It isn’t often that you can pick up a game by a relatively unknown company and have a more than even chance of it being any good. KOEI have disproved this theory over the last couple of years, with titles such as Dynasty Warriors and Mystic Heroes proving to be great fun when you really needed to take your anger and aggression out on a couple of hundred army foes. How many times can the same basic gameplay elements be recycled and repackaged though’ KOEI is hoping that Samurai Warriors isn’t the title to upturn the apple cart.
Samurai Warriors features the same hack and slash action that was found in the popular Dynasty Warriors series. In fact, the only major differences between the two games are the timescale in which the action takes place in, and the fact that Samurai Warriors has undergone a serious amount of tweakage. Smoother graphics with a lot of nice touches, less (although there is still a lot present) popup and practically no slowdown help to bring the game up to date. In addition, a bunch of new strategic changes really help the gameplay along, as well as the player, and that is what is really important in these games.
First up, you get the map highlights when you’re in a battle. Rather than saying ‘Defend the Castle wall’ and then leaving you to wander around a vast landscape, trying to work out whether the north, south, east or west wall is being attacked, the map conveniently highlights the area in which you should be looking. This also goes for battle updates and when there is more than one task to be tackled, the map switches between them every couple of seconds or so. Now, this might not sound like much, but in a game where there are literally hundreds of enemies running around you at any one time, Dynasty Warriors did little to help the player when it came to location finding. Samurai Warriors rectifies this, and not a bit too soon.
On the downside, I feel that the camera angle presented in Samurai Warriors isn’t particularly helpful, and there is no way to change it. You need to be able to see a good distance in front of you if you are to plan attacks wisely, but the angle of vision is too limiting. Its almost as if the camera has been tilted to view you from above, when it really should have your character sitting squarely in the middle of the screen, rushing into the oncoming hordes. It isn’t a game-killer, but it takes a deal of getting used to.
Unfortunately, one point that was present in the other KOEI games of this type was the constant feeling that you were repeating yourself over and over. You go into battle, you kill (or ‘KO’) a couple of hundred enemies and then your get the chance to level-up your character and pick a couple of new skills for them. Then, you go into battle and kill (or ‘KO’)…you get my point. Samurai alleviates the repetition a little by giving you new challenges in the heat of the battle, like taking a castle or helping out a morale-drained allied army, but there still isn’t nearly enough to make things feel like you aren’t stuck in Groundhog Day. Once this problem is fixed, KOEI will have a triple A title on their hands.
As it stands though, Dynasty Warriors players who enjoyed the previous four or five versions of the game will no doubt snap up Samurai Warriors like the tasty offshoot that it is and appreciate the new and stunning elemental attacks and power-ups that can be purchased upon completion of a mission. Players that are new to the KOEI party will undoubtedly feel overwhelmed in the first mission, stunned in the second mission, and then ultimately bored by the time that missions five and six rear their blood-stained heads. An improved experience, maybe, but not one that stands out as an essential purchase amongst the plethora of titles available today.
