Hmmm.
I think I've played enough of SW4 to give it a fair review. Note that I did not play SW3. Thanks a lot for that KT.
+ Usual Samurai Warriors great move set system and variety between characters.
+ Excellent presentation, aside from the Free Mode character select, which isn't the usual flash Musou way at all. Pretty vanilla, in fact, considering the rest of the games sleek UI.
+ Really good music, but that's not unusual for the series.
+ Chronicles Mode is a pretty fantastic mode and the games saving grace. There's a lot of options, tons of content, and lots of interesting/cute character interactions you wouldn't normally see. The character relationship system is nice, and the cutscenes that happen when raising a characters friendship are full of personality and funny choices. It's a really charming game mode.
+ The exposition in between maps in Story mode is a welcome addition. You get some exposition on why Mitsunari probably did what he did, and the way the clans stories' unfold and connect to each other is pretty sweet.
+ Story mode in general is pretty decent, story-wise, because it continuously builds upon established relationships and telling a STORY and not just map after map of goodness without much cohesion.
That's all I can say for the games positives.
- Story mode, besides telling the story, is a huge step back. The fact that the story isn't told through characters decreases the amount of maps in the game a tremendous amount, and this isn't a quality over quantity thing either. This makes Chronicles mode the main mode due to how little content is actually in story mode.
- The skill system is awful. In past Warriors games you'd get a giant list of skills, and customize weapons so that your character had whatever skills you deemed necessary. In this, you cannot customize skills. They come hard locked on to weapons. You can't take them out or anything. You can't add skills to a weapon. You can't change the skills that are on a weapon. If you want to have a specific weapon with specific skills, you're going to be grinding for loot drops.
- Speaking of loot drops, the loot is dog shit. I've been playing on hard and nightmare and I've yet to get any good weapons or skills. I repeatedly get the same 33's and 50's or 55's. Just basic shit. Normally, higher difficulties renders better drops. Not in this case.
- Speaking of difficulty, this game is butt easy. I put it on hard and it's still easy as all hell. There's very little balance. Enemy officers rarely, if ever, use their musou on you. I've played about 20 hours so far, and I've only had one enemy officer use their musou on me. The new hyper attacks make the trademark Samurai Warriors gameplay in to a Musou-fest, which is exactly what DW has turned itself into. You can gain musou gauge without any effort. In past Samurai Warriors games that I've played (1, 2, Chronicles), gaining a musou takes a bit more effort. Just now I was playing as Nobunaga and fighting two officers. I hit one with a musou, and refilled my gauge in less than five seconds, and then wasted the other officer with another one. This is on Hard mode. Objectives are easy, officers are easy, maps are easy.
- Due to the randomness of Chronicles mode, the mission objectives start to get canned and repetitive.
- Objectives are nonsensical and generic "kill the officer!" There's nothing in the way of interesting map design, like taking out cannons that are hitting your army hard affecting morale, or trying to save the peasants so they can help you later on, or anything. Boring.
- SW's unique maps like this: Have been completely taken out.
- The combo system has been ruined. Hyper attacks are flashy, but lead to very little in the way of cohesive combos due to how fast you're going and how little control you are alloted. I can rack up 1000 combo without any effort at all just mashing.
- Hyper attacks in general. While at first they're cool when loading up the game, they end up being a hindrance than anything else. They make characters in Samurai Warriors, who have been prided for their individuality into something more Dynasty Warriors-ish that makes them homogeneous. It makes no sense the Okuni, a bloody heavenly and graceful Goddess teleports and moves as fast as the Oda, who is billed as a demon conqueror. The final move separates each character, but ultimately, the look is still same-y. This is without mentioning how effortless hyper attacks make taking out waves of enemies even on harder modes, it's nothing but slashing butter. This is what helps build up the aforementioned musou gauge at rapid pace.
- Rage mode is broken to hell. I can take out an enemy officer's hp 75% on hard and nightmare.
- Enemy variety has gone out of the window. In SW2, you'd regularly fight enemies that throw bombs, bowmen, gunmen, giant sumo dudes that fuck you up. They rarely show up in this and aren't nearly as strong as they used to be.
- No officer duel intro/exits/death animations. I always loved those.
Ultimately, this is Samurai Warriors that is a shell of its former self. Less content, less heart and what made it unique from Dynasty Warriors. I can only recommend this to people who play Musou just for the action and mashin'. Maybe story too. If you're someone who enjoys the more technical stuff in the series, avoid this at all costs. This isn't for you. At its heart, SW4 has the makings of a good game. The execution is a highly flawed piece of software and I can only with a brave face describe it as decent at best.
I'll enjoy the rest of the games content, but from here on out, I'm done. Thanks for the memories, KT.
If you have a ps3 and want a Samurai Warriors game, I suggest getting SW2 off of psn instead. If you have a ps4, skip Samurai Warriors 4 altogether and just buy Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate. Support good games, not cynical rip offs.
