Warriors Orochi Review

Warriors Orochi is one mixed bag. Created by Japanese developers Omega Force, it's the next step forward from their Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games, set in ancient mythical China and Feudal Japan respectively. Similar to its predecessors, Warriors Orochi is a mish-mash of fighting, real time strategy and hack 'n slash genres - there's even a sprinkling of RPG for good measure. This mix has been particularly successful in Japan for previous Warriors games from Omega Force, but the series has been criticised in the past for its repetitive gameplay and it's never really managed to get a strong hold on the lucrative Western markets. Unfortunately, the repetitive elements in the gameplay have not been stamped out in Orochi and, while its nice to play a game with an original mix of genres, it does nevertheless fall into the trap of lacking sufficient depth in one particularly area of play to keep the gamer interested.

The main game mode in Orochi is the 'Story Mode'. You can select one of four different stories, each of which follows the various battles of a particular dynasty. There's the Wei, Wu, Shu and Sw dynasties, which have been in previous Warriors games and feature some familiar characters. Each story follows three characters that you have to flit between during combat in order to restore their health and 'Musou' gauges ('Musou' allows you to perform special moves). Within a particular story there are a number of battle maps that demand particular conditions for victory (e.g. kill all the enemy officers while defending your base; kill a specific boss; capture a number of food store buildings and kill the bosses etc.).

This format definitely has elements of an RTS to it. For example, if you have to kill off a boss character, you can't simply go to their position and finish them off. For one, you'll be too outnumbered unless you do away with the lines of defence in front of the boss' position, and secondly, your base will fall unless you deal with the numerous onslaughts that are set upon it during the course of a battle. There's also a nifty battle map in the corner of your HUD (and on the menu screen) which displays the position of your units and enemy forces. However, to stay that you require a strategic brain to overcome each battle map is a bit of an overstatement. The path to victory in a level is usually route one - i.e. take out all of the minor infantry before going after the big guys.

Given that this makes up the infrastructure of the game, the main constituent of the gameplay is combat. Usually you'll find yourself in the middle of a pack of enemies during an attack and here's where the hack 'n slash gameplay comes in. By mashing one of two buttons you can instigate the basic combos of a character, of which there are a small handful. As a result, much of the basic gameplay consists of repetitively hitting the same button to do the same couple of moves over and over. The 'Musou' gauge does add a little bit of colour: when it's full you can inflict one of a few special moves on your enemies which are quite pleasingly destructive and, if administered correctly, can get you out of some sticky situations. Additionally, it's fair to say that each character's combos, special moves and weapons of choice are varied enough to keep things interesting, with some requiring a certain amount of rhythm in your frantic button mashing to get the best out of their abilities. All in all, however, the combat is as repetitive as it's ever been and didn't leave us longing for more by any stretch of the imagination.

For that touch of RPG style, there is a nice character progression system that's woven into the combat. More fighting experience gives you better abilities and improved weapons that can then be combined together. This opens up more complex combos and fighting styles that keep the game ticking along. Another good element to this system is the character traits, which help differentiate one warrior's fighting style from another's. Warriors fit into one of three traits (power, speed and technique), with each style allowing for certain abilities such as the technique trait ability to perform a swift counter-attack. As with the Musou gauge, this does add a little bit of colour to the combat system but unfortunately fails to resurrect it from its repetitive tedium.

The fighting genre element of the game is most noticeable when you're taking on officers or boss characters. Each unit of enemy warriors has an officer in charge of them and, on each battle map, there's usually a couple of bosses in charge of the most heavily defended regions of the map. These officers and bosses obviously require a good hiding before they die and so you can get into some fairly intense combat. Where these battles become like a fighting game is in the juggling that you can perform on the officers and bosses with various combos. If they don't manage to block your attacks then you can string together as many hits as your combos will allow, eventually lifting the enemy off the ground into that familiar arched back suspension in mid-air position, where some real damage can be inflicted with each consecutive hit you manage to string together before they come crashing back to the ground. It really does feel like the juggling mechanic in mainstream fighting games although, similarly to most other areas in the game, there isn't sufficient depth in the system to fully engage the gamer's interest.

Further progression in the 'Story Mode' unlocks characters which can then be used in the other main mode in Warriors Orochi, 'Free Mode'. Predictably, this is simply fighting on the battle maps from the 'Story Mode', but with your own selection of three characters from the whole game, rather than the three stock Warriors from a particular dynasty. In short, this doesn't provide for much extra content and, while their is a multiplayer co-op feature on offer for both modes in the game and a myriad of superfluous unlockables, the continued lack of any Xbox Live features for the Warriors series in Warriors Orochi harms the title's content and appeal considerably.

The PlayStation 2 version is identical to the Xbox 360 as far as content and gameplay are concerned. The graphics for both are particularly bog-standard, with the PS2 version being particularly grainy and the Xbox 360 providing some mediocre next-gen sheen to the visuals that fail to get rid of the generally jagged and uninspiring look to the game.