Starting from today onwards, I'm going to attempt to hopefully help establish my channel more as a one stop place for significant games I've played and uploaded footage of, while giving back to other content creators. The first games that I'm tackling is of course the Warriors/Musou games.
So I have created new playlists for specific DW/SW/WO games that are labeled "Recommended Videos to Watch from Others". These playlists will contain videos (from friends and strangers) of that game that I recommend others to watch.
What's the main point of this? Well... imagine this: various viewers continuously ask me to upload a video showcasing all musou attacks in a new Warriors games, or cutscenes, or whatever. Instead of giving into pointless labor and create such videos, I can simply redirect these viewers to existing videos that others have already created in my playlists, covering their wanted subjects and keeping them happy. IF such videos already exists.
My modus operandi has always been to create + upload what is necessary and avoid repeating what others have already done. If no one has done such a video yet, I will sometimes get out of my to try to be the first to get the video out. Nevertheless, videos that are not personally unique (i.e. videos that anyone can create and upload, such as cutscenes and musou compilations) are the bottom of the barrel for me in terms of priority—so I usually save these types of videos for last.
One of the reasons these playlists will be additionally helpful to me is because it gives me the chance to share videos I like and believe others would enjoy for that certain game.
In conclusion, everybody wins with these new playlists. I win, the viewers win and the content creators who I chose to have their videos featured in my playlists wins!
All you modders can happily rejoice, as Samurai Warriors 4's game save can now be successfully decrypted with Bruteforce Save Data without corruption, thanks to chaoszage's Samurai Warriors 4 Checksum Fixer Tool. If you are unfamiliar with what decrypting a game save does, it essentially destroys the encryption and allows editing of its data. This makes it possible to make all sorts of changes to your game save's data, including of course the modification of weapons.
This is pure software without the need of devices such as Game Genie or Cyber Save Editor.
So here's basically how you do it:
First, you need to have the latest version of Bruteforce Save Data installed. If not, you should at least have updated your cheats repository to the latest database.
Second, you'll need chaoszage's Samurai Warriors 4 Checksum Fixer Tool. Without this tool, you will end up with corruption after decrypting and encrypting. You can download it here.
Open your Samurai Warriors 4's game save using Bruteforce Save Data, decrypt it, edit the data as you would normally (or apply cheats), run the Checksum Fixer Tool on the game save, then encrypt it with Bruteforce Save Data.
Transfer the game save to your PS3 and you should be good to go!
You could theoretically mod the weapons without using the code above directly via a hex editor, if you require only specific weapons be altered. Again, this process should be identical to Dynasty Warriors 8. Write down your weapon's skills in hex as it appears in order, then use the search function in a hex editor to replace skills. This process has not yet been tested, so there is no guarantee yet of it working.
Some other fun codes if you're THAT lazy:
Max Gold 20007842 000F423F Max Kills 2000784A 05F5E0ff All Gems Max 200078BC 63636363 200078C0 63636363 All Chars Proficiency Max 42000C44 14141414 403C0044 00000000 All 1st Weapon Becomes Rare 40003883 00000000 403c0110 00000002
Notice: This is all specifically for the US/EU versions of Samurai Warriors 4. If you need codes and values for the Japanese version, visit savedata.jp.
Anyone looking for a 100% complete and platinum trophy status game save for Sengoku Musou 4 (Samurai Warriors 4) is in luck, as I have that very such thing here for free download.
Benefits of this game save:
100% Story Mode and Chronicle Mode completion
All characters unlocked
All CAW parts unlocked
Level 50 + max proficiency and stats for every character
Treasure weapons obtained for all characters
Max gold and gems
All trophies unlocked
And more!
This game save does not need to be resigned, as anyone can freely save over it without issues. The only part that is disallowed is gaining any sort of trophy with it. Since every new KOEI TECMO game now uses double layer encryption for game saves, you must use a third party device such as Game Genie or PS3 Cyber Save Editor to resign.
Note: This review is based upon the
Japanese version of the game (Sengoku Musou 4) and uses
translated names. English names of certain things may be different in
the English release.
INTRODUCTION
KOEI TECMO's Samurai Warriors series has occasionally been undermined as the unexplored sister series to the more widely popular Dynasty Warriors series. That to which is a shame, as Samurai Warriors at certain times in its history are eminently less rehashed and more developed in comparison to its Dynasty Warriors counterparts.
2014 marks the 10th anniversary of Samurai Warriors, with the initial Samurai Warriors dating back to 2004 on the Playstation 2. In its celebration, KOEI TECMO has decided to unleash the long awaited next installment to Samurai Warriors—Samurai Warriors 4, which has been in secret production for at least a year or more. Samurai Warriors carries on the same iconic game formula of Dynasty Warriors: a simplified hack and slasher that couples mindless army killing with unparalleled character roster. The only difference being that one takes place in Japan and the other in China. Can you guess which one is which?
When Samurai Warriors 3 debuted on Wii, players were confused and indignant to the abrupt dominant Sony platform switch to Nintendo. There's not a lick to worry here however, as Samurai Warriors 4 has sailed back to its roots as a Playstation 3 and later Playstation 4 title.
GAME MODES
Samurai Warriors 4 is divided into three main game modes, edit mode, gallery, encyclopedia and of course compulsory game options. For the sake of not detailing the unnecessary, I'm only going to focus on the main game modes as well as touch briefly on edit mode.
STORY MODE: The predominant Story Mode in Warriors games is like a child that can't make up its mind. One day it is character based, where stories are all divided up individually to every playable character. The other day it is region/clan based, where stories are bunched together as larger regions/clans. Samurai Warriors 4 goes back to being the less vast latter. This negatively cuts the longevity of Story Mode to a great deal in comparison to Samurai Warriors 3, which was thoroughly character based.
There are a few pros to being region/clan based, regardless. You have the freedom to swap out your characters prior to playing each stage, rather than be permanently affixed to one person the entire way through. If you're interested in playing this game for its historical retelling, I guess playing as regions/clans will offer you a much quicker knowledge and experience of the story, as opposed to playing individual character stories on at a time.
Story mode scenario selection
The implementation of Samurai Warriors 4's Story Mode is quite remarkably similar to that of Dynasty Warriors 8. Scenarios of specific regions/clans can be chosen, thereafter will be several episodes (stages) to clear from within. If enough scenarios are cleared, then additional ones are unlocked. A direct deposit from Dynasty Warriors 8 are also branching paths that are injected usually near the final bits of a story, usually swapping sides of the army you are playing for and against. Being in close proximity to the end means that separate branches are only up to two stages in size and moreover there are no three branch setups of any kind, shamefully. Additionally, once you travel up the to branch point, you can select which branch to play right off the bat without restriction. In other words, there are no requirements to unlock the top or bottom one as opposed to Dynasty Warriors 8. Gaiden episodes also makes a return in Samurai Warriors 4, filling in some extra bits for several scenarios.
Another problem of Story Mode lies within the amount of length and its annoying inconsistencies. The majority of scenarios are constructed of only three or four mere total episodes, dismissing Gaiden episodes. A few sprinkle of scenarios may establish more, but the lengthiest are only around eight episodes long. Coupled with the rather low amount of scenarios to chose from and unlock, don't be utmost surprised if you end up finishing the game's Story Mode swifter than prior Warriors games.
The game has a new conversation feature where certain characters will be interacting with one another face to face almost constantly throughout Story Mode. These bits aren't too terribly interesting, as characters are placed motionless on a blurry backdrop, talking to each other non-stop, while you have to listen or read and press a bunch of text dialogue boxes. Moreover, these "cutscenes" aren't exactly beneficial as you are never allowed to make choices during all the talking. That is a definite heavy blow to something that can be made substantial, as allowing the player to make choices that can effect the storyline and its consequent branches would be glorious. Too bad they skimped over that.
The conversations aren't actually detrimental to the game, as they help aid the storyline in places where battles aren't erupting and characters just simply need to talk with one another. The earlier games didn't have these drawn out bits nevertheless and the storyline experience fared about the same. The less time spent out of battle the better. No one wants to always sit around idle while there is another enormous battlefield to slay thousands upon!
Talk is cheap, just bring it!
Speaking of cutscenes, I regret to say that Samurai Warriors 4 has just about the least amount of CGI cutscenes in comparison to any current Warriors game. In the past, all endings were done in dazzling CGI, whereas in this game only a hand selected few endings are actually honored with that prize; the rest dumped with in-game rendering.
All in all, while Story Mode gets the job adequately done, I'm not ecstatic to reach a conclusion that this game's Story Mode is quite an inferiority compared to Dynasty Warriors 8's. Then again, Dynasty Warriors 8 has one of the best story modes in any Warriors game for a long time, so it will be a challenge to match it. Still, I expect KOEI TECMO to at least carry on a great establishment, rather than taking lots of step backwards for their next game.
FREE MODE: There isn't much I need to say much about this mode, really. If you played the many multitude of Warriors games, you'll realize that Free Mode is simply a mode where you are essentially freed from your chains and shackles of restriction in other modes such as Story Mode. In other words, you are free to select any character and play in any stage without restrictions. Capeesh?
CHRONICLE MODE: Chronicle Mode is designed specifically for CAW, or Create-a-Warrior, which is what we like to call the custom characters we design in Warriors games.
It basically tries to reenact Mercenary Mode seen in other Warriors games, borrowing traits from Samurai Warriors Chronicles' main story mode.
After selecting your CAW, you start off as a mercenary and are given the choice to start under several factions that are mentioned in story mode. After pledging your allegiance, you can then travel through different provinces of Japan's Warring States in order to complete various requests given to you by the main cast.
Map of the Warring States of Japan in Chronicle Mode
Characters from the main cast are scattered throughout specific points on the map, giving you options of befriending or alienating them through personal conversations, fighting them in battle or traveling with them. Personal conversations that are engaged carry the same setup as ones that occur in story mode. The only notable difference here is that your character can actually make a two choice statement or decision during the chit-chat, with one raising your affinity with a character and the other lowering it. By raising your affinity high enough with a certain character, his or her conversation will change during battle. By raising it to max, you can then unlock that character's moveset/weapon to use within character creation. A secondary character can also accompany you through your travels depending on your relationship with them, fighting alongside you on the battlefield.
There's a lot of choice making in Chronicle Mode, LOTS...
A nice feature of this mode is the ability to swap in and out characters as you please, even edit your CAWs during play. Hence, you are not locked to one character the entire time, which is a definite necessity as Chronicle Mode takes an enormously long time to finish.
EDIT MODE: If you sadly recalled the character creation from Samurai Warriors 3, you'll be laughing at yourself like a hyena if you consider calling it anything other than a giant pile of excrement. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. In fact, the sheer memory of editing any kind of "custom" character in Samurai Warriors 3 gives me brain cancer, from just even thinking of its limitation and very little actual customizing.
Well, I'd say if you yell at a company enough and lend them a chance, they can likely improve. Elation ensues, and I have to say KOEI TECMO delivered well in the character creation department of Samurai Warriors 4, offering the best yet editor in any of their Warriors games. Regardless, I will shudder and call inappropriate names at anyone even attempting to label this mode as new, as aside from a few minor features and new parts thrown in, it's an exact replica from Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. But hey, why fix what's not broken right?
So if you happen to be joyful of the character creation in Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires, then be grateful that there's not much that's going to disappoint, with the exception of the obvious lack of Chinese clothing in exchange for Japanese (although some of these clothing may just scream "Chinapan!").
Looks familiar? You're not alone...
Okay, I will have to stop and briefly mention one of the more unique features that have been added in character creation in Samurai Warriors 4, which is the ability to upload custom photos from your Playstation 3's hard drive and display them in-game on a variety of decorations for your character. These can include your character's portrait, musou finisher symbol and even crest on your clothing. I bet in no time there's going to be a slew of inappropriate usages of this feature online, so much that KOEI TECMO may be needing to hire special personnel to monitor everyone's custom photos.
GAMEPLAY AND CHARACTERS
If there's one thing that rival game developers envy any Warriors game on, it would have to be the ridiculous amount of unique, playable characters that keeps piling up after every new trillionth release. Why am I not rolling my eyes that Samurai Warriors 4 continues that tradition by expanding that table of characters further?
So there it be—nine wholly new Japanese characters are introduced, including such names as Nobuyuki Sanada, Yoshitsugu Ōtani, Hisahide Matsunaga, Koshōshō, Lady Hayakawa, Kojūrō Katakura and others. Now is that a mouthful of foreign names or what? That's not all, adding further from Samurai Warriors 3's roster are returning new characters from Samurai Warriors Chronicles 2nd, including Takatora Tōdō (Ice Man), Naotora li (Japan's biggest stereotypical woman) and Munenori Yagyū (Japan's answer to Zhou Tai).
New cast of characters. Lots to like, some to despise... maybe.
A fellow viewer did brought up a valid complaint regarding the new characters, which was basically—"RECYCLED WEAPONS, RECYCLED WEAPONS AND RECYCLED WEAPONS!!!". True, some of the weapons these new characters wield look as if they blatantly stole them from existing Dynasty Warriors characters and re-equip them with new movesets (those cheeky bastards!), but come on... How many types of weaponry exist on Earth that are actually unique to one another? After a few hundred movesets, there's no doubt that some weapons start appearing scarily similar to one another. In fact, a better statement would have simply been—"Thanks Japan for not going too crazy ape sh*t with us on the weapons, as if they are not already unrealistic enough!".
What KOEI TECMO did go a little overboard on however was rather character design. Take Koshōshō for example, which is just about the most unconvincing Japanese person one can imagine, feudal wise. She's a love woman alright and surely an undeniable great sex demon, but why does her shockingly realistic orange pink hair resembles an afro?!
A long time ago in Japan, once lived this very woman...
Jokes aside, the majority of new characters are actually great and uniquely done from their attires, personalities and weapons/movesets. The only other character I tend to cringe at is Hisahide Matsunaga, which is like KOEI TECMO attempting to craft their own Spider Man, ugh...
Gameplay wise, you won't find it a surprise of the century that Samurai Warriors 4 behaves largely identical to Samurai Warriors 3 in the gameplay department. Of course, that foundation is both improved and dug upon with the implementation of the new and scrapping of the old.
Let's take a step back and reminiscent a bit for unfamiliar folks who have never touched a Warriors game, and lightly skim over the basics of gameplay:
In any Warriors game, after you selected your killing machine of choice, you are placed upon an usually overly large battlefield that are comprised of minions of your own army as well as the enemy's. You are free to roam around the battlefield, either by traveling via foot or more fortunate methods such as horses and bears, slaying army peon fodder and occasionally higher class officers as you please. Completing a stage requires you to complete one or more missions, that will usually guide you step by step through the stage from point A to point B. The final mission will predominately involve killing off a boss NPC or reaching an escape point.
But the point of these games are not strictly about a one man/woman army massacring everything, as you are also required to feed attention and focus to your own army, including assuring important officers are kept alive, escorting them or defending crucial areas of the map such as your main camp from enemy attacks. This is also where your morale bar comes into play, as ensuring it is kept high through killing and successful missions will more guarantee you success of your army being victorious.
If you like this screenshot, this game may be for you.
The combat system in Warriors games are comprised of two primary types of attacks—normal and strong (sometimes also referred to as charge attacks). Normal attacks are regular attacks executed using the square button (up to 8 consecutive times), but can be immediately followed up with a strong attack by pressing the triangle button after a certain amount of normal attacks are executed, which will vary dependent on character. Thus, a variety of combos can be developed using these attacks. Also in your combat arsenal is Musou, or a more powerful attack that will require your Musou bar to be filled by at least one bar (raised by killing enemies, using items or collecting pickups). In Samurai Warriors 3, Ultimate Musou was additionally added that was unleashed when the newly introduced spirit bar was fully maxed and a Musou was performed.
In your defense arsenal, you have the ability to guard and side step. In Samurai Warriors 3, you also had a roll, which allowed you to evade farther than a side step. This roll has been removed from Samurai Warriors 4, which is completely silly, as both the side step and roll serves different purposes and should not really be interchangeable.
In Samurai Warriors 4, an entirely new attack string was added aside from normal and strong, called "Hyper Attack" or "Shinsoku Action", initiated using solely the triangle button. Therefore, this also entirely eliminates the C1 (first strong attack) of every character. This is a faster type of attack that continuously rushes the enemy at swift speeds and allows easier group damage; however, are completely ineffective against officers. Hyper Attack works similarly to normal attacks in which a new attack can be executed following every successful one. Finally, different attacks can be carried out by using the square button instead of triangle after every Hyper Attack (e.g. triangle, triangle, square), much like how normal and strong works.
Confused or think the above is all a bunch of mumbo jumbo? Why don't you take a look at the video above, which exemplifies both normal and strong attacks as well as Hyper Attack in the first few minutes of gameplay.
Hyper Attack does add a bit of intricacy and benefit in the combat system that helps elevate Samurai Warriors 4's combat system further away from dullness. I'm sure players will appreciate another welcomed ability to not only kill groups of enemies faster without any sacrifice (because what is a thousand enemies if you can't kill them screamingly fast?), but also help plow through the battlefield without the constant need to hop on and off a horse all the time.
Hyper attacks are a completely new set of attacks with lots of possibilities.
Samurai Warriors 4's Musou takes on several unexpected twists. The most noteworthy is that all characters are now blessed with an elaborate finisher that is injected at the end of their regular Musous, adding on further possible damage from the set in stone original Musou attacks, which has not surprisingly been altered. A few unwanted negatives have reared their ugly heads up because of this. First of which is that Musous can no longer be manually and tightly controlled like in previous Samurai Warriors. What do I mean by that exactly? In previous Samurai Warriors, one could press the Musou button, release it, still be in their invulnerable Musou state and carry out regular normal and strong attacks, even travel until their Musou bar was depleted. They could also return to their Musou attack animation by pressing and holding the Musou button again during the Musou. This has been entirely thrown out the window in Samurai Warriors 4 for no particular reason, and one of the first reasons of why I consider the combat system being simplified in the depth department. Another minor gripe is that all Musou finishers contains several seconds of stylish, close-up shots of the character posing before the actual attack that you are required to always watch. Sure, it looks pretty sweet and awesome the first time you see it, but after being forced to watch it every time you pull off your Musou, it almost urges you to not wish to execute your Musou anymore. Simply being able to skip such useless interruption would be a welcomed addition.
Musou finisher close-ups: Awesome and annoying at the same time.
A feature called "Rage" has returned from Dynasty Warriors 8 and works how you expect it to. When you max out your spirit gauge, you can use it to instantly dive into rage mode, temporarily increasing your overall stats such as attack power, attack speed and defense. May you imagine what on Earth happens when you perform a Musou in this rage state? Yup, you perform your Ultimate Musou, which has not been tampered with from Samurai Warriors 3. Because of rage implementation, you can no longer execute your Ultimate Musou simply by maxing your spirit gauge. You now have to enter rage mode and only then can you unleash your ultimate attack of death and destruction you so love.
Say, have you ever desired to instant kill an enemy, especially when their health is so low they should be considered graveyard material already? Well rejoice, as you now can with a new ability called "Mighty Strike", which is just that—instant kill an enemy (officer only) when their health is low. Triggering Mighty Strike requires you to just wail on your poor victim until their health becomes low enough to pop up the an alert icon above their heads, and then executing them in devilish ways with the triangle button. Mighty Strikes can also be manually triggered all the time by side stepping into their attacks. If you time it just right, you can immediately break their guards and perform a Mighty Strike that way. Of course, instant killing with Mighty Strike is only available if the officer's health is low, so performing a Mighty Strike anytime else and the officer will very likely still be well breathing afterwards. Nevertheless, Mighty Strikes that doesn't instant kill can be beneficial to help open up for your initial attacks on officers (so long as you aren't actually pressing triangle to perform them).
Mighty Strike is not perfectly well implemented. For instance, there should definitely more open time and less punishment to execute them. Often times, you're so busy wailing on an officer that you don't even realize the opportunity for Mighty Strike pops up until it's too late. If you simply do a consecutive attack during the trigger time and hit the officer, the option for performing Mighty Strike will go away instantly. It will not return either until you manually trigger it with side step or attempt to wail on them again until it pops up. Sometimes the latter fails to work; so you're back to square one killing the officer the long way.
Mighty Strike is also a potential to lower the overall difficulty of the game, as it becomes easier to kill officers quickly and triggering it with side step is undeniably easy to perform. If you master the art of Mighty Strike with side step, officers will not even have a chance to attack you.
Something a lot more interesting than Mighty Strike is the game implementing straight out character switching in midst of battle. No, this isn't your expected Musou Orochi style character switching where all characters are meshed up together in one being all the time like some mutant bizarre freak, but works more in the lines of Samurai Warriors Chronicles. Two characters are always needed to be selected prior to entering the battlefield, but they remain completely independent beings from one another, traveling and fighting on the battlefield separately. Switching between another character is instant without any delays, and you can easily monitor your secondary character's location and stats including health and defense all the time. While you control one character, the other character will be controlled by the AI. This artificial controlling can pose a problem on higher difficulties, where the AI of your other character will sometimes not act the way you want them to. In the worst case scenario they can get themselves killed, ending your game abruptly.
Two characters are allowed for selection, allowing instant switching during gameplay.
Proficiency levels are now present in this game, but affixed to character attacks categorized in—normal attack, strong attack, special skill, and hyper attack. Wait, you have to level up certain types of attack for each character?! Yes, that does seem a bit weird to you, correct? Well, in a game sense it's sensible as players can build up stronger attacks in which they frequently use the most. Regrettably, leveling any category to the max 20 is definitely no walk in the park and requires much dedicated effort. Therefore, if you hated the grinding in previous games, the grinding here with these proficiency levels will make you hate them more... Oh so much more.
Consumable items gets a bit of an overhaul in Samurai Warriors 4, but not to an enormous extent. The most significant change is that you can now freely choose and customize each item you want to take with you on the battlefield. Yeah, I ain't dreaming a good dream here, but there is absolutely no more of that ludicrous three items presets for each stage from the third game. An abundance of new items are also introduced, but more particular noteworthy are that each item has three sets of levels, increasing in their efficiency the higher the level. Individual special items cast into character's faces are available to equip, and these all do various different effects, but most are derived from an attack or special ability of that particular character.
The weapons system keeps it traditional by reusing the weapon system introduced in the third game, adding and subtracting a couple minor features, leaving it largely stagnant and rather displeasing. Any kind of tailored weapon customization is incredibly difficult and inane to even think about, as attributes are set in stone on every weapon purchased or picked up. Attack power can moreover only be increased with a certain type of attribute, which isn't guaranteed to be a selection for every weapon. Samurai Warriors 4 has additionally eliminated the three class weapon system from the third game; that is speed, normal and power. This class elimination can be considered a sin to some and a blessing for others. Players who appreciated a bit more depth and variability in the weapon system will likely be disappointed that their weapon choices are now more limited. Others will be glad that they no longer have to worry about weapon classes weighing them down, as all regular weapons are now created equal.
Developing weapon attributes to higher levels are done by utilizing gems collected or purchased. A big pro of the new weapon system are the ability to donate any weapon from any character to one another; however, all leveled attributes on that weapon will be lost during the transfer. A second pro is that any weapons picked up during gameplay will belong to the character who picked it up only, so it helps shed down the enormous randomness of weapon collecting in the past.
I honestly think having gone through so many iterations of Warriors games, including giving players much more freedom in customizing their weapons in newer Warriors games, KOEI TECMO has decided to stick with its annoying restricted weapon system that's antiquated and five years old. Why, why and why is the only thing I can say.
Finally, do you remember armor and boots that can be equipped in Samurai Warriors 3? Of course you do. Well, they are gone in Samurai Warriors 4. Just trashed, wiped off the face of the planet. If you have a fond memory, you'll recall that both armor and boots can add a significant amount of various attributes to your character when equipped, usually non-offensive related. The attributes range from increasing your spirit charge distance, allowing you to spirit charge without depleting your spirit gauge, increase invulnerability from side stepping/rolling and others. Now that both of these are annihilated, every attribute, even if they are not offensive related, have to be jammed into your weapons, creating sometimes a bloody mess. The worst part about all of this is that lots of beneficial attributes from Samurai Warriors 3 were lost because of the axe, including most of the ones I mentioned above. Moreover, you have less total attributes to develop your character, as again every attribute are derived from your weapons only.
AI AND DIFFICULTY
Samurai Warriors 4's difficulty is definitely more challenging than Dynasty Warriors 8 and about equally challenging as Dynasty Warriors 8: XL, but regrettably lags behind in the AI department of literally almost any current Warriors release.
The game has four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Hell. The jump from one difficulty to another is sometimes abrupt and not as smooth as it should be. For instance, normal to hard has a more lenient difficulty increase that's somewhat discernible. From hard to hell however the jump in difficulty is much wider, as hell is almost literally twice as difficult as hard was.
There's always two primary ways to increase difficulty in most games—one is to increase the AI and have the player work harder to be successful, the other is to just ramp up enemy defense and damage. The best difficulty implementations in games are to have a perfect balance of the two.
Unfortunately, Samurai Warriors 4 does much more of the latter than the former, throwing on as much damage and defense amplification to the enemies as possible on Hell difficulty while neglecting the actual AI. Who would have guessed, right? It's apparent that AI seems to be a particular problematic point for Warriors games since literally forever. On the other hand, this also makes me a bit frustrated and sad, because KOEI TECMO has almost perfected, or rather produced really great human-like AI in Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate, but only in Unlimited Mode. So why do they keep bringing in low quality AI that tarnishes the difficulty of their games?
The enemy AI, even on Hell difficulty, do not pose too much of a threat so long as you are avoiding their few attacks they throw from time to them. Officers almost never execute their musous, do long combos or dodge attacks. Be forewarned that some of them will love hyper attacking you to death, however. I dare to say that the most harsh part is actually avoiding being ganged up upon, as that usually causes instant death.
Officers also now have their usual ability to recover by somersaulting when they hit the ground or in the air during certain player attacks, rendering juggles much less efficient then previously. In Samurai Warriors 3, juggling officers could become infinite so long as you had enough spirit gauge and continuously abuse the spirit charge, because officers back then had literally zero recovery. The recovery speed for officers in this game is perhaps one of the fastest in any Warriors game. Hence, if you plan on pulling off combos via juggles, expect it to be prominently more difficult than ever.
Going back to character switching, you'll remember what I said earlier that this feature can impact difficulty in a great way. Basically, you now have to not only worry about your controlled character's well-being, but your partner's as well. Since your partner is automatically controlled by the AI when you aren't controlling them, and pairing that with not a game's greatest AI, you'll find common instances where they can just rush into a group of enemies and kill themselves. Thus, this game absolutely requires you to constantly switch back and forth characters all the time on higher difficulties to ensure you won't be suddenly greeted with the game over screen.
With the implementation of Hyper Attack, Rage, easily abused Mighty Strike and such broken weapon attributes as 克己 (self-control), a player can breeze through a max star stage in Hell difficulty without a weighty amount of sweat loss, not even mentioning all the items they can additionally bring along to help amplify their ownage.
Nevertheless, I'm not saying that Samurai Warriors 4 is an easy game. It is easy if you purposely make yourself broken and be abusing the combat system. That in itself is not easy due to the game's lottery styled weapon system and requirement of heavy grinding. If you go in unprepared or normally prepared, you can easily expect some of the best challenge you will experience in a Warriors game in awhile. Again, just don't expect miracles in the enemy AI.
GRAPHICS
Who actually talks about graphics in Warriors games should be ashamed of themselves, as these types of games are always focused on filling the screen with as much junk as possible without degrading frame rate. That of course comes at a cost of reducing overall graphics quality. Compared to other games where things are less hectic and much less has to get rendered, overall graphics will suffer in Warriors games in comparison simply because of its nature.
Still, KOEI TECMO seem to be always be hopping through hoops attempting to improve their graphics in Warriors games further and further. With the now next-gen Playstation 4 and Xbox One available, graphics for these games are better than they have ever been.
The PS3 version of Samurai Warriors 4 graphically is about what you'd expect for this type of game—not great and not terrible. Sure, it looks dated by at least one console generation in comparison to other games, but at least it's still a remarkable step up from the previous Samurai Warriors. I actually went and played Samurai Warriors 3 again for the first time in years on the Wii, and that game seriously made Samurai Warriors 4 look like a game that belonged on a future console, like a PS5!
Graphics aren't winning any awards, but still manages to please the eye.
The most important bit regarding graphics is at utmost the frame rate, which is surprisingly very solid. There is almost literally no hints of slow down regardless of how much stuff flies on the screen, and trust me, stuff are flying everywhere literally every second.
AUDIO AND MUSIC
Rock tunes mixed with oriental instruments fill the speakers in Dynasty Warriors games, but Samurai Warriors takes a different approach and shifts its music more towards club, dance and techno. Both genres are of course pumped and energetic enough to get most players excited towards ravaging the battlefields. A blend of Japanese instruments in conjunction with more mellow tracks makes the soundtrack to Samurai Warriors 4 very nice and diverse. You'll also be treated with the obligatory and popular remix tracks of Honda Tadakatsu's theme, Anegawa and others.
Japanese voice overs are unstained and phenomenal for the most part, with voice actors rarely ever changing their roles for returning characters unlike the sloppy mess that's embarrassingly evident in English localizations. Voice overs for the new characters fits their personality well, even if I have to admit some of them can be overly grating to the ears.
REPLAYABILITY
There is no denying the potential for virtually unlimited gameplay length given how much underlying stuff there is to accomplish and unlock in Samurai Warriors or virtually any other Warriors games. That is of course only if you are committed to and thoroughly enjoy the game in the first place.
Still, this isn't a type of game that is meant to be played hours on end without break. Literally any type of hack and slash game will wear out your fingers and thumbs and turn very monotonous and repetitive after a few hours, the exact same can be said to Samurai Warriors 4.
CONCLUSION
While Samurai Warriors 4 is a good Warriors game on its own, it doesn't
necessarily exceed in rivaling its current Dynasty Warriors counterparts
nor greatly improve upon Samurai Warriors 3 as one would have hoped.
There's not a whole lot of new that's refreshing, and several areas of
refreshment in the third game has been wholly scrapped in 4. The results
is that Samurai Warriors 4 is simply just a sufficient step upwards from
3, while a step backwards in a few cases. Another unmentioned area is combat depth, where Samurai Warriors 4 is shamefully lacking, as the combat system
hasn't been nearly evolved or contain as much intricacy as either
Dynasty Warriors 7 or 8. In both Dynasty Warriors 7 and 8, many Earth shattering advanced combat techniques can be done because of the game's diverse weapon swapping system coupled with better character classes and types. The same cannot be said to Samurai Warriors 4's more back to roots, simplified combat style.
One thing can certainly be said
however—never has a Warriors game been so stylish looking with so much
on-screen flash. Samurai Warriors 4 is the utmost king of that at
current for sure; the amount of bright lights and flashes this game
throws at a mortal can render them blind, literally. But without a lot
of depth tacked on the actual combat, that becomes less relevant as
more advanced players will be more dreary of its not particularly deep
combat system. There is no fighting game equivalent combat system to see
here, basically.
Nevertheless, the majority of players who play
any Warriors game usually don't play it to experience deep combat, do
they? Of course not. They simply wish to just delve in, release tension
and slay thousands of army fodders to satisfy their inner evilness. If
that's your type of thing, then rest assured Samurai Warriors 4 will
definitely make you a happy person. For the rest, I'm sure you'll find
yourself more at home with Dynasty Warriors 7, 8, Musou Orochi or even
the Sengoku Basara series.
I didn't really meant to make this an actual blog post, but I've been getting two particular questions regarding Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate from viewers continously. Hence, I might as well make a big public post about it for everyone.
When will Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate be released in English for North America and Europe?
At this moment I'm typing, neither KOEI TECMO Japan or NA/EU has made a public announcement regarding whether the game will be localized to English, that includes specific dates. However, one of the company's officials (鯉沼P - Koinuma) has tweeted they might release an English version in summer of 2014. Here is the link to the tweet.
Can you supply a translation guide for weapon attributes in English?
I would translate them, but a kind soul has already compiled a list of weapon attributes in both Musou Orochi 2 and Ultimate, plus provided English translations for them. You can find the list here.
If you need other bits of the game translated, feel free to send me an
e-mail. I could also work on a thorough translation guide for this game
if you guys want, since this game doesn't look like it's going to
localized any time soon. If so, let me know your thoughts and I may look into it.
I might as well add another question I was asked just recently on a different game...
How come I can't decrypt the game save of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends with Bruteforce Save Data?
Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends, like a lot of newer games, uses double layer encryption for their game saves. Hence, you won't be able to decrypt it via software as of yet. The only way to do so is to use a third party Game Genie device. PS3 CYBER Save Editor (Japan only) has added support for Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends. I have no familiarity with this item, but I know it lets you modify game save code. I'm not sure if it will allow you to resign your game saves like Bruteforce Save Data. Remember: Don't mod/cheat unless absolutely necessary; try to stay legit!
Alright, this is coming along rather quickly and nicely now. This is team combo number three out of four total, which means there's only one more left to go!
Video:
Why were these characters chosen?
Shennong was the obligatory character here, as he's obviously from the new cast of Hyper and Special. I'm never quite fond of Shennong myself, as his character came off as a fruit in my eyes. Sorry, Shennong fans! Nevertheless, I must say his moveset and weapon is quite versatile and can be given endless possibilities with combos.
Along with Nu Wa and Fu Xi, these three characters makes up the mystic team that KOEI TECMO has blessed with a unique triple rush. That is, one that fortunately doesn't break your combo on a single opponent.
Special notes:
This combo was perhaps one of the longest combos I've done as part of this entire series. Like the rest of the combos, this one sort of just developed on its own as I was also experimenting. A lot of interesting things were done with Shennong's C1 freeze and it rather turned out nice.
Continuing on my work towards my soon to be released Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate - Team Combos Compilation (Hyper & Special) video, here is video footage #2 and team combo of Momiji, Zhen Ji, Zhong Hui.
Just so you know, I do plan on releasing the rest of the video footage before the 28th of Thursday. That is of course, when Shin Sangoku Musou 7: Moushouden (Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends) will be released in Japan. And yes, I do plan on obtaining that game and providing cool video footage of it—you know me; I never say no to another Musou game that isn't about Gundams and random animes!
But just so I don't spoil everything, I'm going to let the last combo video footage be a surprise!
Video:
Why were these characters chosen?
Momiji was a prime choice as she's part of the new cast for the Hyper and Special crew, which is what this combo video will be about. The other two characters are actually very important in assisting Momiji with a variety of her attacks.
Zhen Ji was chosen most purely due to her C1—a simple 360 aura that has a 100% chance of slowing down enemies for a duration. Why is this of importance? You see, I really desired to incorporate Momiji's true musou in this combo. Since her musou like a lot of other SW characters has such a huge delay before its initial hit (the enemy will be able to recover from it before the initial hit, basically), that isn't going to be possible unless we find a way around it somehow. By utilizing Zhen Ji's C1 plus a single triple rush switch, Momiji can fire her musou during a combo and have it flawlessly connect!
Zhong Hui was another character for assisting in one of Momiji's attacks—her R1, that is. Momiji's R1 has a high probability of sending the enemy very far, enough so that a standard switch combo will be difficult to connect. His musou when fired directly after the last hit of her R1 arrows, can counter this easily. Not to mention he has without a doubt one of the best musous in the game. There are actually a lot of other characters can go here, but I just chose Zhong Hui due to my massive familiarity and liking to his moveset.
Oh, and before you ask, the reason I did not use any of the unique triple rush teams with Momiji in it was because she only had one. That one was with Rachel. I simply didn't want to include Rachel again in another combo.
Special notes:
Although this combo appears a bit more simple than the rest, it's actually one of the more difficult ones to execute. This is due to a lot of moves requiring very strict timing to get correct. It also features a lot of advanced techniques, such as step canceling, analog rotation during R1 and others.
As you may not have know, I'm currently working on putting out another Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Team Combos Compilation video, now focused on the newly introduced characters in Hyper and Special, instead of Ultimate.
I'm usually very secretive about these types of combo compilation videos. Prior to the video being publicly released, I'm only potentially handing out the video title and detailing what it's basically going to be about, but never shed any real light on the actual combos and characters being used.
Why's that? I want the video to exert as much surprise and awe as possible in one go. If I were to give everything away, that would ruin it, hmm?
Well, today I decided I'm going to say "Screw that!". Yes, I'm sharing exclusively with blog viewers all my progress on this next combo compilation video. This will include video footage of each combo that will be used in the final video. Consider it as "Behind the Scenes" if you will, but only that you get to look at all of this before the video is publicly released!
*Ahem*, I felt that since I've already released the first video publicly, the amount of surprise and awe is already much felt (especially since this video will be a direct continuation of that). Besides, I'm sure only like 10% of my YouTube audience actually reads this blog. :P
Onwards to today's video footage then!
Video:
Why were these characters chosen?
Of course, Rachel is mandatory because she's part of the Hyper and Special crew. Other than that, these characters are chosen simply for one reason: they have a unique triple rush, i.e. KOEI TECMO paired them up because they share similarities with one another.
When I find teams that have unique triple rushes, I always chose them over random teams for my team combos compilation videos. The sole reason is that being equipped with two different triple rushes significantly increases the variety and flashiness of the combo to be executed. Regardless, not all unique triple rushes are created equal. Some unique triple rushes are intended for an enemy crowd and fare poorly against a single opponent, which is what's important here. These unique triple rushes will fail to combo the single opponent effectively, allowing them to escape in midst of it and causing the combo to break.
Thankfully, these three characters have an unique triple rush that doesn't break the combo and allow the single opponent to escape. However, on the negative side, there is absolutely no way to continue juggling after Rachel's final rush attack. Hence, expect to either land it as the final killing blow or cancel it out completely (which is what I did with Masamune's musou).
Rachel also has another unique triple rush with a different team that includes Momiji. However, because I didn't want to include two new characters in one team (to extend the length of the compilation video), I chose to not use it.
Special notes:
All three characters have heavy uses of long distance firing bullets in their moveset arsenals. Hence, ice was something quite important to include to limit the amount of fly back due to their hits. Nevertheless, using ice also increases the probability of the combo failing, as it does not activate 100% all of the time. I think overall this was a good combo, that included all of the characters' signature moves and a flashy triple rush finish at the end.
Note: Only images exclusive to the game are included. Images that are taken from past games, such as Musou Orochi Z, can be found at: http://bit.ly/17QmbQr
If you prefer to browse the images manually, I also uploaded the entire album here: http://bit.ly/1ch3Ed1
Note: This review is based upon the
Japanese version of the game (Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate) and uses
translated names. English names of certain things may be different in
the English release.
INTRODUCTION
Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate, or if you would like to be future optimistic, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, is a re-release of 2012's Musou Orochi 2 with new content. Albeit having expansion characteristics including new characters, features and storyline, it goes beyond that classification by including every content in the original game without the need to swap discs back and forth. A stand-alone expansion, or expandalone if you want to call it that. Hence, if you're familiar with the Xtreme Legend expansions of the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, think of it as Musou Orochi 2 Xtreme Legends with Musou Orochi 2 already included. Ingenious, isn't it?
Okay, so if you're reading this review, I'm having an enormous hunch you probably already have played Musou Orochi 2 or its many international releases. If not, I'm anticipating you at least know the game details well. Thus, to keep things sweet and simple, I'm only going to cover the new stuff that is introduced in Ultimate.
GAME MODES
Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate introduces two new gameplay modes. These are Unlimited Mode and Duel Mode. Duel Mode is not entirely new, as it's a straight rip from the Duel Mode introduced in Musou Orochi 2 Hyper (one of the other many incarnations of this game).
DUEL MODE is as you guessed, a VS mode where the game takes on a 3D arena tag team fighting genre. Character stats including weapons are not factored into this mode, so it's utterly toned down to be better balanced fighting against the CPU, a local buddy or an online opponent. Choosing to fight the CPU will result in challenging yourself to obtain the highest win streak. A vast difference between regular gameplay and Duel Mode gameplay is the addition of four character specific strategy cards you can equip for battle. Each character has their own distinctive card and they add various tactics and effects when used during battle, which can be categorized into "Attack", "Auxiliary", "Obstruct" and "Special". Again, this is all fairly familiar territory if you ever played the Hyper version of the game—nothing much has changed here. Hence, that also causes Duel Mode to still be a weird, broken mess. With you and the opponent spamming hundreds of different cards which all do different things, the actual fighting becomes incredibly random and unpredictable. Most of the time, you don't know what is going on to react soon enough. Essentially, this also renders the fluid and smooth combat system of the game something entirely else that you have to re-adapt exclusively for this mode. If there was an option to disable the usage of strategy cards, then Duel Mode might actually have some potential. I haven't got a clue what they were trying to pull off with their inclusion, but personally, I think it's a rather poor implementation. I say bring back the real Duel Mode of Maou Sairin!
Those damn cards!
UNLIMITED MODEis the actual uniquely new mode to Ultimate. You are essentially task to complete a series of randomly generated dungeons that involves fighting infinite spawning enemies, collecting treasure, avoiding the strengthening evil miasma and eventually finding an escape point in veins of glowing blue aureoles called "Dragon Spots".
Character selection is also different from any other mode, in which
you are allowed to select up to five characters instead of the usual three. Once initial character selection has occurred, it is permanently locked until you unlock other
characters exclusively for this mode. That's correct, Unlimited Mode requires you to unlock all 145 characters over again, or should I say 140. Oh joy, aren't we loving Unlimited Mode already?
After character selection, you'll be greeted to the same, familiar hub area of Story Mode. Only this time, the NPCs and merchants are different. Only the blacksmith and tea house are present, and oh, a female mystic. The female mystic is exclusionary to Unlimited Mode, and you'll be talking to her often to fetch request missions (yes, there are side missions you get to accomplish while dungeon crawling) and unlock additional characters you can play as—the 145 unique characters in the game, that is.
When you're ready to dungeon crawl, you'll be greeted to the dungeon selection screen, which are comprised of squares (regular dungeons) and hexagons (boss dungeons) connected to each other by a series of straight lines. Think of the dungeon selection as the Story Mode selection, instead with much more paths to unlock and partake. There are also deeper layers you can unlock once you finished the boss dungeon on the prior layer. The deeper you go, the higher the difficulty and the closer you are to fighting the ultimate boss of this mode.
The actual dungeons themselves are not exactly random. They are all based off of unaltered existing stages already in the game, merely randomized with enemies, treasure chests, dragon spots and start positions. Dungeons can also be multi-leveled, in which up to five stages are required to be completed in sequence before the dungeon is cleared. Of course, it wouldn't be a genuine dungeon without a miasma that engulfs the entire stage, limiting your viewing distance and restricting your mini-map until you explore the area. That miasma is not physically harmful, but the longer you allow it to strengthen through time, the higher the difficulty increases in real time, as indicated by a numerical level on the lower right portion of the screen. Once the miasma has become strong enough, it will eventually transform purple. There and then will it significantly impact your viewing distance. Ahh, it's like the good old days of playing co-op Dynasty Warriors on the Playstation 2 again! Not only that, but enemies become much more powerful, so much as to take out you or your team mates in matter of seconds. On the plus side, the higher level of miasma, the better the rewards will be dropped by enemies.
Blue circles: GOOD! Purple mist: BAD! Oh yeah, enemies too!
Dragon spots, as mentioned earlier, are the primary objective of each dungeon level. There are dozens of them scattered throughout the map, and you'll be needing to find the correct one to unlock the escape point, allowing you to win the level. Dragon spots that aren't escape points can be used to be restore health, grant buffs or even warp your party to another spot on the map, but only once. The activation of said dragon spots is hardly innovative; you simply step on the spot and hold the L1 button until it "activates". The good thing is once a dragon spot has been activated, it is notably enlarged on the mini-map, so it's easy to not activate the same spot twice.
Treasure chests are also littered throughout each map and can be both beneficial and harmful. Open the right treasure chests and you'll be greeted to gems, but open the wrong one and you summon a team of baddies that attacks you on the spot.
The real uniqueness of Unlimited Mode comes from the gameplay itself, which is quite different from any other mode. Unlimited Mode allows all five of your chosen characters to fight alongside you simultaneously in battle, rather than be tucked away into another character's uh... body? You still maintain the ability to switch from one character to another, but the ability to execute any sort of switch combo has been eliminated. A new ability which is also available in other modes is Musou Burst, in which two or more of your characters on screen perform a musou together at the same time.
Get ready to burst!
You can also deploy a formation tactic that you can utilize per battle. The effects are reliant on the team's character and composition, but you generally gain special bonuses or techniques when these formations are activated by three characters or more in the team. Mixing certain techniques together can also yield different effects.
Materials you've gathered on your dungeon crawling adventure can be used in various ways that will benefit your characters outside of the mode, including the ability to craft powerful 5 star alchemy weapons and specific weapon attributes that you can attach to your weapons via the blacksmith. The latter is especially useful, as farming weapons for the right attributes has never a fun endeavor in previous games.
Now that you know the meat of Unlimited Mode, let's talk briefly about its flaws, as there are some.
First, dungeon crawling albeit fun in the early beginnings, can wind up dull quickly. This is because the victory objectives never change. Aside from optional side missions, you are always going to be running from one dragon spot to another in hopes of finding the escape point, whilst an infinite slew of enemies slow down your progress. On rare occasions, you may have to fight one or several enemy officers to open an escape point. Later onwards, especially when you gathered enough materials, you'll be urging yourself to just rush through the level, avoiding all enemies and try to get to the escape point as quick as you can to finish the mode. That itself, is not exactly fun.
Second, the AI is strangely off balanced. When the miasma level is high, the enemy's AI (particularly the officers) are very smart, more so than any other mode as a matter of fact. They are swift to execute their specials or musous when they are continuously attacked and comboed. Heck, they'll do a musou if they see you start to do yours. On the other hand, your team's AI is lackluster no matter what you do. They'll constantly swarm around your controlled character like bees, get lost in a opposite end of a map, and regularly die to mere peons over and over again. The death of them is particularly frustrating, as your party members can only be revived by waiting for their resurrection.
Third, I ran across a few fatal bugs which are exclusive to Unlimited Mode. The most fatal being the game failing to implement an escape point on a level. Hence, I was stuck on a single level for almost an entire hour, trying every dragon spot multiple times and fighting off infinite spawning enemies at level 100 miasma. That's not very fun, I'll tell you. I had to eventually wait until the timer ran out to exit the level to preserve my rewards. Had I not, I would have wasted an hour for absolutely nothing.
Fourth, Unlimited Mode takes out many of the game's signature fun combat features mentioned earlier, including switch combos, True Triple Attack and the newly introduced Triple Rush. You feel you are playing an incomplete version of the game with these features wholly annihilated.
STORY MODE is the same mode from the original, Special and Hyper; plus the addition of two entirely new stories, both taking place in different time periods. The first is called "The Tale of the Latter Day", taking place after the Hydra's defeat. The second is called "The Tale of the Former Day", a prequel that also explains Orochi's origins.
Plenty of new stages to re-love the game once again.
Along with the dozen of new stages, there are also a few new maps that are particularly focused within chapter 7. Maps deriving from Maou Sairin (Warriors Orochi 2) that are slightly modified and updated are also included, including Yamazaki and Wuhang Mountains.
Tamamo no Mae and her true form Kyubi no Kitsune are the new main antagonists, although Orochi is still the antagonist at certain parts of the story. Her feminine prowess and more natural attachment to Da Ji provides a nice contrast to that of Orochi's. It's only unfortunate that KOEI TECMO decided not to give her an epic new final stage, as they had did with Orochi X.
Tamamo no Mae's true form is such a fox! Oh wait...
Collaboration between different game companies also sparked small, short stories of guest characters including Sterk, Sophitia and a portion of the female characters in Dead or Alive 5. These tend to be more comical and fun in nature compared to the main storyline, as the game doesn't take itself too seriously with these characters.
Overall, story mode has greatly been expanded on from the original. And unlike Special and Hyper, which can be considered mere cash ins, Ultimate feels much more polished and complete as a proper expansion with the addition of the new stories, even going to include all new CG cutscenes of their own. Although playing through the four new chapters won't be as long as playing through the original game, it still is great to know you are getting a lot of new quality content to make your money's worth.
MUSOU BATTLEFIELDS also gets a slight re-haul and improvement from its initial introduction in the original game. Adjusting battlefield settings now no longer costs any points, including the replacement of officers and the addition of elements. New elements are also added, along with the ability to create your own custom lines for officers to speak. Because of this, completely changing a battlefield's aspect is now entirely possible. Yeah, you can have your army of Lu Bus fighting an army of Orochis. They can even say stupid stuff to each other!
GAMEPLAY AND CHARACTERS
Along with the entire cast from Hyper (which includes the cast of the original and Special), Ultimate brings along a lot of new faces to the cast, some which are even very surprising. The most surprising being Sophitia from Soulcalibur IV, a game character that belongs exclusively to Bandai Namco. KOEI TECMO actually did collaborate with Bandai Namco multiple times with their Gundam Musou series, so I guess it's not that surprising to see a Soulcalibur character here. Still, it was a shocker to even see a fighting game character from another company make it into a Musou game, aside from Tecmo of course.
More sexy Dead or Alive females are introduced to the already growing mix, now including the renowned Kasumi. Kasumi could be considered the poster girl for the Dead or Alive series; she's also likely the most popular to players, so it's rather unusual that she jumps into Musou Orochi last. Why was that?
Sterkenburg Cranach: Even his name sounds badass.
Another collaboration guest character is Sterkenburg Cranach, who is derived from a rather obscured and little known role playing game series by Gust called Atelier. Sterk is a self-proclaimed badass knight with a voice so deep that it would make even the almighty Morgan Freeman feel like a little girl next to him (I'm pretty sure his voice was heavily audio processed, though). His weapon of choice is a giant mystical sword that can summon electric sparks at will. He can also summon the moon! Well, maybe not exactly... Sterk is actually a reoccurring character from the Atelier series, so it's not nonsensical to see why he was the character chosen from the rest of the Atelier cast. Gust also recently merged with KOEI TECMO, so the rights to put him in this game is also not a issue. He's an awesome addition; the only negative is that anime face and deep voice creeping me out from time to time.
Then you have the obligatory, serious characters crafted specifically for the main storyline to make the game less of a marketing gimmick. Thankfully, Ultimate adds a lot of great characters including the aforementioned Tamamo no Mae and Kyubi no Kitsune, Yinglong (which is Orochi's past human form), a younger version of Nezha (which was also human) and Xu Shu from Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. A final boss character for Unlimited Mode called Hundun, derived from Chinese mythology, is also included as a last minute treat.
Nezha seems happy being his human self.
Movesets for all the new characters are all unique and quite varied, as you'd expect from KOEI TECMO these days. An interesting note is that a few guest characters' movesets, particularly Sophitia, contain moves from their original games. Sophitia even has that naughty Heaven's Arc throw, where she basically face sits an enemy with her crotch. Well, rejoice! Because she will now be able to face sit an entire army of demons! Man... that must hurt after awhile...
Brushing new characters aside, let's dive in depth about the gameplay itself, or more specifically, the changes and new features to the gameplay in Ultimate. They consist of character reincarnation, team summoning, triple rush, six equipment items, mystic weapons and character color editor. We'll go through each one in detail in order.
Character reincarnation is a new feature added to Ultimate that allows players to reset a max leveled (level 100) character's level including stats back to level 1, but in return, gain growth points per level you increase thereafter. Reincarnation can be applied up to 3 times each for every character.
Growth points, say what?! Growth points can be used to manually increase any stat for a character, such as health, attack, defense, musou and speed without decreasing or affecting the stat bonuses from regular leveling up. Essentially, you can increase a character's stats much higher than you can normally do so by simply leveling to 100 once. Growth points increase in bits every time the character gains a level after reincarnation and can be stacked until you desire to use them.
While character reincarnation is a potential must for players who prefer to maximize every bit of their character's strengths, it's not really desirable for others. Characters absolutely do not need to be any stronger than they already can be. It causes the game to increase in its already tedious level grinding by three times more.
Summon team does exactly that, it summons your inactive team mates to fight alongside you simateously on the battlefield. This is similar to what you would get playing Unlimited Mode, but without it being forced and with only three characters total instead of five. You'll also have no restrictions applied to your combat arsenal (including switch combos and triple rush), but you'll lose your ability to assist counter and the regaining of health and musou for inactive characters. But this is grand, ain't it? This is something we've been waiting for since the beginning of the Orochi series—the ability to have all three team mates fighting together at the same time! Wow!
If only it was as good as it looks...
But I have a very big issue with this feature, a issue that wholly breaks any usability and even fun factor of it—terrible, terrible AI. You see, whenever you summon your team mates, expect them to run around and do nothing for 5 minutes, then quickly get eaten alive by the peon swarm around you. Even though they can't technically die (their health resets to 1 and they get de-summoned), losing their health is harmful to you as the controlled player, as you'll be needing to control other characters if your health drops too low. If the AI continuously acts like idiots and dies, that is no longer is feasible. This is especially more of a problem on higher difficulties such as chaos, where enemy damage is at an all time high. The only real usefulness of team summoning is musou burst, which allows you and one or two of your team mates to perform a musou simultaneously. The musou of all the characters then transforms into true musous, and best of all, your team mates' musou bars doesn't decrease. Musou burst isn't exactly that great regardless. A lot of times your team mates aim their musous at random spots where you don't want them to. If you're a SW character and your team mates are DW characters, expect them to even die before you finish your own musou.
Really, this feature could be a lot better if they improved the AI for your team mates. As of now, it's not something you want to do often, unless you play on Easy or Normal difficulty and don't mind them acting like imbeciles.
Triple rush is a new feature added to your combat arsenal. It replaces your standard switch combo on all charge attacks with an air rush combo that can feature all three characters pummeling the opponent (the amount of characters depends on how many times you press the R2 or L2 button). The damage on triple rush is much greater than standard switch combos, but it does deplete a bit of your musou bar. Unique triple rushes are also available for specific teams of characters, which features unique attack animations for all three characters. Overall, this is a decent feature and quite entertaining to use. The only downsides is that being situated to activate on charges makes it difficult at times when you want to avoid it, that is, when you only want to use the standard switch combo. If you're used to doing switch combos in previous versions of this game, there's a lot to re-learn to adapt to triple rush.
If you love air, you'll love triple rush.
Six equipment items. All characters are now able to equip up to six total items, including one horse saddle, dependent on their level. This is an absolute breath of fresh air from the incredibly insulting two item limiting from previous games, which included saddles!
Mystic weapons are new weapons that can be obtained by completing specific tasks for each character in hard or chaos difficulty. Treasure weapons, if you want to call it that. But yeah, you already know the deal about these weapons that are featured in almost every Musou game. Shamefully, the mystic weapons are not the most powerful weapons you can obtain in the game, but more like the third. The 5 star weapons you can craft with Unlimited Mode materials has higher attack power, and the rare 1 to 4 star weapon drops in Unlimited Mode beats out both with the ability to have up to +99 added attack power from max compatibility. Basically, mystic weapons are cool to use if you want your weapons to also look cool. They also don't look stupid like a lot of the big star weapons.
Character color editor makes a welcome surprise for Ultimate. A relatively minor feature that won't impact actual gameplay, but gives characters you use a more personal vibe. If you're familiar with the color editor from Samurai Warriors 3, this is basically the same thing. Personally, I don't use it. I'm too lazy to color a character, especially when I could use that time leveling up or achieving something more precious in the game.
Character Color Editor: Lots of time to be wasted ahead!
Overall, there's plenty of things new here to satisfy gamers who already played the previous versions of the game and to gamers who haven't touched a Musou game. An exemplary bonus kudos to the very varied and unique selection of new characters KOEI TECMO came up with!
AI AND DIFFICULTY
The AI and difficulty in this game is largely a mixed bag. I already explained my dissatisfaction with the route KOEI TECMO went with attempting to increase gameplay difficulty by having both the player and enemy do enormous amounts of damage. Sadly, the same is still true to this game. Meaning, if you hated the game's difficulty before, you'll still hate it. Perhaps even more so, as Ultimate has a slew of new things that alters a character's overall power, including more damaging weapons, damaging weapon attributes and the breakage of character stat limits. Then again, you do have the choice to avoid all of these and more if you like your game to be more balanced difficulty wise. That is the reason I wrote the Warriors Orochi 3 Combo/Challenge Setup post after all.
The AI is weird in this game, as it's more smart and human like in certain modes than other. Take for example in Unlimited Mode, the enemy AI actually acts very smart, reacting closely to your attacks. In Story Mode and elsewhere, the enemy AI is its usual dumb self, even on the hardest stage in chaos difficulty. What's the deal with that?
Another thing that impacts difficult and makes the game more difficult is in the stage design of new stages. I dare to say that more than half a portion of the new stages forces you as the player to babysit one or several important officers, who are often on the opposite ends of the map. For some reason, enemies love to abruptly ambush your important officers or main camp in the midst of battle. If you get too far ahead of yourself, your important officers or your main camp gets taken out, and you lose before you even realize it. Worse, several stages forces you to rescue many important officers at the same time in a lousy amount of time limit. One of the new stages in chapter 7 forces you to rescue/defend three of these guys at the same time, with all of them being miles apart from each other. Two of them even gets nasty overwhelming ambushes to top it all off.
Again, these babysitting of officers are never fun and quite annoying. If we are forced to babysit, I'd suggest keeping it lenient and restricting to one or two at a time in close proximity, without random ambushes everywhere.
AUDIO AND MUSIC
The Orochi series has always been known to blend a mix of rock and techno-esque tunes and craft beautiful results, the same can be said here. Nearly all of the new characters have their own tunes, either composed by KOEI TECMO themselves, or remixed from the tunes of the games the characters originated from. The exception being Sophitia, in which "Immaculate Pledge" was used without any alteration from Soulcalibur IV. It would be ultra wicked if this song was remixed, but as in its originality, it's still one of more beautiful tunes from that game.
Sound wise, the well adored Japanese voice acting with a great level of professionalism is still here; even the guest characters have the voices from their original games.
REPLAYABILITY
Nothing screams replayability than a game that encompasses 145 unique playable characters that can each be individually tailored stats and weapon wise. That isn't even including everything else the game offers, including a very long story mode with multiple stories, higher levels of difficulties, rare items to unlock, versus mode and the hate-it-or-love-it Unlimited Mode.
Though I will repeat the same statement as I did with my Dynasty Warriors 8 review regarding replayability (and this goes out to all other Musou/Warriors games as well). Due to the nature of being a more simplified hack and slash title,
playing the game for a large amount of time without a break isn't a
welcomed feeling. The game starts to feel repetitive by then, and the
amount of finger smashing on the controller will wear out your fingers
and hands quite swiftly.
CONCLUSION
Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate adds a lot of new and interesting content to the now aging Musou Orochi 2 title, plentiful enough to warrant purchasing the game again to witness them. Nevertheless, several crucial and minor flaws are additionally introduced in the mix that prohibits it from being a perfect expansion, alongside the flaws of the original game. These are all documented in the above review.
A final note to readers contemplating on purchasing the game: Make sure you have a game save of the original game in the correct region. If you don't, you will be forced to start over from scratch. Having a game save of the original game is not required to progress in Ultimate, but it will save you having to redo things you already done!
OVERALL RATING: 7.5/10
What are you waiting for? Kyubi no Kitsune is waiting!
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