I initially misread that Namco/Koei planned to release all the 3 episodes in the pack by the end of September 2023…. but it’s actually September 2024, so instead of reviewing all the episodes packs at once, i will do mini-reviews for each of them as most likely they’re gonna accompany the release of the other 2 DLC Character Packs.
I will also release a “review addendum” after the Character Pass 2 and all the additional episodes release, because as Namco made a new bundle for the game and all (available and announced) DLC called “Ultimate Edition”, so it’s fairly logical to guess they don’t plan to do more with Pirate Warriors 4, for better or worse.
Regardless, these episodes are surprisingly cheap, with the Yamato one here costing 3 bucks on its own, and the complete pack of 3 episodes going for 7 bucks.
I was pleasantly surprised that, even with the first one of the batch, these “additional episodes” aren’t just a new block of missions added in a separate section of Treasure Log, but… we basically have a new mode that reminds me a lot of Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate’s Infinity Mode, a bit like a Gauntlet mode of Warriors Orochi 3 as well, mixed with a survival time attack deal.
You have 5 minutes on the clock, and you race to complete objectives to add extra minutes and so you can progress through the stage’s main set of objectives and fights, usually fighting the main big dick characters that would appear in that location, like the Marines at Marineford, Big Mom and its children on Tottoland, etc, and a changing “adventure area/zone of interest” that also actives (sometimes even unlocking for capture) territories, and obviously leaves new opportunies to explore out of the adventure area to trigger hidden secondary objectives, items and enemies that will net you extra adventure points for the score evalution and bonuses.
The objectives are the usual for these extra modes in Warriors games, from defeating officers, boss like characters, defeating an officer while achieving a set number of combo hits, etc, but the time limits are strict so you’ll eventually have to plan if and in what order tackle the objectives and enemies to avoid wasting time sprinting about the open game maps in order to reach the objective areas, which will leave you with very little time to even deal with powerful boss enemies, if any.
When you time out, you still keep some loot, but obviously all the battle bonuses for completition and objectives will not be counted… which is why there’s – like in the aforementioned Infinity Mode of WO4 Ultimate- an exit area to simply retire, concluding the stage as a victory, though obviously this won’t unlock the next stage.
Though like always, if you simply don’t redo the stage, you can keep the coins, berries and souls collected, and you get bonuses according to each area’s score card thresholds..
Wait, souls? Indeed, a new currency/resource tied to the new Soul Maps (Soul Map 0 and 1) the DLC introduces, and as previously advertised, it’s a way to power up skills beyond previous level caps, but also to learn new useful ones, increase stats beyond the previous cap, using money and souls, that come in small, medium and big sizes, color coded for each of the stats.
For example, defeating one of the “passionate souls” characters that appear at random in the maps will net you a big soul of a random type, so it’s worth hunting them down if you can manage to squeeze it during the other missions and the short time available.
Souls can also be obtained by completing normal story or treasure log stages after you have bought the DLC (otherwise you won’t have the Soul Map appearing/added to begin with), though to a lesser degree, obviously to make you play the Yamato episode stages instead.
On the subjects, there are four stages that reuse the maps from the base game, as in the Land Of Wa, Tottoland, Marineford and Sabaody ones, with each more difficult than the ones before and a fitting recommended level indicator. So sadly no new maps to play in, even one would have been nice, as it would have been a proper list of the unlocked objectives/missions for each stage/area (which does appear, but only in the result screens), for completition’s sake.
Despite being called Yamato’s Adventure, this first batch of special/additional episodes can be played using whoever you like, though for the sake of immersion i did use Yamato, which will be on the map doing its thing if you tackle his Adventure as someone else, and regardless it’s worth listening to the dialogue for the character, as it can often point out where a hidden objective will trigger by saying something like “i smell adventure from there!”.
Even with lack of new maps and not having many stages overall, the new survival-time attack-challenge mode this first Additional Episode brings is quite a nice addition to the game’s offerings, alongside the newfound currency useful for powering up the characters even further and learning some really useful new skills altogether, especially if you tackle the harder difficulties or try to S rank the harder challenge stages.
It definitely adds some replayability too, since it’s basically a mini new mode, and it’s priced actually like it should, just 3 bucks for this single episode, 7 bucks for the whole packs, which is odd given both the publishers involved here.
Wise Cafe (International) 