"The Same Deal, A Different Appeal and New Zeal"

When I first found this game on the shelf, I knew what I was looking at. It was a less than original rip-off from Dynasty Warriors by Koei. Koei, as usual, rolled in one game with the same gameplay with different scenario setting and cast. That was not unusual since Koei had been doing that for Nobunaga no Yabou (Nobunaga's Ambition) and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The idea looks totally bleak to me and the various claims of the game being on a new level from Dynasty Warriors was causing me to yawn.

What actually made me decide to bag this in my purchase was the boredom that was killing me. I didn't figured out that it could drag me from the grave and work on it days and nights.

I put the disc into my Playstation 2 and the graphics is pretty much the same, as one can expect with the same game engine. That was a real setback and it was rather sickening.

Then I started playing the game, and a fat guy charged at my character like a bulldozer and knocked me a few yards back. That is new. The fat guy was actually a squad leader type enemy known as Sumo.

The unique features in this game was the difficulty encountered when engaging these squad leaders. There's a spinning ninja, drop ninja, bomb ninja, and repeatedly firing archer leader and riflemen leader.

Yes, the addition of these squad leaders was appealing as the game became more difficult. These squad leaders in the soldier units now actually serve the purpose of making the game harder. Each of the squad leader now lead a usual group of five (including themselves) soldiers.

The new game actually offers less than sufficient characters to make a gamer glue to it. However, this was made up with the idea of having 15 CAW and 15 characters that are different and more or less characters of their own genre.

The original five characters that you can choose are:
Sanada Yukimura, Hattori Hanzou, Oichi, Uesugi Kenshin and Akechi Mitsuhide, actually branches into different musou story plots like the previous DW3.

An additional feature now in the game was the castle map. Traps, laid all over the castle are a constant danger and you no longer have to worry about some important allies dying during the battles anymore. You're all alone in the castle, sneaking inside the castle and fighting against time, traps and enemies. Ninja-type characters, now have their own special skills where they can actually perform special functions in castles where normal characters would not be able to do so.

An additional interesting feature was the three factions war where you will find yourselves facing two enemies who might also be engaging one another. If you're not careful enough, your allies might be crushed by one army while you're engaging the other.

Creating a new character is a tedious process and you have to undergo or perform tests. Personally I didn't enjoy the process of creating a new character.

One new feature in this game is that there is now a horse gauge where the amount of damage sustained while being mounted will cause you to be thrown off the horseback if the gauge is empty. It becomes harder now to throw characters off the horses than it was before.

The bodyguards that follow you can be created from the following six groups of soldiers: Ninja, Female Ninja, Swordsmen, Pikemen, Archers and Riflemen.

Characters now do have a different ranged weapon and the amount of items you can use for each character is set back at five slots again. Besides blocking, you can now roll to evade an attack.

The character stats raising is directly proportionate to the different rankings for time used to complete, missions accomplished, experience gained and musou kills. The amount of skill points a character gained is also dependent on the performance for every stage cleared and the difficulty level.

Overall, the game was entertaining for me to put off sleeping time and invest my time clearing stages and missions. So if you're thinking of purchasing another DW type of game, this is a game not to be missed.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/04