Samurai Warriors Review

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Samurai Warriors Review; 9/10
Topic Started: Sep 21 2009, 02:53 PM (90 Views)
Lima	Sep 21 2009, 02:53 PM Post #1
May the winds blow your enemies to their graves Posts: 24 Group: Members Member #23,522 Joined: September 16, 2009 Gender Male	Firstly I don't see a Samurai Warriors 1 review here, so I will write one . Secondly this is my first published review ever! So please be nice with feedback and such likes. Please note when I refer to Dynasty Warriors I am referring to Dyansty Warriors 5 and below. Introduction Samurai Warriors, released in 2004 by Koei, is a Hack and Slash game which puts players into fuedal Japan on great battlefields to fight it out with rival warlords for the unity of Japan. Heavily based around Koei's Dynasty Warriors series, Samurai Warriors has many of the same gameplay features, however it does offer some very unique aspects and boasts 15 brand new characters, each with their own story and weapon, and many brand new battlefields. An expansion for Samurai Warriors, Samurai Warriors Xtreme Legends was released the same year and offers 4 more playable characters to play as. Samurai Warriors spawned a sequal, Samurai Warriors 2, with 2 expansion packs, Samurai Warriors 2 Empires and Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends and Samurai Warriors 3 is well on its way. Gameplay The gameplay of Samurai Warriors is very much the same gameplay of Dynasty Warriors, except that the game is set in the Sengoku, or Warring States, period of Japan instead of the Three Kingdoms era of China. The main mode of the game is Story Mode, where the player choses one of 15 brand new historical characters (not including Xtreme Legends which puts the roster up to 19 characters) and fights many historic battles between rival clans. The characters themselves range from young to old, from good to evil e.t.c. A good aspect of the game is its weapons. Along with the expected swords and spears, some characters have very unique weapons such as Shingen Takeda fights with his war fan and Okuni fights with an umberella. Once on the battlefield players find themselves fighting hundreds of enemies and almost constantly in the fray of battle. The main aim of story mode for all characters is to either unify Japan under their own rule or aid their lord in unifying Japan. A Free Mode is also included which allows players to pick their favourite character and participate in any of the battles on the game. The controls of Samurai Warriors are virtually identical to the controls of Dynasty Warriors, therefore I don't feel the need to talk about them much. Horses are included in Samurai Warriors and are improved from Dynasty Warriors. Firstly characters now attack at one side of their horse instead of both sides like in in Dynasty Warriors. This allows more control of mounted attacks and gives the player a much easier system to launch attacks from a horse. Secondly horses now have the ability to jump. This allows players to jump on/over enemies and over obsacles. This mostly adds a sense of realism to the game, however it also allows players to evade incoming attacks, manourver around the battlefield easier and directly attack enemies with their horse. A Create a New Officer is also included in the game. However the new officers are forced to have pre-made skins, which highly limits the looks of the new officers. Anyway first off you pick the skin you want your new character to have, then you get an introduction to the Create a New Officer mode. You then train your character using a variety of mini games, at the start of each mini game you choose a either a sword, spear or naginata. Depending on which weapon you choose your character will get increased skills for that weapon. Each mini game increases and decreses certain skills. For example the Melee training increases selected weapon attack, life and jump but decreses unselected weapon defence, ranged defence and horse defence. There are a total of 8 training exercises and the player is givin 1 year, divided into four seasons, to train. In total the player will do a total of 12 training exercises over the 1 year period. After this year of training the player must undergo the 'Trials of Acceptance'. The trials consist of two training exercises. To pass the trials the player must first choose a clan to join. The clans available to choose from are the clans from the game, so there are clans such as Oda, Takeda, Azai, Hojo e.t.c. Once the player has chosen a clan they must undergo that clans trials. Each clan has different training exercises that the player must do, for the example the Oda trials consist of Melee and Musou training exercises. The player must score 100 or above points in the trials to pass. If the player passes the trials the new character is available for free mode and has their own story mode, however if the player fails the trials the new character is lost forever. All new character stories are the same, therefore which clan the player chooses to join makes no difference to the story of the new character. Overall I give the gameplay of Samurai Warriors a 9/10. Mainly because the Create a New Officer mode gets repetative and for me it just seemed a little dull. Graphics For me the nostalgic, dreary graphcs of the Samurai Warriors landscape really bring the game to life. It really makes you feel as if you are fighting a war, an endless viscious, cruel war. It brings battlefields such as Okehazama and Kawanakajima to life. It makes you realise that you actually are killing people, compared to Dynasty Warriors where some of the battlefields are bright and warm, They make the player feel as though the people are just having a nice game of tiddly winks. Character wise I think the characters look great. None of them are over exaggerated, they look as though they belong there. Then you have the alternate costumes which are there for a bit of fun, and look equally as good. Overall I give the graphics of Samurai Warriors a perfect 10/10. Even though they might look bad now, back in 2004 I absolutely adored them. I probably like them even more now, I prefer Samurai Warriors graphics over Samurai Warriors 2 graphics. But I'm sure thats just me. Sound I have always been a fan of Koei soundtracks and Samurai Warriors is no different. Currently my fourth favourite soundtrack of all time (fourth to Dynasty Warriors 2, DW6 and Samurai Warriors 2 respectivly) I absolutely love it. The combination of Techno, Guitar and Drums gives Samurai Warriors that sound of an epic game. Every stage of the game gives you the feeling you should have when playing a game, whether your slaghtering Takeda soldiers at Nagashino or having the fight of your life at Kyoto you get that good feeling you should get. The character the voices are also impressive. I think just by listening to the voice of many of the characters you get a sense of who they are and what they stand for. For example Kunoichi's voice is energetic and lively ad this is hown in her character also. Overall 10/10. It is epicness at its upmost best. Replay Value Ah... This is where Samurai Warriors fails to meet standards here. Once you've completed every characters story mode I'm sure most people just switch off the game, put it on the shelf and let it collect dust. Or if your abit more into the game you max out all the characters and get all the best weapons, and then you put it on the shelf to collect dust. Either one of those two or you buy the expansion. Well whichever way you go once you have completely exhausted the game there isn't much replay value. You start feeling that you've seen it all before and get bored with the game really easily. You start to memorise what the characters say and know all the best way to win the battles. For me when your at that stage the game becomes boring (yes I've been there). Replay Value... 5/10, I can replay it, but not for very long. Fun Factor Whats not fun about Samurai Warriors? Running around killing hordes of enemy soldiers and generals, brining back to life the stories of long forgotton heroes. For me the game was beyond fun, I really got into the game learning as much as I can about each character and , of course, killing hundreds of people is a great stress relief. The game even got me started on lerning about the characters historical counterparts, which I now thoroughly enjoy doing. Overall 10/10 for Fun Factor, the game gives you exactly what it says it does and for me, thats exactly what I want. Conclusion In conclusion if you like Dynasty Warriors games you will enjoy Samurai Warriors. It not only gives new stories, sountrack and characters to the mix but leaves you with that pleasent feeling you get when you play Dynasty Warriors. Overall a very Fine addition to the Warriors saga. A big well done to Koei !!!! Afterword Thank you for reading my first review ever. Feel free to give feedback, leave comments e.t.c. Sorry about any spelling mistakes, please notify me of any. A final Thank You for reading . Edited by Lima, Sep 21 2009, 03:19 PM.
	Life is but a Dream, Within a Dream The Sleeping Dragon Resides in us All. Death is but a Moment, Use it Wisely = Happy Lima


Astus	Sep 21 2009, 03:03 PM Post #2
Frakkin' Toaster Posts: 2,749 Group: Admins Member #8,568 Joined: July 17, 2007 Gender Male	A very nice review. I enjoyed reading through it. I personally feel that the combination of SW1+XL is the best that KOEI have produced. XL rectifies a number of errors and glitches that affected the original. Just one point, XL gave you the opportunity to play as four new characters, not five. I slightly disagree on the replayability aspect as I feel that the Mission system, the branching storylines, the 5th weapons (and 6th in XL) and the endless amounts of variables that you can achieve with the stats of your created warrior (though I still wish there was more when it came to aesthetics) create a lot of potential for replayability. I still have heaps to do within the game however many years later. If I may make a slight suggestion, perhaps spacing out the text under the Gameplay category will work well. It helps a lot in making more readable as opposed to being a wall of text. All in all, a pretty decent review. Well done.
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Lima	Sep 21 2009, 03:17 PM Post #3
May the winds blow your enemies to their graves Posts: 24 Group: Members Member #23,522 Joined: September 16, 2009 Gender Male	Thank you Astus for the comments and pointing out my stupid mistake lol. I'll edit it now. Edit: Edited main post Edited by Lima, Sep 21 2009, 03:20 PM.
	Life is but a Dream, Within a Dream The Sleeping Dragon Resides in us All. Death is but a Moment, Use it Wisely = Happy Lima


LittleDragonZ	Sep 22 2009, 11:24 AM Post #4
Behold the spear of Baby Dragon! Posts: 6,827 Group: Admins Member #3,636 Joined: October 5, 2006 Gender Male	Thanks for doing the first review then. You do go into depth, but I must say that you're being a bit generous with a 9 out of 10. Especially since technology has enhanced since. But having said that, it's great you have such an interest in either series. Well done.



Lima	Sep 24 2009, 11:29 AM Post #5
May the winds blow your enemies to their graves Posts: 24 Group: Members Member #23,522 Joined: September 16, 2009 Gender Male	Thanks LittleDragonZ I appreciate that technology has evolved since Samurai Warriors, but I still think that it is a great game, great origional stories and characters e.t.c. Also I much prefer SW maps to SW2 maps as a sidenote. Don't know why I just do
	Life is but a Dream, Within a Dream The Sleeping Dragon Resides in us All. Death is but a Moment, Use it Wisely = Happy Lima


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