Taking us back to the past, Samurai Warriors 2 uses virtually the same premise from Samurai Warriors: State of War. It is a period of civil war in Japan and players take on the role of a Samurai warrior (one of several) who aims to restore peace and justice to the land by battling through immense armies and slaying rival Samurai. If you’re a fan of the series, there is also an appearance by Nobunaga Oda, but let’s just say that he’ll be having a few little accidents as you play through.
Regardless, the game consists of two main modes: Story and Free, which are self explanatory. Basically, you play through a series of Japanese themed levels by hacking and slashing your way to victory. However, during the battles you will be given certain objectives to complete such as stopping enemy soldiers from retreating or helping out fellow officers. In many instances, you’ll find yourself with multiple objectives at the one time leaving you with various strategies on how to go about winning the battle. Not all objectives necessarily need to be done, in a few cases, you may favour rescuing an officer over escorting engineers to your main camp if you feel that the officer is more worthy of your rescue. Available in both modes is also the ability to play 2-player Co-op which further adds to the strategy portion of the game as you’ll find yourself doing different objectives from your partner.
I told you not to fly a kite in this weather.
For the most part, the stratergy system works well but sadly, it just doesn’t make up for the repetitive button-mashing style of gameplay. No matter where you go, no matter what the objective, you’ll continuously find yourself pressing the square button to slash hordes of enemy soldiers. Even when you come across a rival Samurai and officers, the fight is pretty much the same with the exception of them having more health, defensive moves and special attacks. That being said though, you should be thankful that they do attack you. When fighting the normal soldiers, they are most likely to do one of two things: hit you with the equivalent of a small stick or stand there like a confused on looker waiting to get basked up. Then there’s the fact that every four or so soldiers will have a commander-like leader and once they're killed, the other soldiers will simply run away despite there being a solid one hundred other soldiers along side them. To sum it up, for the most part, the AI is lacking.
A few RPG elements have also been implemented to the game allowing you to level up your character via experience points which can be obtained by defeating enemy officers and collecting any scrolls they may drop. You will also be given the option of equiping yourself with a different weapon to give you a better edge during battle. Each weapon has different properties including elemental influences and heightening your character’s stats. The elemental influences on the weapon will reflect back in battle by either stunning your enemies with lightning, burning them with fire or freezing them with ice. It certainly works well and only occurs if you have performed a certain combo move, which is a good thing because this way, it doesn’t become boring. Other items that can be found on the battlefield (or bought from a store) include abilities which alter the way you level up, enhance your attacking powers and decrease the chances of you being stunned. Aside from this, you’ll also be given the chance to ride a horse in order to get around quicker and make faster work of enemy troops.
Also at your disposable are several guards that you can enlist to aid you in battle. Don’t get too excited though, you can only use one at a time and while they are handy to have around, for the most part, they aren’t a necessity on the battlefield as they only kill a few enemies at a time and depending on their killing methods, they can sometimes interfere with you by knocking you around. Like most of the of the AI in the game, the guards aren’t up to scratch and could’ve benefited greatly from some more development time.
My hammer is bigger than your little sword.
Included in Samurai Warriors 2 are also the Sugoroku and Survival modes. Sugoroku is set up similar to Monopoly, only instead of playing as a shoe, you play as a Samurai warrior. Your main goal is to purchase the land (or spaces) of Japan so that when other players land on it, they will be penalised and have to pay you gold. However, there is a twist. After paying the fee, the player can then choose to battle the owner of the space via a mini-game to take control over it. Any spaces you own that are next to each other, the value of your land is increased. In order to win, a player must obtain a set amount of gold. Survival mode is as it sounds: survive an onslaught of enemy opponents in a giant tower whilst completing objectives for lords in exchange for gold. Sadly, it once again involves you hacking and slashing away making it feel utterly repetitive.
Graphically, the cutscenes look terrific. While they don’t compare to the likes of Final Fantasy, they still manage to capture the actions and motions of characters perfectly. It’s just a shame that the fun stops there. The main game however, is just too plain looking. Environments lack detail and character’s look a little stiff, especially when they introduce themselves before fighting you. It’s as if the game’s budget was spent only on making pretty cutscenes. What’s more is that the game’s drawing distance is appalling. If it weren’t for a map on your screen highlighting where enemies were, you would be lost trying to spot them on foot. In many cases, when you’re happily walking through a level, you’ll suddenly stumble upon an enemy reserve which appeared as if from no where. It gets worse in multiplayer. Enemies will literally appear only a few feet away from you. The solution to hide this? Surrounding the level in fog. We’re sorry Koei; it just doesn’t cut it.
One of the more impressive cutscenes.
Visuals aside, the audio also has a few issues, namely with the deaths of enemies. No matter how many times you kill one of them, you’ll always be faced with the same scream over and over again and after a while, it starts getting really annoying especially when you’re be fighting hundreds soldiers in every level. It almost sounds like a broken record. Music-wise, Samurai Warriors 2 manages to have some decent Japanese-style music that authenticates the game but don’t go expecting any memorial music, its really just there for atmosphere purposes rather than attempting to brake new ground. The voice acting is a little mixed from time to time, but usually it doesn’t go over the top. During battles however, the officers and leaders often talk to one another and sadly, they’re at the same tone as the screams of your victims making it really difficult to hear what they say.
The Xbox 360 version is pretty much identical to the PlayStation 2 edition. Koei have added achievements but not really upgraded the game all that much to take advantage of the Xbox 360. If you're an achievement junkie then the Xbox 360 version of Samurai Warriors 2 is worth it, but don't go expecting a massive upgrade.
In the end, Samurai Warriors 2 remains to be a pretty average game which is a little disappointing because deep within the repetitive gameplay and the plain looking graphics, there is a fairly decent title. If you’re a fan of the series, then there’s no doubt you’ll like this title. As for the rest of you, you may wish to invest in something else.
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