Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 out of 10
Samurai Warriors 4-II is a third-person musou hack and slack action role playing game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita with compatibility for PlayStation TV, while also releasing on PS4 and PS3 which began as a spin-off of the Dynasty Warriors series in 2004 when the first game released on PS2. A PSP port titled Samurai Warriors: State of War was released in late 2005 in Japan and early 2006 in America which was followed by a sequel released on the PS2 in 2006 and received a remake on PS3 and Vita in 2013. Samurai Warriors 3 was released on PS3 in February 2011 and PSP a year later and Samurai Warriors 4 released on Vita, PS4 and PS3 in 2014 with Samurai Warriors 4-II released 11 years after the game which started the series.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Samurai Warriors series, a special anime adaptation which features the original cast of the games aired on television on March 21st 2014 with a 12 episode anime series airing from January 11th 2015 until March 29th 2015.
Samurai Warriors 4-II is developed by Omega Force who is part of Koei Tecmo’s development teams having developed the prequels in the Samurai Warriors series and is also known for developing games in such well respected series as Dragon Quest Heroes, Dynasty Warriors, One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Toukiden and Warriors Orochi and which are usually games set within the musou genre, therefore Omega Force delivers a huge amount of experience to the latest Samurai Warriors release.
Story Mode allows players to explore the legends of the warring states era with a closer emphasis positioned on each character involved in the battles set in Feudal Japan with a primary and secondary character and which can be switched in order to turn the tide of battle and letting the character which is strategically more important at that given moment take the battle on.
Free Mode allows players to choose two characters to enter into battle in the same gameplay mechanic as the Story Mode provides, while the Free Mode offers every unlocked stage and character to select from with further stages and characters not initially being available until certain stages have been completed.
Survival Mode includes two types of gameplay with the standard type allowing players to put their skills to the test by attempting to last for as long as possible by completing an endless set of objectives in order to climb as many floors of the never ending castle as possible, although the player is not able to stay within the castle for too long as there is a further danger beyond the enemy forces which is brought about by a thick layer of miasma, therefore this provides a genuine reason for a time limit with the miasma becoming weaker when the next floor of the castle has been reached which also adds a further two minutes to the amount of time available. The challenge type allows players to set high scores across various challenges such as defeating as many enemies and collecting as much gold as possible within the time limit with each challenge having their own set of special rules, while rankings of S, A, B or C will be awarded to show the quality of performance with better rewards provided for higher rankings as well as being able to retain any gold or XP obtained during gameplay.
Dojo contains an extensive character creator, a variety of settings, text and picture based tutorials for everything and a vault which includes a huge amount of unlockable extras. The vault features unlockable items which are earned as the story progresses including character biographies for all of the officers which appear in the story with every character biography including their name, age, picture, full written biography and shortcuts to related characters. Every character also has a character model displaying their move set and the ability to play their voice from the action focused and general speech such as declarations and rally cries which are unlocked when having met that character in the story, a list of the objectives for the stages which have already been attempted, event scenes allows players to watch unlocked videos from the story mode after having entered battle on the stage and listening to music tracks from the battles which have been played out.
A shop area is unlocked when the first stage of the Story Mode is completed in victory which is accessible from the character selection menu in Story Mode and Free Mode in which players can acquire skills by utilising their strategy tomes, upgrade weaponry by making purchases using their gold, upgrade mounts to ride animals faster by buying with their gold and purchase strategy tomes with their gold which increases the potential to acquire further skills which in turn strengthens the selected character even further.
The combat shares a great deal with the Dynasty Warriors series and shares what players would anticipate for those familiar with the musou genre in regards to button bashing to perform a quick chain of combat manoeuvres on enemies through a variety of combat attack categories such as normal, power, hyper, jump and musou, although there are some combat moves which require a sequence of buttons to perform special attacks which certainly adds a layer of skill for players who wish to learn all of the attacks.
Every officer has their own unique special skills including new attacks or increasing the power of attacks with special skill-oriented characters being able to perform two types of special skills upon levelling up. Skills can be upgraded by collecting different colours of strategy tomes from defeated enemies and utilising them within the shop to acquire skills for individual characters such as momentum which provides an increase in the strength of hyper attacks, inspiration which restores health of nearby allies and fury which increases the strength of musou attacks .
Every playable character starts with specific statistics for their health, musou, attack, defense, speed and ride which can be improved by earning XP to level up with a range of methods to earn XP including defeating enemies, chaining together combinations of attacks, completing mission objectives and completing stages, while attaining a specific level will unlock upgrades for skills which require that level such as levels 10, 20 and 30 which unlock the ability to purchase the majority of the skills via strategy tomes.
The character design is pretty good as the ally and enemy characters have their own unique look, shape and size in the sense that all of the ally characters look apart, while the same can be said for the enemies as there are regular and higher ranking enemies such as bearers and captains with special and boss enemies also making appearances, alongside a change in armour or weaponry such as archers, guns, shields, spears, swords and even ones riding on horseback which collectively provides plenty of variation and even sets apart the groups of regular enemies encountered during battles in each stage.
There is an extensive array of character customisation such as the ability to create a character which can be as unique and diverse as required to be as there are hundreds of potential combinations including a choice of male or female, name, facial options comprising of the colour and shape of hairstyle, face shape, the thickness and shape of eyebrows, the size and colour of eyes, make up, size and type of nose, size and colour of mouth and 2 sets of numerous accessories.
Body shape can also be chosen, size, height, build, arm length, waist position and bust size a huge amount of armour for the head, chest, arms, hips and legs with a large number of crests to decorate them, a large armoury of swords, spears, clubs, axes and bayonets with a vast amount of musou kanji. Type and pitch of voice; balanced, aggressive, sturdy and skilful growth types and a standard or shadow portrait or a further alternative being a registered image which consists of a picture taken from the front facing camera or a gameplay screenshot of any Vita game which can be set for the crest, musou kanji and portrait from the register image menu with up to 20 registered images available for selection. The character customisation features are absolutely stunning in their genuine attention to detail and approach to provide players with the freedom to make their own attempts at character design by encompassing a rich amount of customisation options across the board.
The environment design is reminiscent of the Dynasty Warriors series as battles take place in noticeably large spacious environments which must be explored on foot or horseback to travel from one base to another as battles rage on throughout the entire map against various enemies with areas connecting to each other via large doors, bridges or steps, although some of the bases will not become available until later into the battle when certain routes open after a battle has been won elsewhere on the map.
There are multiple downloadable content packs available comprising of a free special background music track, a set of five background music tracks for £3.29*, two animal packs including two animals in each pack for £1.69* each or a animal set of four animals for £2.49*, weapon packs for £2.49* each or a weapon set for £3.29, special costume packs including alternative costumes for four characters per pack for £6.49* each or a special costume set including a number of costume packs for £17.99* and four scenario packs including two scenarios in each pack for £3.29* per pack or a scenario set for £9.99*.
Samurai Warriors 4-II is compatible with some of the downloadable content from Samurai Warriors 4 and all downloadable content is available for cross-buy purchase allowing players to play additional content for a single purchase on Vita, PS4 and PS3. There really is an abundance of downloadable content for those who really appreciate the ability of adding further intricacies to what the game has to offer, but the amount of content not initially contained within the original release should certainly not deter anyone from playing as there is more than enough music, animals, weapons, costumes and scenarios contained within the game from the outset with the downloadable content putting the icing on the cake.
Samurai Warriors 4-II can import save data from Samurai Warriors 4 and supports cross-save functionality which allows you to sync the progression of your save file from your Vita to your PS3 or PS4 and vice versa, so you can start playing the game on your Vita on the way to and from work, sync your save game when you return home and then resume were you left off by loading the save game and continuing via the PS3 or PS4 version. The cross-save feature is made possible by uploading your save file to the cloud on one console and downloading it from the other console.
The controls are appropriately mapped to the Vita with the control scheme consisting of pressing R to perform a special skill, pressing L to perform a block, strafe, flip or side-step; pressing square to perform a standard attack, pressing triangle to perform a hyper or a power attack following a standard attack, pressing O to perform a musou attack, pressing X to perform a spirit charge, shadow dodge, jump, flip or even mount and dismount from a horse, pressing up on the d-pad to communicate commands, pressing left or right on the d-pad to select a skill, pressing down on the d-pad to use a skill, changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move the playable character, changing the direction of the right analogue stick to pan the camera, pressing select to switch character and pressing start to display the pause menu. Touch screen implementation features tapping the bottom right of the touch screen when the spirit gauge is full to provide temporary invincibility and increase the ability of attributes such as the speed and range of attacks, while tapping the upper left of the rear touch pad calls the player’s horse and touching and holding the rear touch pad mounts the playable character onto your house.
Samurai Warriors 4-II continuously maintains a high quality of performance and graphical detail across all of the character models, foreground environments and combat manoeuvres throughout the entire game with a fluent frame-rate especially given that there are hundreds of enemies in battle on screen at any given moment which rivals the performance of the home console PS4 and PS3 versions, although there is pop-up on not all, but some of the distant background scenery.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main, story mode, free mode, survival mode, dojo, online menus, vault, settings and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, d-pad and face buttons, although there is no support for navigation via the right analogue stick, touch screen and rear touch pad. The background of the main menu consists of a star shining in the night sky with a character or appearing in the foreground to represent each game mode.
There are no English language voice-overs, although there are Japanese voice-overs with English subtitles as the talented and experienced Japanese voice-over artists are retained to bring life to their characters in the build up to stages and during gameplay through another round of collectively amazing performances such as Takeshi Kusao as Yukimura Sanada, Yuji Ueda as Keiji Maeda, Jurota Kosugi as Nobunaga Oda, Hikaru Midorikawa as Mitsuhide Akechi, Hisao Egawa as Goemon Ishikawa, Joji Nakata as Kenshin Uesugi, Ai Maeda as Oichi. Sound effects include playable characters aiming and performing combat moves on enemies, enemies retaliating in attack and running from base to base, while the music that is firmly set and based around the theme of Feudal Japan and also encompasses some instrumental remixes of the genre.
The trophy list includes 54 trophies with 44 bronze, 7 silver, 2 gold and 1 platinum trophy. The majority of the trophy list is earned through natural progression such as story related trophies for completing objectives and stages in story mode, the Forged of Steel bronze trophy for upgrading a weapon for the first time, the Apprentice Jockey bronze trophy for upgrading a mount for the first time and the Welcome Home bronze trophy for escaping the survival mode for the first time. The hardest trophies are the Total Domination gold trophy as it is the most time-consuming trophy due to the requirements of not only completing but claiming victory in every battle in the story mode using every character, the Beyond Infinity gold trophy for reaching level 100 in survival mode and the Challenge Conquered silver trophy for achieving an S ranking in all of the challenges in survival mode. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 50 to 75 hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are four difficulty levels including easy, normal, hard and nightmare with the major differences being more aggressive enemies which attack more regularly, inflicts more damage to the playable character and receives less damage from the playable character’s attacks. The difficulty of each stage within Story Mode and Free Mode naturally increases from a minimum of a 1 star rating through to a maximum rating of 10 with each stage progressing in difficulty in comparison to the previous stage within each character’s story arc, while the nightmare difficulty is extremely hard and may result in an embarrassingly quick defeat especially when both chosen characters have not been significantly levelled up.
The performance of online multiplayer is exceptional as it produces an identical level of graphical fidelity and maintains the same consistent frame-rate and performance of the single player despite being just as frantic in its on screen action and showing the second player whenever their character is nearby within the same base of the battle, while Ad Hoc multiplayer allows two players to connect wirelessly for a local multiplayer experience which offers exactly the same functionality as the online multiplayer.
Online multiplayer effectively offers a co-operative experience for two players throughout any stages which have already been unlocked in the Story Mode and Free Mode during single player gameplay, while allowing players to select a Quick Match which searches for an available match after a stage has been chosen or alternatively select join from the multiplayer stage menu to join another player’s game within the appropriate difficulty level, while recruit allows players to search for other players who are looking to join an online multiplayer game with the further ability to invite a player and even allowing the host to play the chosen stage alone during the wait for another player to join the match and allowing the player to retain any XP and gold earned in the process.
As great as the online and Ad Hoc multiplayer components are it would have been better if it included competitive multiplayer such as a player playing as a good character and the other player playing as an evil character or known rival which clash in battle on opposing sides, while the competitive multiplayer could be extended into a part competitive, part co-operative mode in which players can form two teams consisting of up to four players on either team, alongside such improvements as the host or joining player being able to continue if the other player leaves the session and the lack of cross-play online multiplayer between Vita, PS4 and PS3 being resolved.
The online leaderboards are reset every week in an excellent design choice to keep it competitively interesting with encouragement to set scores every week rather than only setting one supremely high score and not bothering to return to do so again. The online leaderboards focuses on the top rankings and the player’s position within each of the survival mode challenges with the leaderboard containing each player’s rank, name (PSN ID), challenge related points and the picture and name of the chosen character which each player has selected when achieving their best score with the positioning of each player based upon the accumulation of points relevant to the specific challenge such as defeating as many enemies or collecting as much gold as possible before the timer expires.
The replayability stems from a variety of features such as the Story Mode, Free Mode and Survival Mode, while the online multiplayer and Ad Hoc multiplayer components offer co-operative multiplayer for two players and online leaderboards provide a general competitiveness to online multiplayer gameplay, alongside ranks to score the player’s performance, extensive character creation and customisation as well as dozens of unlockable vault items including biographies, objectives, event cutscenes and music tracks which will collectively keep players returning for a substantial period of time.
Overall, Samurai Warriors 4-II delivers an exceptional portable effort which captures chaotic Dynasty Warriors style gameplay with engaging characters and the setting of Feudal Japan on Vita; therefore if you are a fan of the Samurai Warriors series, the musou genre or Omega Force games in general, then Samurai Warriors 4-II is an absolute must purchase on Vita.
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: Samurai Warriors 4-II
- Developer: Omega Force
- Publisher: Koei Tecmo
- System: PS Vita
- Format: PS Vita Card/PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: Yes (Downloadable content)
- Cross-Play: Yes (Cross-Save)
- Players: 1-2 (Online Co-operative Multiplayer/Ad Hoc)/Online Leaderboards
- Memory Card Space Required: 1MB (PS Vita Card)/2.8GB (PSN Download)
- *Correct at time of publication