Samurai Warriors

"Great game from Koei"

One day, browsing the shelves of a gaming store, I was looking for a copy of Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires. Glancing through them, I saw one particular game that caught my attention - Samurai Warriors. 'Great' I thought. 'Koei's trying to sell us the same stuff'. However, because I was very bored, I bought it and popped it into my PS2. At first, I wasn't that interested with it, but once I got into it, I really got stuck into it.

GRAPHICS: 7/10

Graphics are pretty good. Not excellent, not bad, but about average. Each character has two different costumes (one gotten from completing their 'musou' or 'story' mode) that make them mostly look different. Some of them are very ugly though.

Summary: Decent.

SOUND: 7/10

Again, also rather average. Some voices are nice, and the music is cool at first. Sometimes it can get very repetitive. During gameplay, depending on whether you're winning or losing, different music is played. One MAJOR thing, however, that got this down by one point is the fact that a character called 'Masamune Date' shouts IMBECILE!!!! every three seconds of gameplay. Very annoying, but still, we can ignore that.

Summary: Also decent.

CHARACTERS: 9/10

Most of the characters are great. ALL of them (except for Kunoichi) are real, historical people. I think Koei did a great job in representing them. Sure, Nobunaga Oda wasn't considered a demon in real life, but he is cool. Perhaps a few of them (mostly Masamune Date and Okuni) are VERY annoying. Masamune Date is a midget who runs around shouting IMBECILE!!!! which gets very annoying.

Summary: Great, but suffers from a few annoying characters.

STORY: 7/10

The story is based off real-life events, characters, battles and history. Of course, some battles are made-up, but again, we can ignore that. Each character has two different endings. Pretty much, in one mission, there will often be a special sort of 'important' objective. Usually, doing it will result in you getting a better ending. Failure though, will send you down another path.

Summary: Rather good. Nothing too special though.

LENGTH: 7/10

Unless you are new to action games, the story mode (aka musou mode) won't last you very long, but trying to get all the items will.

Summary: Short for story mode. Moderate for getting everything.

REPLAY: 7/10

There are quite a few characters (no where near as much as Dynasty Warriors, though) who pretty much all have a different moveset. They may share similar moves (Kenshin and Shingen, for example) but for the most part, they're different. Also, there are different items, and, of course, the 'New Officer' mode.

In this mode, you can choose a model from a few and you'll have 12 months (12 turns) to choose different training and increase your stats. Along the way, you may encounter random things (such as battles to give you certain abilities, or events like this girl readying your armour) which, ultimately, make it more unpredictable. Inputting certain names can change your starting stats, and, at the end of the 12 months, you get a chance to join one of several clans. Each has two training exercises you must do. One on VETERAN difficulty, and one of ELITE difficulty. If you fail, your character is destroyed, but if you succeed, you'll get to play your character. Unfortunately, they all have the same musou mode (doesn't matter which clan you choose) which is stink.

Summary: New officer mode is interesting, but not varied enough. Takes you a while to get all items.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

This is the meat of the game. The characters have, pretty much, different move-sets. Some share similar attacks, but for the most part, they're different. There are four attacks. Normal, charged, musou and bow. When you kill enemies or get hurt too much (or if your health is low) your musou bar fills. When it is full, press circle to execute a powerful attack. This attack is even stronger at critical health. To do a bow attack, hold down R1. Aim your bow, and fire away. Also, holding L1, you can block attacks, and pressing R2, you can roll. If you're smart enough, you can also deflect arrows back at archers. However, a cool thing is that you can ride horses by pressing X when you are beside them.

Also, in missions, there are new 'objectives'. These objectives range from things like occupying a castle, defeating a certain officer, finding a special item and so on. These add more variety to the game, but another new feature are the 'castle' and 'siege' stages. In sieges, once the enemy commander is defeated, you must travel through the castle. In castle stages, you are already in the castle. However, while you're in a castle, there are traps all over the place, ranging from swinging pendulms, cages and blow dart traps.

After each stage, you'll earn experience. There are several ratings, ranging from time completed to amount of kills obtained with your musou attack. These go towards your experience and points. These points. These points go towards special skills that give you bonuses, like faster-increasing health and more speed when near death.

Most of the stages are varied, and at times, you'll hear your allies complimenting you, or asking for help. After killing an officer, you'll say a victory quote. Every time you kill 50 enemies, a friendly officer will compliment you. The only things stopping this game from getting a 10 is that some stages are either repetitive / boring and, one particular stage, called 'Betrayal at Honnouji' is VERY excrutiatingly annoying if you are a particular side and you aren't playing their leader.

Summary: Great, but suffers from a few flaws.

OVERALL: 8 / 10 (not an average!)

In my opinion, this game is great, but suffers from a few things that get really annoying. If you want more, then buy the expansion, Xtreme Legends.

RENT OR BUY?

If you are hot on action games, buy definitely. However, if you want to find out whether you like Samurai Warriors or not, or if you aren't actually that keen on action games, then rent.

- Sinroth

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/05