Developer: Omega Force
Publisher: KOEI TECMO GAMES
Platform: PS3, PS4, PS Vita, PC
Tested on: PS4
Samurai Warriors 4-II – Review
It seems that the hack and slash genre is getting on a roll. After the God of War franchise, Dynasty Warriors and the recent Hyrule Warriors and Onechanbara titles, Samurai Warriors 4-II is the latest instalment that uses this way of battling. Combine this with a lot of other elements, and you’re good to go.
Story
You aren’t presented with just one storyline, but with a whole bunch of smaller scenarios. When you select one out of the list, you get sucked into this story. First of all, you get an overview of the current situation, followed by some cinematics with the available characters.
Now that you’re up to date, you will be able to get to see the rest of the story by fighting your way through five stages. After every level, you will see yet some more cinematics, depending on how much objectives you were able to get.
The fun part about it all is that you won’t be able to exploit one narrative, but you’ll be spoiled with thirteen fun stories. This is quite a change in comparison with the Samurai Warriors 4, as the focus was on the several Japanese areas rather than the on individuals.
Graphics
We tested the game on the PS4 and it quite amazing. The graphics look really great, especially during the several cutscenes. Of course, some of the details could have been better, but that easily forgotten when you take the rest in. Something quite cool is that you can move the camera around while you’re in the scene, giving you some views of your surrounding.
Next to that, the gameplay environments are superb as well. Your characters really stand out in the crowd, as they have such shiny armor and huge weapons. Another element that emphasizes this even more is that the soldiers all have the same outfit and mostly in bland colours. Enemy captains or targets have more own characteristics as well, so you can recognize who you need to assassinate.
The surroundings really fit the more historical Japan and match well with the characters. The used colour schemes don’t really dominate the screen, so you can totally focus on the enemies.
Sound
What else can you expect from a Japanese-related game than some fine tunes from this era? You’ll be plunged into some sweet classical tones with some specific elements that give it that bit extra. During cutscenes, there isn’t really a lot of music as you will mostly witness conversations between the star characters. The voice acting on the other hand is quite important, even during gameplay, and it seems like the developers did their best to find the best voices. Every character really has a specific sound that fit their visual representation.
When you’re fighting on the battlefield, you will hear a mix of sounds. For example, you can hear the sweet tones of clinging metal with a scent of shouting and the sound of trumpets. Combine this with a more vivid background tune and you’re good to go and slaughter your enemies.
Gameplay
Samurai Warriors 4-II is a hack and slash game that will take you back into the historical Japanese era. There are a few elements for you to choose from and we’ll start with the ‘Story Mode’. You will be able to witness thirteen different storylines, but you will need to fight your way through. After you’ve selected the scenario, you will need to pick the next stage and choose a difficulty level. Even more, you can tackle these stages alone, go for local co-op or find an ally online (if you have Playstation Plus of course). Depending on the offline/online choice, you can select your secondary character.
When you have your companion, you can select your weaponry and mounts for both characters. Before entering the battle, you will see a small overhead map, some basic info and the main objective. Now you’re ready for battle and good to go.
The objectives of that area will pop up after a while and the same goes when you’ve just completed one. There are some bonus aims as well, but they only seem to appear when you’ve met some requirements. These special bonuses will have some fine loot, so it might be a good idea to check them out.
Completing an objective will mostly mean killing your enemies. This is mostly done by combining light and heavy attacks, with some Musou moves now and then. These special moves are only possible when your Musou bar is full, but boy o boy it is quite the show and very effective. Your character will be able to build some rage as well with the ‘Spirit Gauge’. When you have a certain amount, you can activate the ‘Rage’ modus, in which your character is quite annoyed and tears people up even more. Combine this state with the Musou attack and you’ll be mostly invincible… for a time at least.
During your killing extravaganza, some of the soldiers will drop goodies as well. This can be strategy tomes, but also weapons, mounts, gold or experience. They only appear in your stash if you actually run or walk over them, so it might be a good idea to keep an eye out. When the final objective is completed, the game will end and you can advance in the story.
The money and experience are really important, as buying tomes and levelling up your character are necessary to advance in the game properly. Experience will level up your character, giving him or her more attacks and better stats, while the tomes are needed to learn skills. Each character will have its own skill field and you will start at a certain node. When you learn this one, the adjacent talents will be unlocked and so on. This means that there are loads of variations possible, depending on how you want to develop your character.
When you say gold, this mostly means that there will be a shop. As mentioned before, you can buy tomes here and even acquire skills. Next to that, you can upgrade your weapons or mounts. This is done by combining two items into one in the hope to get an improved version. I do not want to know how they do that with the mounts though…
In ‘Free Mode’ you will be able to select completed stages from the Story Mode and you can pick any character you’ve unlocked as well. This means that you have loads of combinations so you can let your creativity run free. Tackling ‘Survival Mode’ is something else, as you will need to withstand several waves of attacks while enduring an increasing difficulty or you can try and overcome some challenges. For example, the Challenge of Riches will have you hit enemies to gain gold and you must collect a certain amount before the timer runs out. At least you can use any character, so it might be a good idea to make a strategic choice.
If you want to do something else than the regular fighting, you can always take a look at the Dojo. First of all, you can create your own character and it has to be said, it’s almost like you’re making your own Sim. There are quite some possibilities that you can choose from and it is great to see that you can customize so much. Another feature is the Vault in which you can see the cutscenes you’ve already unlocked or some extra information about the available characters. The Dojo has the power to alter your settings as well like your health bar, name tags and so on . The last feature is to get some tutorials about combat systems and other elements, which might get in handy if you didn’t play the game for a while.
Overall, the gameplay might get quite repetitive as you only need to kill enemies. Thank goodness that you can fool around in the character creator or get some other challenges in the Survival Mode. It would have been nice if there was a real tutorial level to explain everything, although you can always go to the combat buttons in your menu while playing the game. Another great feature is that you can save mid-battle, which is really awesome if you don’t have that much time. The same goes for changing the music before you start a battle as it gives the player so much possibilities.
There are also a few differences with the previous version (Samurai Warriors 4) as, for example, the enemy A.I. is more responsive to your movements. Even more, the morale of the teams will have an influence on how much damage a hyper attack will inflict.
Conclusion
Samurai Warriors 4-II will take you back to the samurai way of living and will let your inner warrior scream with joy. Be ready to slaughter loads and loads of soldiers, seasoned with a general here and there. This is done in rather beautiful vivid environment, combined with some sweet tones. If you like other hack and slash games, and especially Dynasty Warriors, you’ll certainly enjoy this title.
Samurai Warriors 4-II - Review,
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