A good action game that could have been great with some better production values and a little more meat on its bones.
User Rating: 7.8 | Samurai Warriors XBOX
Ninja action seems to be all the rage lately, although it has been done with varying degrees of success. Samurai Warriors is Koei's latest addition to the Dynasty Warriors franchise, and it's a pretty solid game, filled with action-packed gameplay and some extra elements for good measure. If you like your action surrounded by an intricate storyline, and variety in its pace and production, you will probably wish to look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you enjoy some mindlessly addictive button mashing, and don't mind the mediocre, haphazard delivery of some pretty good concepts, Warriors will be right up your alley. Samurai Warriors does ostensibly contain multiple stories within, but suggesting that they have any significance would be a mistake. Story mode follows the destinies of various intertwined characters in as they lead their respective factions to supremacy in Feudal Japan. But truly, this is the Serious Sam of ninja titles. You are given an overview of your map, a selection of available weapons, and are then plunked down into a large map crawling with enemies, with two bodyguards at your side. It's a popcorn movie of a game, but this isn't a strike against it, particularly since the characters from which you get to choose all have individual personalities. You are given a map at the top right of your screen that does a pretty good job of showing you points of interest, some basic orders from your commander, and rush off to battle your foes. Objectives are usually pretty simple, and you will get constant updates on your army's progress throughout. Stories may also have multiple paths, depending on the outcome of certain map objectives. Your main goal for the most part, though, is to simply hack up your enemies using as many methods as possible. Each of the five avatars initially available begins with a few basic moves and a weapon, and from a third-person perspective, you start to rack up the KO's, which are kept track of conveniently in the lower right of your screen. As you can guess, different button and trigger combinations make for different moves, and they are a lot of fun to execute. You can string together melee and elemental skills, flips and dodges, ranged attacks, and even ride the horses you come across on the maps. You also have a “musou” attack available, which is a special attack unique to each character once you have replenished the musou meter. You replenish it by defeating enemies, finding a power-up, or by holding the musou attack button down (a technique you will never need). When your health meter is low, that attack is actually more powerful and the musou gage fills up quickly, giving you an extra boost just when you think you may be close to death. You probably won't find yourself close to death all that much, though, since your standard assailants have no real sense of urgency, often standing in formation as though waiting for you, and then rushing at you in a single wave. Even when they find you, they don't try terribly hard to actually do anything but mass around you and take occasional swings. The challenge here is hardly the AI, but simply in the dozens upon dozens of opponents that surround you. Each enemy has a health bar, and opposing officers will actually be labeled both on the playing field, and with a health bar at the top left of the screen. The most important officers function somewhat as mini-bosses, although they are not usually much of a challenge, unless you are attacked by several at one time. The biggest challenge often comes when the camera has backed you into a corner, or when it limits your view. You can position it in the direction you're facing at any time with the left trigger, but if too close to a wall, this can be counterproductive, particularly since you never have control of the camera's vertical position. You will, however, get a great view of the back of your head – and not much else. Giving the player some more control over the camera with the right thumbstick would have been a welcome addition. If the waves of brainless enemies make Samurai Warriors sound like a melee-based Serious Sam, then perhaps the character upgrades and pure addictive nature of the gameplay may remind you of Diablo. As you play, you gain experience based on your performance, and with the skill points you earn, you can purchase all sorts of nifty abilities in four separate categories. You will encounter all sorts of goodies on the playing field as well: new and better weapons; health, defense, and musou power-ups; and other items that enhance your skills, like bracers and amulets. These are found either in random crates strewn about the levels, or by defeating officers in battle. All of this, combined with the addictive nature of the combat, will keep many players glued to their controller for hours at a time. Your characters retain their abilities, and you can replay cleared missions as often as you want – and in Free mode, replay those of other characters. When you have completed a mission, you are treated to a replay of troop movement on the overhead map, and a chance to upgrade your skills and choose a weapon before moving on. Still need more to do? Give Survival mode a try, and battle your foes – and the clock - in a randomly built castle map. In VS mode, you can play another in split-screen, or versus the CPU, if you prefer. And in Free mode and Story mode, another player can join you in co-op play. If you tire of the main characters, then simply train a new one (and you can create up to fifteen) in New Officer mode. There is plenty to occupy your time, provided you don't find the combat too tedious. Therein lies the biggest problem in Samurai Warriors. Having horses to ride, ranged attacks, and endless moves to perform are all great options, but sadly, you never need to use them if you don't want to. Ranged attacks are particularly clunky to use, since you switch to a first-person view to use them, but can't move while attacking. But really, you could easily play the game successfully without ever once using it, since it is just better to barrel right in and slash away. Deflection is another neat trick with which you can deflect arrows back to your enemies, but again, not so easy to perform in all the hubbub. You will never charge towards a group of archers with the intent to deflect, since again, it's better to just jump in feet first and swing away. How interesting the hack-and-slash gameplay is often up to the player. You can mix up your attacks and styles if you want to, and even train in the New Officer or Challenge modes, but many won't be tempted. The horses? They're cool too, until you realize that you just don't need them – and considering you have to be so perfectly positioned to mount one, it's hard to be bothered. And those two bodyguards? They might as well be the Olsen Twins. The concept is good, but they just don't add anything to the gameplay. Samurai Warriors is not that bad to look at. Character models look quite good, and animations are excellent across the board. While not every character's style may be your cup of tea, they certainly possess a lot of personality: Hanzo is fleet-footed as he moves; Oichi looks quite feminine – and is so girlishly knock-kneed when she runs, she may elicit giggles; and even the horses gallop fluidly. Of course, your enemies are so large in number that their animations and models don't possess nearly as much individuality, and actually, outside of the fat strike ninjas - and the labeled officers and other main opponents – you can't really tell one type of enemy from another amidst the yarn-balls of adversaries. It's too bad that the environments are hardly spectacular. Textures are bland, structures all look pretty much alike, and the inside of every castle looks, well, like the boring inside of the last castle, and the one before that. The insides of those castles are so huge – and so unfurnished – that they might as well be abandoned warehouses. Considering the colorful history and charm of the depicted Japanese landscape, it is a major blemish when compared to the varied and beautiful settings of Ninja Gaiden and other similarly-themed games. Draw distance is not all that far, either, making for some noticeable pop-up. There are some neat effects, though, particularly those of the “true” Musou attacks. Some of the cinematics are quite beautiful, too, making the uninspired environments all the more jarring. Audio is just as decent. Voice-overs are fine, although some, particularly those of the female characters, can really be grating. Like the environments, it is the lack of variety that overshadows the quality of the voice work, with the same combat yells recycled over and over again. Music is good for what it is, although it doesn't seem to necessarily fit the setting. It is dramatic and intense most of the time – but not really Eastern-themed, as though you were fighting Ninjas on a 20th-century action movie set. Each enemy has a unique sound, though, so if there are kuonichi or strike ninjas nearby, you can be prepared. Samurai Warriors is a good game, and its core gameplay is addictive and good old-fashioned fun. The myriad of ways to customize your abilities and interesting additions to the game add some depth – but sadly, the mediocre implementation of some of those elements keep the game a standard hack-and-slash button masher at its core. Don't expect much that is new or subtle. Instead, take Samurai Warriors for what it is: a good action game that could have been great with some better production values and a little more meat on its bones.
