Samurai Warriors

""You shall now witness the true art of battle!""

Samurai Warriors

The title of this review is of course a quote made by Mitsuhide Akechi during the game. Why that particular quote? Because that quote is a good way to describe this game. This game is like a piece of artwork. With the impressive move sets of each character, the detailed appearances of each character, the colorful stages, and of course the story of each character.

Samurai Warriors is based off the Sengoku Era of Japan and has the Dynasty Warriors like gameplay we all love so much, however, this one is actually different from Dynasty Warriors. The standard hack n' slash gameplay is all that's really the same.

Story: 10

The stories made for each character are very interesting. Although the characters are based off their historical selves, their stories are a little more fantasized with. Reality is not this great. Mitsuhide Akechi is portrayed as some sort of noble savior of the people when in reality he was just some snooty scholar who betrayed Nobunaga Oda for, most likely, personal reasons. Okuni's traveling the land to raise funds so the Izumo Shrine can be repaired, while of course, flirting with almost everyone she meets. There's also the fun rivalry between Shingen Takeda and Kenshin Uesugi; Nobunaga Oda's conquest to rebuild a new prosperous age; Yukimura Sanada's warrior path along with his trusty ninja, Kunoichi; Magoichi Saika, the mercenary with a soft spot for the ladies; Keiji Maeda, the eccentric warrior who fights for the sake of battle; The love story with Oichi, who must fight against her own family; Hanzo Hattori, working from the shadows to serve his lord; The life of a thief with Goemon Ishikawa; Masamune Date, a very young boy who fights with pretty much everyone in order to conquer the land; Ranmaru Mori who's very intent on protecting his lord and completing his duties; And of course, my favorite, the love/hate relationship between Noh and Nobunaga Oda. She won't let anyone else kill him, except herself. That relationship between them is just a great one and I hold it in high regards for other personal reasons. And you can also follow the tale of the officer you created yourself. It's a little disappointing that there's only one story used for all New Officers, but it's only a small drawback and it's not a bad story.

Gameplay: 8

A great solid gameplay, this game has. What you're really doing is running around through each stage, hacking and slashing, or whacking and thwacking, or poking and piercing, or whatever else you'd call it since there is a variety of weapons divided between each character and they don't all specifically hack and slash. Each character has their own specific move set with about 4 additional charge attacks. Some are effective, others aren't really, but their performance of the attacks is really a cool sight to see. One new thing is that when you use your Musou Attack, you can just use your regular attacks during it if you wanted.

For each stage, your character can trigger a number of missions to do. These missions are usually like eliminating particular officers or protecting or guiding an ally. But there are different reasons for doing the missions and completing them will help you during each stage. There are a real lot of missions to do all together for each character and you won't get them all done with one play through of each stage, but going back and completing all the missions you missed gives you a reason to replay the game over and over again.

There's also a different element in character development. During the stages, you pick up experience, which helps in increasing your attributes. But then you also receive a certain amount of points, relating to your performance during the stage. You can use these points to purchase skills that increase your abilities. There are skills that do stuff like increasing your attack when you're near death, allowing you to win weapon deadlocks easier, increasing your Musou attack power, or even allowing you to use your True Musou attack all the time. There are many more and one drawback is that once you max your character out you cannot get any more points to get more skills.

One bad thing about the game is that as you get stronger, your enemies will get stronger as well to match your new level and pose more of a challenge. This is actually more frustrating than challenging as it makes it appear as your not even getting stronger at all, but rather weaker. Another bad thing is when you play multiplayer, you and your partner share a Musou gauge, instead of having two separate ones. If you're in a pinch where you need your Musou and your partner doesn't have their gauge filled, it can cause problems.

Another new aspect we can't ignore, are the Castle stages. Castle stages have you infiltrate the enemy's castle, alone, and defeat the enemies inside. They are a nice idea, but they aren't done too well and can often be frustrating and hard. One drawback is that the enemies will flow out continuously with no way to stop them and you will find very few health pick-ups. And the rare occasions when you do find one will be the time when you don't need it. There are also many traps that are lined in each castle level, but they do not pose much of a hazard, as they are noticeable and easy to avoid. Once you acquire the Lantern item, castle stages are considerably easier as you can see the whole map of the stage and know where the exit is instead of just running around through a maze.

Graphics: 9

The graphics are pretty well done. The characters, stages, weapons, cutscenes, and movies are pretty well detailed, more so with the movies. One annoyance is that once in a while during gameplay, when you're in range of too many soldiers some will disappear, as they can't all be shown on the screen. And more often than not it will be the enemy officer you are fighting that disappears for a moment and that can be a little frustrating.

Sound: 10

The music has kind of a techno rock feel to it. It's nice music to listen to during each stage and it does a good job at setting the mood. And one welcomed surprise is that the voice acting is actually good. The voices fit each character very nicely. The only one that might cause you to squirm is Okuni's, but some of you may actually like her voice. And if worst comes to worse, you can always switch the language to Japanese and listen to the Japanese voice acting which is fine and in some cases better. But then you'll have to read the subtitles if you don't know Japanese.

Replayability: 9

The replay value of this game is even better than Dynasty Warriors. There's a lot more to do and more to keep you wanting to replay. Mainly, there are all the missions, 5th weapons, and special items. However, some of the little annoyances with the gameplay may drive you away a little.

Overall: 9

All in all this is a great game and a pretty good change from the Dynasty Warriors style that many critics attack for being the same thing over and over again. This game has also gotten me very interested in the Sengoku Era of Japan and I have been studying this time period ever since, as did Dynasty Warriors with the Three Kingdoms Era. So for all those harsh, soccer mom critics out there who say video games corrupt our youth and that they don't teach us anything, this game proves otherwise, as well as many others do, might I add. And this game can be made more enjoyable by playing it with Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends, as that fixes all the problems with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/06