Warriors Orochi

"Eh? A Samurai?"

Introduction: I remember a while back when I got Dynasty Warriors 2 and I played the crap out of it. A combination of being young, low standards and the first taste of crowd killing was enough to play over and over again. Then came Dynasty Warriors 3 on the Xbox. It pretty much had the same effect but to a lesser degree.

I forgot about Dynasty Warriors because I eventually realised that they are recycled since the second one. I've heard of Samurai Warriors but didn't bother with it either. Randomly I decided to buy Warriors Orochi because nothing else was out.

Now onto the review

Story: Orochi has taking Sengoku period Japan and Dynasty era China and put them in one strange place of time because he is very lonely I guess. These means that many characters from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors are in this game. Personally I am happy to see some Japanese themed characters but the reason is stupid and each faction has characters from other factions. Just adds confusion. 2/10

Graphics: For a 360 game the graphics are PS2 quality. This is probably because this is a PS2 game. I'm not saying the graphics are terrible but the fact that a PS2 game actually slows down on the 360 is ridiculous.

Okay it isn't Quake 4 port bad but they didn't put any effort into making the game better. Since the graphics are so so I could easily see the frame rate being constant if they tweaked it a little.

Too many enemies on the screen will cause some to turn invisible which is yet again another limitation that could have been broken with the 360's capabilities. With so many characters to play as it is a good thing that they all look different.

The only impression thing about the graphics is that some of the characters have very good designs but some are just meh. 5/10

Music: I've heard that most of the music is taken from Dynasty Warriors 5...good thing I never played it. Music is actually good but it is farrrr too low. The biggest problem in the sound department is the voice acting.

The voice acting is crap. Not the worst ever but crap none the less. A few characters do a good job but I want to kill Hediyoshi because he is so annoying. Many cool moments were ruined by bad voice acting.

Do yourself a favour and turn the voice and effects down so you can hear the music. 5/10

Gameplay

If I could sum up DW's gameplay in one word (and I think everyone can agree with me) then that word would be ''repetitive''.

You can play as 4 groups.

Shu
Wei
Wu
SW

Problem with these groups is that Orochi kind of screwed everything up. Thanks to him the four groups have characters from all over the place. Wu have Ranmori from SW. SW have Guan from Shu etc...

At least in DW 2 I always fought for who I wanted but now I really don't have a ****ing clue.

Anyway once you pick a faction, you can play. You start with a group of three characters that you can switch between at any time in game. The two characters your not using regain their Life and Musou and if the character your controlling loses all life then you lose even if your other two characters are alive.

Look at your map as it is important. Small red dots mean normal enemies, bigger red dots mean generals. Generals are much more powerful but against my Nobunaga they tend to die in one combo. The same for ally's but the colour is blue and neutral army's are yellow. When you kill a General they drop a weapon or extra exp.

As you kill enemies and pick up EXP you will gain level ups. This increases your stats and gives you more moves. Usually if your leader dies you lose. Usually if you kill the enemy leader you win but these is not always the conditions to win or lose.


About Abilities:

Each character has about three abilities that can be gained if you meet the requirements for that ability and complete the level you gained it on. These abilities are passive and work on all teammates not matter who you pick and what faction you pick. Acquiring the same ability from a different character will make that ability more effective.

Weapons:

When you collect a weapon it may have extra powers like elemental damage or increasing your range etc....each power consumes a slot and all weapons have at least one slot even if it isn't being used.

When you have more than one weapon you can fuse them. First you pick a base, then you pick the weapon that will be sacrificed. The sacrificed weapon's slots, powers and damage bonuses can be forged onto the base weapon.

Let's say I have a Bronze sword and an Iron Sword. The Bronze Sword is weaker but has the Agility bonus and +2 attack. I go to fuse these weapons and use the Iron Sword as the base. I add the damage bonus of +2, grafted the Agility bonus onto the steel and gain a slot.

Now I have a stronger weapon with all the same abilities. Fusion consumes points that you gain when you clear a level. These points can also be used to level up a character.

Despite having about 70 characters they all function more or less the same.

Each combo for each character is pretty much that characters variation. XY launches enemies in the air. XXXY usually knocks any enemy away from your front and sides. granted the characters do have a little variation and they certainly do have some cool animations but in effect the characters just don't have enough individuality in their move sets.

In an attempt to make characters more unique they all fall under three category's

Power: While attacking the character isn't stunned by normal attacks and arrows.

Tech: Can counter attack while being hit and can strengthen charge attacks.

Speed: Can cancel most attacks into a jump and can air dash.

Power characters are probably the best to play as and the most annoying to fight. You will probably be glad to know that every character has at least 1 special attack if they press RB.

Musou: Musou is your super metre. You become invincible and destroy everything in your path. Problem with musou is that Koei decided that because you have three characters your Musou gauge is only 1/5 as big as it used to be.

Not a bad trade off if you consider that the third character's Musou attacks does more damage but the old Musou gauge was much better imo. Horse riding has improved a lot since DW2. Press Select will call the horse to you.

You will always want your horse when going from point A to point B, unless you pick up your boot power up. As Nobunaga I've had good experiences killing enemies on horse but most people agree that Horse is more of a means of travel that a fighting advantage.

The balance of this game is totally screwed up. Killing groups of normal enemies is fine with me but killing generals in one combo is ridiculous and I'm not even on Lv99. On the other hand if you face three generals at the same time, prepared to get owned in one continues chain of combo's after the other.

The difficulties really do make a difference. Playing easy and the generals don't block. Higher difficulties means more enemies to kill and more rewards to gain.

Another problem is that you could be doing fine but suddenly you lose because your leader got killed for being a jackass. Keep an eye on your commander and anticipate when the enemy may attack that area.

When kicking the crap out of a general sometimes a nobody will try and kill him in an attempt to get fame and glory. If I could I'd kill him on the spot. This little kill stealing whore will take away your kill against as Officer, if your trying to gain lots of EXP or whatever then it is really annoying when they steal your glory.

When you kill an base captain they sometimes fall outside of an invincible barrier and you can't collect the dropped item. 7/10

Overview

It gets the job done but it could be sooooo much more. No real reason to get this if you already have the later DW's or SW but if you want characters from both then go ahead. The only other people I would suggest this to are people who haven't played a DW/SW game or in a long time and want to get back into it. 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/05/07

Game Release: Warriors Orochi (EU, 09/21/07)