So here we are, the actual final piece of PW 4 DLC content that isn’t playable characters.
(i’m taking the educated guess of not expecting more content in any shape since there’s a digital Ultimate Edition package of all PW4 content on sale, and given TK’s track record, when they use/release the “Ultimate” edition of something means they’re done with a game)
(FIY, this isn’t the last time i will cover Pirate Warriors 4, i have a final impression/re-review/addendum in the works but i’m waiting to see if they plan to keep doing more Character Passes at a later date or not, i doubt so – see the above paragraph as to why – but then again Xenoverse 2 is still getting a lot of DLC content in a somewhat regular fashion, with no signs of stopping)
The final piece of the Special Log mode offers – alongside the final Soul Map that adds the advertised & expected batch of new skills to unlock and stats upgrades – what’s basically a post-game gauntlet of challenges.
The positive is that they didn’t repackage the Challenge Mode from DW 8 XL and sold it back into the game for 5 bucks (looking at you, Warriors Orochi 4), even though they did basically offer the equivalent of a Challenge Mode, as you get an handful of missions that serve as the ultimate test of skills, with a boss rush, a quiz battle that has you answer trivia by defeating the enemies that are alluded to or have names that work as answers (an ol’ Omega Force classic that can also be found in SW 4 and the original HW), a time-limited score attack about amassing the biggest kill count possible, and a speed challenge.
Nothing original, but there are some nice little twist to the scoring method that do make the challenges familiar to old time musou fans, but not too familiar, and there are some nice ideas, like the speed challenge is a foot race with some combat here and there, and the characters involved in the race using their Devil Fruit powers to cheat willy nilly.
The mode works like the Treasure Log in the base game, though on a smaller scale, with you beating a type of challenge mission unlocking an harder version (for example the boss rush’s second mission is twice as longer and harder), and ultimately unlocking the final, final challenge, which i’m not gonna spoil, but will require some serious grinding to improve the characters stats A LOT.
My only complaint is that there could have been more missions/challenges to the mode, it’s literally a handful of mission types, but on the other hand it feels more conceptually complete unlike Koby’s episode, which was like they wanted to have a survival mode in the style of SW 2 or 4 castle that could be replayed a lot for many unlocks, but also wanted some sort of definite end and progression, and compromised hard, since it was weird to have a survival mode that doesn’t want you to keep starting from the bottom and didn’t incentivate multiple run with different characters.
Not the worst piece of extra content to finish on, but like for pretty much all of these episodes, they would have made more sense to have them more fleshed out and – ideally – part of the base game.
But – at the cost of yet again sounding like a broken record – as it is, for the price, it’s okay.
Wise Cafe (International) 