Warriors Orochi

"Another Warriors game with a small twist."

Warriors Orochi is another hack and slash game from Koei. It retains most of the attributes from the previous games, though it does slightly improve upon some. Most noticeable is the inclusion of the Samurai Warriors cast as well as the Dynasty Warriors. You get to play and intermingle all of them together, which basically just means more fighters. The plot as to how it happened it cheesy as well, Orochi wanted to fight someone strong, so he threw them all together in his world. Real shocker. This does not lead to bad game, just that it's another excuse to throw the same hordes of enemies and officers at us again, but this time with Orochi's officers in there. These guys all look the same but have stupid random names like "Boomslang" and the like. It just makes it seem like they were running out of ideas and just wanted to milk the cash cow a little more before DW6 had come out.

The game play is not bad, it just really is not anything new. Kill tons of minions, pick off officers, aim for the objective. Sometimes get ambushed and have to deal with that. Nothing new. There are no more equip able items though, instead you gain and learn abilities to raise stats such as defense or start each battle on horseback. You know right from the start what you must do to unlock the ability for that character, and you can check the progress as you go. A nice step up from just replaying stages and hoping you get an upgrade to an item you want. Less random is always good, though the weapons you get and the abilities they have are still random per character. You can also go out of your way to fulfill special conditions on certain levels with certain characters to unlock their ""special item." These items enhance that particular character after you get it for them, though I personally do not see the need to go out of my way and get these items for the entire cast of characters, but it is something to do for the die hard fan.

Also apart from getting all the unique items, the game really is not all that hard. Hack your way through the 4 story lines, and along the way unlock the X chapters in each (which is just another 7 levels that coincide with that story line, if you were even listening to what the characters were saying). If you are a fan of the series and never tire of slaughtering tons and tons of minions, over and over again, then you will find your fix here. The blend of series is an interesting twist, but it's nothing but a gimmick and offers no real change to game play. So if you want a cheaper Warriors game then DW6, or just want to pick up some easy gamerscore points, then you might as well pick up Warriors Orochi.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/08

Game Release: Warriors Orochi (US, 09/18/07)