While i won’t have a review for the game out anytime soon (as explained in a previous post earlier this month), i want to say a few things about Samurai Warriors 5, after getting the Treasure Box edition (because i’m a sucker for artbook and CDs) and clocking in 32hours (which include finishing the story mode, of course) into it, as a last piece before i give the blog (and myself, to some extent) some rest.
I have like 5 pages of text and notes written about it, but i’ll try to be “brief” here.
It’s better than Dynasty Warriors 9?
Yes, it would have been quite hard to do even worse than that.
But it’s amazing how Omega Force still kinda held unto some of the crappier design choices from that shit title, leading to some old problems of the Warriors series coming back in new, unexpected and baffling ways.
For example, since this is a numbered, mainline entry in the Samurai Warriors series, you would expect them to redo the movesets, revamp them, redesign the characters and so on. It’s always a reboot, Koei, the “soft-reboot” bullhonkey is just an excuse for cutting even more corners, they clearly are spending a lot on effort in doing that, as i lamented while talking of Pirate Warriors 4, for one.
As in, the scope of the narration is a self-imposed limitation to go any further than the Honnoji Incident. “But this is a soft-reboot of the series, so this is a redo of SW 1″…. which isn’t really an excuse, it’s just a bad justification that implies Koei and Omega Force are knowingly making their games smaller, cutting corners time and time again, using a lot of recycled assets.
And still asking full price each time.
The issue is… they redid the movesets, even included new weapons (with sets of equippable skills), they’re pretty fun and have a satisfying feedback to them. Problem is, they didn’t make unique character movesets, so the characters feel like window dressing, as the movesets are tied to the weapon types. Doesn’t matter if it’s Oda Nobunaga or Nagamasa Azai using the katana, because they share the same movesets, but since it’s their choice weapon, they get a couple of unique combo attacks tied to a couple combo string. It’s the issue of “cloning”, back and somehow even worse, in a way.
To say nothing of the many characters that don’t even have those, an unique musou attack or even an unique Ultimate Skill, like Dosan Saito and other relatively minor figures that might as well not be playable since they’re here only to pad out the basically halved roster of 27, and they were clearly desperate or uncaring, as 2 of them are simply the aged appearances of Nobunaga and Mitsuhide.
Ironically, no DLC characters planned at all for this one, not like it would have mattered anyway, but it’s kinda odd to witness after that goddamn 30 bucks Character Pass they asked for Pirate Warriors 4. At least for now, nothing indicates that they won’t make more Season Passes, it’s Koei after all.
Especially disappointing because the new characters (including Yasuke) look cool, i do love the new designs (mostly) and the story’s different take makes for a more involved and less animesque take on the Warring States as seen by Nobunaga Oda and many others. I do like the story and find it an improvement.
But damn, this one pretty much took out even looking forward to unlock more playable characters, as it’s more like the characters are “host” and the weapons are the “parasite/main mind”. YAY, a new cool looking ninja character…. uses the pocket cannon like Hisahide Matsunaga. Nevermind.
Finally unlocked Shingen Takeda…. another damn Great Spear user like Tadakatsu Honda. And i could go on. 😦
I had fun with the game, despite these issues, because they also made many small adjustments that make the gameplay and difficulty more balanced (as a far as you can for a musou) and in some ways almost refined, but they also just made another SW game, decent enough, but clearly a bit too tied to the idea of making it go back to basics, as it doesn’t tries anything new in terms of map design, enhancements or ideas…. that Omega Force didn’t do in recent, often FAR better licensed musou games.
Haven’t played Persona 5 Strikers yet (have still to go through P5 Royal, yes, still), but like, Age Of Calamity it’s just SO much better than this, you can easily tell they put the effort and cared there. Here, not so much.
I like the new tower defense style side-mode, Citadel Mode, though.
Still absurd how they won’t put in the effort for anything related to their own brand series, so while it’s not bad, it’s very disappointing, and i’m not exactly looking forward to see Koei spin 3 (or more) iterated titles out the “new” cloth, unless they fix some of the absurds problems they still manage to have. Maybe just giving the series to other developers or stop having Omega Force pump so many out would help.
Just saying, giving the developers a rest or making them do anything besides Warriors titles (and the odd hunting game, be it original or Attack On Titan licensed) would help.
Maybe. Maybe also make them develop 1 vs 1 fighting games again, would be nice.
I seriously wish Capcom would actually try again to compete by bringing back Sengoku Basara in the west as well, sure as hell having this monopoly on the musou niche doesn’t motivate Koei and Omega Force to do better, and Samurai Warriors 5 is another title that further reinforces the argument.
I would honestly wait until it drops on price big time, if you want a Warriors fix it will do, but it will disappoint and baffle you a lot, so don’t get it at full price (it’s not even that it lacks content without the Season Pass offerings, btw, it’s not a bony offering like Berserk And The Band Of The Hawk or the Fate Extella games, at all), just wait.
Just wait, maybe get it used or wait until they eventually re-release it alongside the XL expansion on PS5 or something.
Or look forward to that Touken Ranbu crossover musou Omega Force announced a few days ago, the situation is so absurd there’s a good chance that might turn out to be the better Samurai Warriors 5, and i’m not being hyperbolic.
In the meantime, enjoy this burning hot summer as you can and wish, i’ll go take a nap.
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