Samurai Warriors 2
Posted October 4, 2006
Dynasty Warriors 5 must have sold a few copies on the 360 earlier this year as Omega Force has brought the very similar Samurai Warriors 2 to the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, the likeness to DW5 is the main reason this game still exudes amateurish, blundering qualities. While the amount of game modes far exceeds DW5, the gameplay mostly remains untouched. The button mashfest screams mediocrity and dooms this console version to the bottom of the budget bin titles.
Gameplay:
Instead of feudal situations within China, Samurai Warriors 2 focuses on massive Japanese battles based on mythical warriors. Battles are fought for respect and honor rather than land and power. Built around that concept, the story mode and survival mode are the main two types of play. Story mode revolves around the opening characters and their various quests to protect their leaders. Story mode levels are basically the same divided-style maps found in DW5 and require a large quantity of travel to traverse. The survival mode places your character in a castle with an infinite number of floors. As a bonus, objectives are presented about every five floors to complete for gold. More lucrative objectives can be purchased for nominal fees, but the difficulty rises. For instance, one mission (costing 1000 gold) required me to escort a character multiple floors without being seen. While the game just relied on random placement of guards, the style of puzzle increased the difficulty dramatically. Sadly, the extra objectives don't always mesh well with the fighting system and gold is often lost; reward and entry fee.
Once again, Omega Force loves wearing out that blue X button on the 360 controller. Incessantly pressing the blue X button is the key to victory in any situation. Sure, they added minor combos with an occasional Y button press, but why even bother? Regardless of the chosen character, the control scheme is nothing more than a button mash-fest. Special moves are available, via the red B button, for massive carnage, but again just a trifle. Actually, Omega did modify the special meter to drain while still being able to fight normally. Actions are specific to certain characters, but the majority enters a slow motion mode while obliterating the masses. Finally, Omega added a desperately needed horse recall button which speeds up travel dramatically. Still, the horses are difficult to rotate, especially in the middle of a heated battle.
Unfortunately, the enemy A.I. still has the collective I.Q. of a pile of bricks. Enemy soldiers charge into battle directly to your position and stand around waiting to be slaughtered. Bosses pose a slightly greater threat, but seemingly pause a half second before attacking as well. The grotesque Lieutenants are really the only nuisance as their slow, but powerful attacks cannot be stopped once started. A floor filled with those guys in survival mode is a real pain to complete. Ranged attacks have actually been weakened in power and speed. I prefer this method, as the previous stoppage of play was excessively annoying. Overall, the enemy troops never caused my health meter to fall below 75%, which really speaks to the low level of difficulty and poor A.I.
The ability to purchase items and upgrades has been improved to a certain extent. While the upgrade system remains the same from DW5, weapons and mounts have many more slots to increase their usefulness. Another change allows for the upgrades to be immediately put into inventory when found on the battlefield. Oddly, the upgrades cost more and gold seems to be less plentiful along the way. Still, it's tougher to work for the best upgrades and adds a moderate amount of difficulty to the game.
The multiplayer mode within the game is a bit suspect. While I can appreciate the effort, competing against the AI of the 360 is just as boring as watching a Football Manager multiplayer match. Basically, you simply pit your custom character versus another Xbox Live user. As the player, you still retain control, but fighting against a real person doesn't take place. While you do fight the Xbox Live user's character, it's controlled by the Xbox 360. This incredibly odd mixture of multi & single player is quite the bore-fest. Fortunately, Omega included the impressive local co-op mode from DW5. As the boss rate spawns higher within SW2, teaming up with a bud to take down the multitude of forces is certainly enjoyable.
Another multiplayer addition for SW2 is the board game Sugoroku, which is similar to Monopoly with a misshapen game board. Essentially, players can purchase land and attempt to link up the properties for maximized profits. If an opposing player lands on the purchased area, they are required to pay a fine and have the option of challenging the player for the area. Challenges are taken directly out of the single player game and usually require competition battles, such as knocking out the most foot soldiers. The game is a quaint extra, but not worth playing more than once. Additionally, the documentation for the game is most definitely lacking.
The achievements are split into 21 tasks that totals up to a cool 1000 gamerscore points. The points are entirely awarded for single player tasks and only for unlocking new characters. Unlocking specific characters require conditions to be met, typically finishing out the storylines for the eight main fighters. Due to the game's simplicity, the achievements are very easy to unlock, but necessitate a massive amount of time to finish. Players are looking at an investment of at least 25 hours to finish off the set. Omega Force's creativity in assigning points hasn't improved, but their pension for making you tirelessly work for them has increased.
Graphics:
Not surprisingly, Omega Force kept the Dynasty Warriors graphics engine and avoided all possible upgrades for Samurai Warriors 2. Still a horrific hack of a port job, this title lowers the bar for HD 360 material. The environments are lifeless, the character models are repetitive, and the visual effects are incredibly unoriginal. The animations are fairly smooth, but they cannot be stopped; regardless of character. Minor graphical additions were included such as breakaway walls and furniture, but it fails to add any ambiance to the surrounding area. Also, the graphics engine still suffers from a limited amount of characters on screen which creates a large quantity of pop-up within close proximity to any group of characters. It's certainly disappointing to see a developer stubbornly stagnant in their progress to adapting to next generation hardware.
Audio:
Sadly, Omega Force must have kept the voice actors from DW5 on retainer as the voice clips in Samurai Warriors 2 sound horrifically identical. Surprisingly, the clips are edited together more effectively and the voice cue of a defeated boss during a battle, however repetitive, is a welcome change. The music still uses cheese-ball rock n' roll tracks that are being played on a cheap midi piano. The score is played pretty much constantly, within all menus and during every type of game mode. The sound effects have been expanded a bit. I can tell new recordings for the variety of special moves have been increased exponentially.
Conclusion:
Yet again, Omega Force offers up an example of lackadaisical development to a sea of uninterested Xbox 360 owners. The PS2-level graphics engine, the poor fighting system and the mindless repetition that is the gameplay are the most offensive qualities of the game. The expansion of game modes and attempt at an actual story offers a slight bit of enjoyment, but most players won't have the patience to finish. Leave Samurai Warriors 2 on the shelf as there are a massive amount of quality titles recently released for the 360 waiting to spin in your 360.
Gameplay:
Instead of feudal situations within China, Samurai Warriors 2 focuses on massive Japanese battles based on mythical warriors. Battles are fought for respect and honor rather than land and power. Built around that concept, the story mode and survival mode are the main two types of play. Story mode revolves around the opening characters and their various quests to protect their leaders. Story mode levels are basically the same divided-style maps found in DW5 and require a large quantity of travel to traverse. The survival mode places your character in a castle with an infinite number of floors. As a bonus, objectives are presented about every five floors to complete for gold. More lucrative objectives can be purchased for nominal fees, but the difficulty rises. For instance, one mission (costing 1000 gold) required me to escort a character multiple floors without being seen. While the game just relied on random placement of guards, the style of puzzle increased the difficulty dramatically. Sadly, the extra objectives don't always mesh well with the fighting system and gold is often lost; reward and entry fee.
Once again, Omega Force loves wearing out that blue X button on the 360 controller. Incessantly pressing the blue X button is the key to victory in any situation. Sure, they added minor combos with an occasional Y button press, but why even bother? Regardless of the chosen character, the control scheme is nothing more than a button mash-fest. Special moves are available, via the red B button, for massive carnage, but again just a trifle. Actually, Omega did modify the special meter to drain while still being able to fight normally. Actions are specific to certain characters, but the majority enters a slow motion mode while obliterating the masses. Finally, Omega added a desperately needed horse recall button which speeds up travel dramatically. Still, the horses are difficult to rotate, especially in the middle of a heated battle.
Unfortunately, the enemy A.I. still has the collective I.Q. of a pile of bricks. Enemy soldiers charge into battle directly to your position and stand around waiting to be slaughtered. Bosses pose a slightly greater threat, but seemingly pause a half second before attacking as well. The grotesque Lieutenants are really the only nuisance as their slow, but powerful attacks cannot be stopped once started. A floor filled with those guys in survival mode is a real pain to complete. Ranged attacks have actually been weakened in power and speed. I prefer this method, as the previous stoppage of play was excessively annoying. Overall, the enemy troops never caused my health meter to fall below 75%, which really speaks to the low level of difficulty and poor A.I.
The ability to purchase items and upgrades has been improved to a certain extent. While the upgrade system remains the same from DW5, weapons and mounts have many more slots to increase their usefulness. Another change allows for the upgrades to be immediately put into inventory when found on the battlefield. Oddly, the upgrades cost more and gold seems to be less plentiful along the way. Still, it's tougher to work for the best upgrades and adds a moderate amount of difficulty to the game.
The multiplayer mode within the game is a bit suspect. While I can appreciate the effort, competing against the AI of the 360 is just as boring as watching a Football Manager multiplayer match. Basically, you simply pit your custom character versus another Xbox Live user. As the player, you still retain control, but fighting against a real person doesn't take place. While you do fight the Xbox Live user's character, it's controlled by the Xbox 360. This incredibly odd mixture of multi & single player is quite the bore-fest. Fortunately, Omega included the impressive local co-op mode from DW5. As the boss rate spawns higher within SW2, teaming up with a bud to take down the multitude of forces is certainly enjoyable.
Another multiplayer addition for SW2 is the board game Sugoroku, which is similar to Monopoly with a misshapen game board. Essentially, players can purchase land and attempt to link up the properties for maximized profits. If an opposing player lands on the purchased area, they are required to pay a fine and have the option of challenging the player for the area. Challenges are taken directly out of the single player game and usually require competition battles, such as knocking out the most foot soldiers. The game is a quaint extra, but not worth playing more than once. Additionally, the documentation for the game is most definitely lacking.
The achievements are split into 21 tasks that totals up to a cool 1000 gamerscore points. The points are entirely awarded for single player tasks and only for unlocking new characters. Unlocking specific characters require conditions to be met, typically finishing out the storylines for the eight main fighters. Due to the game's simplicity, the achievements are very easy to unlock, but necessitate a massive amount of time to finish. Players are looking at an investment of at least 25 hours to finish off the set. Omega Force's creativity in assigning points hasn't improved, but their pension for making you tirelessly work for them has increased.
Graphics:
Not surprisingly, Omega Force kept the Dynasty Warriors graphics engine and avoided all possible upgrades for Samurai Warriors 2. Still a horrific hack of a port job, this title lowers the bar for HD 360 material. The environments are lifeless, the character models are repetitive, and the visual effects are incredibly unoriginal. The animations are fairly smooth, but they cannot be stopped; regardless of character. Minor graphical additions were included such as breakaway walls and furniture, but it fails to add any ambiance to the surrounding area. Also, the graphics engine still suffers from a limited amount of characters on screen which creates a large quantity of pop-up within close proximity to any group of characters. It's certainly disappointing to see a developer stubbornly stagnant in their progress to adapting to next generation hardware.
Audio:
Sadly, Omega Force must have kept the voice actors from DW5 on retainer as the voice clips in Samurai Warriors 2 sound horrifically identical. Surprisingly, the clips are edited together more effectively and the voice cue of a defeated boss during a battle, however repetitive, is a welcome change. The music still uses cheese-ball rock n' roll tracks that are being played on a cheap midi piano. The score is played pretty much constantly, within all menus and during every type of game mode. The sound effects have been expanded a bit. I can tell new recordings for the variety of special moves have been increased exponentially.
Conclusion:
Yet again, Omega Force offers up an example of lackadaisical development to a sea of uninterested Xbox 360 owners. The PS2-level graphics engine, the poor fighting system and the mindless repetition that is the gameplay are the most offensive qualities of the game. The expansion of game modes and attempt at an actual story offers a slight bit of enjoyment, but most players won't have the patience to finish. Leave Samurai Warriors 2 on the shelf as there are a massive amount of quality titles recently released for the 360 waiting to spin in your 360.