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| Samurai Warriors 2 Review; Score: 8.5/10 | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 15 2007, 10:39 AM (926 Views) | |
| SlickSlicer | Jun 15 2007, 10:39 AM Post #1 |
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Instead of doing a traditional review, I will select different elements of the game and weigh them with pros and cons. Then I will give each component of the game a score, average them and come up with an overall score. Note that this is a review of the English version, Samurai Warriors 2, instead of the Japanese Sengoku Musou 2. ============ Firstly, Graphics: Pros- -The game's maps look a lot less nondescript. The backgrounds you saw in Samurai Warriors 1 were often lackluster and bland, but in Samurai Warriors 2 you will see vivid battlefields come to life. -The game seemed to make use of a large plethora of settings. Whether you're fighting on the seas of Osaka bay, in front of Edo Castle in the snow, or at night-time in Kyoto, you'll love exploring the settings around you. My personal favorite map is the one used for the Battle of Hasedou. The cliffs, gigantic tree in the center of the map and attention to detail simply made it one of the most awesome ones in the game. The map used for the Battle of Sekigahara was also pretty well done, and seemed pretty authentic as well. A very scant number of maps, notably the Battle of Anegawa map, have parts of it that can actually affect gameplay. In that particular example, the strong currents of parts of the Ane river force you to use certain routes and strategies to overcome your enemy. -The character designs are very good, and even the designs of generic officers were surprisingly amazing. Although not historically accurate in all cases, the game made use of various samurai helmets that were pretty interesting. Most notably, we got to see the famous kabutos of Hideyoshi, Ieyasu and Mitsunari. All of them were pretty sweet looking. -The castles had some interesting little easter eggs here and there. You'd occassionally see suits of samurai armour, clan symbols and other things of interest. -When you kill special characters, including playable characters in the game, Sasaki Kojiro or Shibata Katsuie, the game shows you killing them in slow motion. This gives Koei some extra 'style points' in my opinion. Cons- -Like in Samurai Warriors 1, there are simply NOT enough maps in the game. Whilst each map is well done, you may begin to get bored when you see the same maps being regurgitated in the game over and over. The most specific example I can name of a map being recycled is the map used for the Battle of Yamazaki. You will also see that map used for the Battle of Mount Usa between the Azai and Asakura. The maps for the Battle of Sekigahara and the Battle of Osaka Bay are also used multiple times. -Since this is a review of a single game, I have to take into account how it stands as a whole, rather than just how it stands in comparison to other Koei games. So I will say that, although the NPC models look good, and there are probably more of them featured in Samurai Warriors 2 than there are featured in other Koei hack-n-slashers, there should have been a larger number of NPC officer models. There should have also probably been more special NPCs (rather than just Shibata Katsuie and Sasaki Kojirou). It would have been nice if Takeda Katsuyori, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Tsutsui Junkei, Shimazu Toyohisa and other significant characters in the story had their own design. -The inability to switch character costumes was a major letdown. On the other hand, there was so much work seemingly put into each character's REGULAR costume that this seemed to not make much of a difference. You could say that alternate costumes were a worthy sacrifice to make for better character detail in general... -Castles still look fairly boring. It would have been nice to see designs on the walls or something. Rating: 8/10 ============ Next, we have sound: Pros- -The music is EXTREMELY catchy. Again, I must cite the Battle of Hasedou as an example of a battle with some excellent quality stuff. The music in that battle was absolutely epic. You will find that the music in the game is also generally very fitting of the game's setting. Finally, I think the fanfare that plays when you begin to win a battle sounds very nice and does much to get you pumped. -A great number of the new voices, especially ones like Ishida Mitsunari's, Azai Nagamasa's, Tokugawa Ieyasu's and Shima Sakon's, are damn good. I would go so far as to say that MOST of the voices in the game are good, perhaps much to the chagrin of members like Gairyuki who will no doubt beg to differ. -The dialogue itself was quite creative, in my opinion. The one on one conversations that characters sometimes have with each other ended up often being quite witty or humorous. My favorite one on one conversation between characters was between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari. The reason why I like it is because Ieyasu, who appears on the outside to perhaps seem boring throughout the game, says something very profound. I do not remember the exact lines the two characters say, but I will try to paraphrase the dialogue. The conversation happens at the Battle of Sekigahara, by the way. "Ishida Mitsunari: Ieyasu, I will defeat you even if I have to send 100,000 men to do it. Tokugawa Ieyasu: But Mitsunari, I thought you championed virtue. Wouldn't sending so many innocent people to their grave, just to defeat me, not be very virtuous?" My other favorite conversation is the one that Naoe Kanetsugu and Sanada Yukimura have after the Battle of Ueda Castle. Sanada Yukimura: We have won the Battle of Ueda, and staved off Tokugawa Hidetada. Hopefully we have done well for Lord Mitsunari. Naoe Kanetsugu: Yes, together we have done great. Mitsunari will definitely win at the Battle of Sekigahara as well! Random Soldier: Report-Ishida Mitsunari has lost the Battle of Sekigahara. Naoe Kanetsugu: What?! Has the world gone bankrupt of justice?! I just love that last line by Kanetsugu... Cons- -There are quite a few voices in the game that are sub-par or worse. What really irks a lot of hardcore fans of the first game is that a few of the voices got downgraded from the first Samurai Warriors. It seems that Koei really screwed over the Oda clan with voices. Oda Nobunaga sounds too normal in the game, Nouhime sounds like an old, British hag, Maeda Keiji sounds like a geek, and Mori Ranmaru sounds a little too...girly. Another character's voice that I absolutely LOATHE is Nene's. When she gets hit in battle she seems to literally bark. -Some characters, including the aforementioned Nene, make weird sounds when you beat them around. Although the sound effects are generally good in the game, some of them could have probably used a little bit of work. Rating: 9/10 ============ And, onto gameplay: Pros- -The game has much more balanced gameplay than other Koei games. The ability to do a dodge roll maneuver makes it so that the game is more than just "hit or be hit." You can now escape out of combos more easily, and can thus rely more on skill rather than mere button mashing. The inclusion of special attacks, that can be initiated by using the shoulder buttons, also substantially improves the overall gameplay. -The variety in movesets is better than ever! Moreover, no hack-n-slash of Koei's gives you more options to develop your character than Samurai Warriors 2. You can COMPLETELY customize what skills each character will learn, and in doing so you can more or less customize their stats. There are many items, bodyguards and other things that you can purchase from the shop using gold that you win from battles. -Adding to the point about unique movesets, Koei made it so that there are different TYPES of characters in the game. Some will have many charge attacks, whilst others will have less charge attacks and more normal attacks. Some will have a small amount of charge attacks and normal attacks but more special attacks (activated using the shoulder keys and square or triangle). The result here is that there is less repetition in Samurai Warriors 2 than in other Koei games. -The missions are kind of worse than they were in Samurai Warriors, but it's still great that there ARE missions, and that each battle gives you a large number of options. For example, if you, as Tokugawa Ieyasu, kill Kobayakawa Hideaki instead of getting him to defect at the Battle of Sekigahara, it isn't uncommon for the your enemies to overrun the battlefield and charge your main camp. -The Infinite Castle mode is fun, offers quite a few challenges, has a great number of interesting surprises and is a GREAT way to train the characters of the game. -The characters have interesting weapons. Whether you're using Oichi's kendama, Tokugawa Ieyasu's cannon spear, or some other weapon, you'll have a lot of fun hacking, smacking, shooting, kicking or slashing at your adversaries. Cons- -The 'special' type characters seemed to sort of get the shorter end of the stick here. Because every character can use special attacks, you will often find that some non 'special type' characters' special attacks are more useful than the specials of supposedly 'Special Attack Oriented Characters.' I found that other than Naoe Kanetsugu, there were few 'special characters' with fantastic movesets. The inclusion of lame special attacks like 'planting mines' ruined some characters. -No Create-A-Warrior (CAW) Mode. What the hell Koei? This was just a major blow to the nuts for me, because I see no reason why Koei couldn't include one. I brought down the gameplay score a point because of this. -The game can still get repetitive after awhile, even though this is definitely the best hack-n-slash Koei's ever produced. -Although Samurai Warriors 2 did a good job of giving you varied enemies to fight, it would have been better if they had created more enemy units. Interestingly, some enemy troops you fight have unique attacks of their own, but Koei could have still added more unique units in the game. -I also was disappointed with the fact that you no longer (or at least rarely? I never saw them anyways) have those cannons that you can mount in battles. Cannons are no longer something that you can attack on the battlefield (except Ieyasu's giant one that he uses at Osaka Castle) or use to your advantage. -I felt that the Sugoroku Mode Koei added to the game was an utter failure. The purpose of the Sugoroku Mode was to give players a chance to play a game similar to Monopoly. Players would move around the board, buying land and hoping that other players landed on the land they had bought. Occassionally, you could challenge people to a mini-game in order to take land that they had purchased for yourself. The mini-games Koei offered when you challenged somebody sucked. Sugoroku Mode also seems to take a very long time and be too much about getting lucky rolls. It is not as much like Monopoly as it should have been, in my opinion. Rating: 7/10 ============ Finally, the Storyline: Pros- -There is no doubt about it: Almost every character in the game has a wonderful storyline. The cutscenes are magnificent, the dialogue is great and there are a surprising number of plot twists that will get you addicted to the game's plot very fast. -Each character has their own unique level. The unique levels for each character is called a 'dream stage.' My favorite dream stages were Fuma Kotaro's and Sanada Yukimura's. Both of them have some interesting scenes in them and can be quite difficult. -For people who don't know much about the Sengoku-Jidai period that Samurai Warriors 2 is based on, the game's story should be good anyways. Before each battle, you are not only briefed on the situation your character is in, but also given a personal speech from the character you're playing. Usually your character also has a catch-phrase to spice things up. Mitsunari's is "All things stand to reason" (it changes at the end though, which makes Mitsunari's development as a character very interesting), while Naoe Kanetsugu's is "For Justice!" or "For Justice and Honor!" Ieyasu's is "One step at a time..." All of them are well-thought out, in my opinion. -The game's endings are diverse. What I liked about Samurai Warriors 2 was that, unlike in Dynasty Warriors 5, every ending in the game isn't just "This character or his lord unites the land, and so everybody is happy." Some endings were even sad, which mixed things up a bit. -Samurai Warriors 2 focuses far more on the struggles of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ishida Mitsunari than its predecessor. This is a good thing, though, because there are now much more concrete kingdoms. In general, most of the characters can be categorized as either a 'Commander of the Western Army (led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ishida Mitsunari)' or 'Commander of the Eastern Army (led by Tokugawa Ieyasu).' Ironically, both Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu are new playable characters, yet both were the main heroes of Samurai Warriors 2. Cons- -This is perhaps owing more to a lack of maps than anything else, but the dream stages of some characters weren't as innovative or unique as they could have been. Personally, I think Hideyoshi's and Nagamasa's dream stages were really bad (because the Battle of Sekigahara map was overused). I also thought that Takeda Shingen's dream stage was utterly abominable (even though I liked some of the things that Shingen said in it). Rating-10/10. Despite the con, I think the storylines for each character are unquestionably good. Overall-The game's overall rating is an 8.5/10. |
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| KOEI Warriors | Jun 15 2007, 10:57 AM Post #2 |
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_root.admin
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To make it consistent, I've edited your topic title and description. If you don't like it then lemme know so I'll edit it back to normal as you wish. |
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| SlickSlicer | Jun 15 2007, 11:01 AM Post #3 |
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Nah, it's cool. Thanks Inspector. Still editing my review, lol. |
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| KOEI Warriors | Jun 15 2007, 11:03 AM Post #4 |
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_root.admin
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What a nice & detailed review. Ok, you go and edit that first, I'll read it tonight! Thanks... |
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| SlickSlicer | Jun 15 2007, 11:19 AM Post #5 |
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Alright, I suppose I'm done editing for the time being. I have no doubt in my mind that I will probably make more changes to the review in the future, but for now I think it is presentable. |
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| LittleDragonZ | Feb 17 2008, 01:15 PM Post #6 |
Behold the spear of Baby Dragon!
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You certainly did what your first paragraph implied. I like the way you mentioned the maps in-depth and other aspects. You seem to of mentioned many minor aspects, and not bother with the core. Well, what I mean by that is not doing it the traditional way and summarizing it straight to the point. Even going to the extent of mentioning Gairyuki's hate towards the voice acting, haha. Though, I'm not saying it was a bad idea, but a different approach. What I would suggest is that you should reorder parts. You seemed to of just jotted down anything that you thought of at the time in any random way, though you did mention this in your introduction. It could be seen as a bit confusing, especially when the members might want to refer to a specific area. |
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| SlickSlicer | Feb 20 2008, 08:45 AM Post #7 |
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Oh, well it wasn't intended as a serious review, actually. If I was going to write up an ordinary review, I would have just made a paragraph for each component of the game, or something.  Though you're right, I should have organized it better. I'll probably write up another review when I have the time. |
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| xing cai_sacred | Mar 23 2008, 10:38 AM Post #8 |
Soldier
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Hmm.... The game is cool so far. SW2 have Sugoroku and Survival mode, and the better look character! |
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"My dance has been known to bring grown men to their knees." -Okuni- | |
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| WUGODS | Apr 7 2009, 08:16 PM Post #9 |
Soldier
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I own this game but not have palyed it yet |
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WU RULES. I shall kill you all Attop Redhare.(LUBU) | |
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| crazyboyz | Apr 30 2009, 11:09 AM Post #10 |
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Elite Soldier
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Woohoo! You are awesome! Thanks |
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| TheMightyMarkSimo | Oct 3 2009, 08:03 AM Post #11 |
Liverpool FC fan
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Great game Good review Can't wait for SW3 |
God said unto John, "Come forth, and receive eternal life.", but John came fifth and received a toaster instead.  In Istanbul..WE WON IT FIVE TIMES ***** LIVERPOOL CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE 2005 | |
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