Warriors Orochi

"Is that a Warrior in your pants...or do I have to run away in horror?"

It should be no surprise to anyone who reads my reviews that I'm a fan of Koei's Warriors games. Despite what some people call “stale and repetitive gameplay”, I always found taking a Chinese/Japanese super warrior out onto a battlefield to lay waste to thousands of enemy troops a good time. Despite a couple titles that were disappointments (DW 4 and 6), I've enjoyed playing these games for almost 5 years now. However, I'm not lying when I say: I hated the PSP versions of the Warriors games. Sure the core gameplay was intact, but the way they divided each battlefield up into small segments annoyed the hell out of me. I know it was supposed to be designed for on-the-go play, but taking 30 seconds to clear a segment of enemies, choosing another segment from the map, and repeating the process until you win the battle was, to me, the equivalent of having my groin smashed with a sledgehammer. Without the large, sprawling battlefields to run around freely on, I wasn't playing Dynasty Warriors, I was playing “Half-asses, segmented, dumb Warriors…that suck!”

Well Koei, it seems, heard the cry from fans like myself and announced Warriors Orochi for the PSP. Not only did they announce the game, but they also announced that it would be a direct port of the console version, doing away with the segmented battlefield crap and giving PSP owners the complete Warriors game experience. Needless to say, I was thrilled, but does the mini version of the zazzy, star-studded cross-over event have the same spark as its PS2 brother?

MINI STAR-STUDDED STORY

The story remains exactly the same from the console version. Orochi the serpent king is board out of his mind after defeating all his enemies in his evil dimension. Still wanting a decent challenge, Orochi opens up a rift in time and space hoping to find a group of mighty warriors to give him said challenge. Failing to find the X-Men, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Batman, or Superman, Orochi settles with the lands and vast armies of ancient China and feudal Japan. Orochi, being the manly man that he is, easily defeats the vast armies of both lands quite easily. However, all is not lost for our favorite Dynasty and Samurai warriors. While some of the warriors have surrendered to Orochi and now serve him, many others have banded together to form a resistance against the serpent king. Will they defeat Orochi and make everything right in the universe?

A generic story to say the least. Various conversations between Dynasty and Samurai warriors out in the battlefields may amuse fans, but others will just have to deal.

MINI STAR-STUDDED GAMEPLAY

Koei wasn't lying: the PSP version of Warriors Orochi is pretty much an exact port of the console version. If my review starts sounding like my review for the PS2 version, don't worry, that's not exactly a bad thing.

Just like the console version, there are four story modes: one for each of the Dynasty Warrior kingdoms (Shu, Wei, and Wu), and one for the Samurai Warriors (which is led by Nobunaga Oda). You should know what you do in a Warriors game by now: take your warrior and lay waste to thousands on a battlefield hack-and-slash style. Controls remain the same for the most part: square does your combos, triangle does your charge attacks, and you mix these up to perform the more powerful crowd clearing moves. Circle does your all-powerful musou attack, the left trigger blocks and centers the camera, and down and up on the d-pad changes the size of the helpful mini-map in the right corner of the screen.

If you didn't already know, Warriors Orochi features 77 different playable characters from both Dynasty and Samurai Warriors games, all faithfully making the jump to the PSP version. Taking out one warrior onto a battlefield at a time just won't fly, so Warriors Orochi allows you to take 3 Dynasty or Samurai (or a combination of both) Warriors out onto a field at once. Switching between your dream team is done on the PSP by pressing left and right on the d-pad, and you can even chain musou attacks together by switching and doing each characters musou in a row, ending in a true musou attack. I should point out that in story mode, you just can't pick any warrior you want, as each story mode has it's own specific set of warriors to use. In the Warriors game staple free mode, however, you can play any level with any three warriors you want. One of the best parts of Orochi is being able to put your favorite characters on one team and just destroying anything in your path, and with 77, the variety is astounding. Besides a few of them I noticed with slightly changed animations and extended combos, each warrior plays similarly to whatever previous Warrior game they were in (excluding Dynasty Clone-riors 6, of course).

Each warrior is put into one of three groups: speed, power, and technique. Whatever group a warrior is in will determine what type of special attack he/she will have, which is activated with the right trigger. Power warriors have powerful, unblockable attacks that use up part of the musou gauge. Technical warriors can use part of their musou gauge to strengthen their charge attacks and to counter-attack. Speed warriors, however, are kinda weird to me. Besides each one being able to double-jump, each one has two different special attacks, but the thing is some warriors require the musou gauge to execute these attacks, while others do not. For example, Mitsunari attacks are pretty powerful, but require part of his musou gauge to perform. On the other hand, Taishi Ci has equally as powerful special attacks, but he can do his without using up any of his musou gauge. A lot of characters in the speed category are like this, and for the life of me I don't know why. Another new feature that is welcome is the ability to call a horse whenever you want by pushing the select button. Definitely helps get around the maps faster.

Leveling up and collecting new weapons and items is done in classic fashion, by killing soldiers and collecting pick-ups that generals usually drop after being defeated. Each warrior still has to be leveled-up individually, so the experience points aren't divided up between the three warriors you are currently using. So believe me when I say that Orochi will throw more fodder at you than any of the previous Warriors games. It's possible to get 1000 kills easily is almost every level, so leveling up your favorite warriors to MAX should be quite fun. Enemies are still controlled by brain dead AI though, so don't expect much resistance unless your on a higher difficulty. Weapon pick-ups do give you a new weapon for each of your three warriors though. You can earn abilities that increase strength, raise the life and musou bars, etc. as well by leveling up and killing enemies. These abilities are shared will ALL the warriors, so you don't need to unlock them with each one. You even earn extra experience at the end of a level, how much you get depending on how you did in the level. You can use this experience to pump up any of the games warriors a few extra levels, or you can fuse weapons together with the new weapons fusion system. To tell you the truth, I picked up a ton of weapons doing it in the classic fashion, so I barely spent any time fusing weapons. I sure some people have taken a liking to it, though.

My complaints for Warriors Orochi on the PSP are basically the same complaints I had about the PS2 version. It's repetitive; so if you pretty much hate doing the same thing over and over again, then stay away. Also, even though I hoped that they would have made it easier for the PSP version, some unlockable characters still require crazy-ass objectives to unlock. Killing someone, keeping someone alive, kill someone WHILE keeping someone alive are just an example of what this game puts you through to unlock some people. Why can't I just unlock people by beating levels on different difficulties? I still haven't unlocked Tadakatsu Honda on the PS2 version, what makes you think I'll be able to do it here? Finally, loading times are a bit longer then on the PS2 version, but then again that's probably to be expected.

MINI STAR-STUDDED GRAPHICS

The graphics that were considered poor, bland, and ugly on the PS2 are…LESS poor, bland and ugly on the PSP. The biggest improvement, PSP-wise, is that the segmented battlefields from the previous PSP Warriors games are gone! That's right, you get to run around the battlefields freely and uninterrupted, just like god intended. To make things even better, the game runs almost flawlessly! Tons of enemies on screen, musou attacks, switching characters, and more never caused a framerate drop or a hint of slowdown. The game retains the FMV opening and endings from the console version, but in game cut-scenes are replaced with comic book style cut-scenes. Dare I say it makes once lame cut-scenes a little better? For a straight port of a console Warriors game, it's pretty impressive.

MINI STAR-STUDDED SOUND

The PSP retains the generic butt-rock of its console brother, so busting out your Ipod while playing may be a good idea. Decent sound effects carry over as well. Most of the voice acting remains as well, however voice work during battles (except for “I have defeated an officer” statements) has been taken out of this version. No big loss, as the voice work is still bad anyway.

CAN YOUR PSP CONTAIN THIS MUCH ZAZ?

As typical with Warriors games, replay value is through the roof. Story modes will take maybe 3-5 hours each to complete. There are multiple difficulty settings, free mode, a gallery, and all that good stuff. Most of your time though will be spent leveling up your favorite warriors to the MAX (or for the super hardcore, EVERY warrior), and collecting all their fourth weapons and special items. You can even play co-op over Ad-hoc mode with a PSP, Warriors Orochi-owning friend. Fans definitely get their money's worth with this one.

Even though I'm giving it the same score, I'm recommending the PSP version of Warriors Orochi over the console version. It retains everything that made the PS2 version fun, and it runs flawlessly to boot. Being able to hack-and-slash on the go is a huge plus, and the Warriors gameplay seems to fit right at home on the handheld. Haters still won't have their minds changed, but newcomers to the series should definitely start off here. Fans who have already played the console version to death should give it a shot as well. They may fall in love all over again.

KEWL
+An almost flawless port of the console version that's still a blast to play
+Huge roster of characters with lots of variety
+Easy-to-use maps still rule
+Control 3 warriors at once!
+Replay value through the roof

LAME
Survey says:
-Repetitive
-Brain dead AI
-Slightly poor graphics
-Poor Music and voice acting

-Crazy and tedious character unlocking
-Slightly longer load times than the console version

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/08

Game Release: Warriors Orochi (US, 03/25/08)