Samurai Warriors 2 Empires

"A decent mix of Strategy and Hack and Slash"

Usually, only people who have played previous games would come to purchase Samurai Warriors 5 Empires, and if you want a bit of tide changing strategy on board then the games probably for you.

Game Controls- 8

With fairly simple controls and a somewhat tricky time to use the Y button, its fairly simple to pick up. You can jump, defend, enter a special stance, run and trample people with horses if you happen to be riding one. Now to the obvious one- Attack. This game will wear your X button out, so be warned.

Gameplay- 8

Just a straight hack and slash with some strategy thrown in... you'd be surprised how much a difference your Tactics and Formations change the tide of battle. The game runs formations in a paper-rock-scissors fashion- Attack beats speed, speed beats defense, defense beats attack. The game doesn't just let you use any formation you want however- you have a point range from 0-120 at the beginning of each fight to choose your starting formation, then once the battle starts, you get roughly 1 point every 2 seconds. You also get a bonus 30 for each 50 kills, which builds towards the mighty level 3 formations. However, its not such a good thing when you deploy a lv3 speed tactic to be hit with a lv3 attack formation- On Hard and Chaos mode, this almost always spells death. There are a nice amount of tactics as well, ranging from useful to useless. After each fight you are awarded EXP and spoils depending on what you accomplished during the battle.

Customization- 7

You are able to create your own officers, yet it is somewhat restricted to different colors of the same model types. You do get to set your ability, stat curve, voice, Musou visual, and Crest. Your characters can achieve a max of Lv20, and also learn more than 3 dozen different skills from 2x jump to Opportunity, which revives you when you die.

Music- 8

Personally I like the music, its more soft than hard rock. While some songs are harder than others, you can find almost any song for your epic battles to come.

Voice-Overs- 4

Ok, the bad. Really bad. They cant shut up and say close to the same thing. All the time. I seriously recommend you put the voice volume at 25%. Since its all subtitled, you can just read what they say without listening to then seemingly scream at you with voices that people were forced to do at gunpoint.

Sounds- 7

Battle screams, clashing swords, peons squealing, the norm for any battle side setting. Not much to be said here other than the horse sounds nice when your idle.

Overall- 7

Its better than its former titles, and personally lovely to take frustrations out on. I bought it, but unless your a fan of the series you might just rent until you know what its like. The Achievements are simple enough as well, rejoice!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/07