PC: Samurai Warriors 2 Review

Feudal Japan is once again in need of heroes in Samurai Warriors 2 and you get to be one of those mighty warriors as you hack and slash your way through countless enemies.

The game was released for PS2 and Xbox 360 in 2006 and now for PC as well. Better late than never. I would have thought the game to be top tuned for PC after 2 years, but unfortunately it’s not.

When loading the game, you are presented with a console style menu with big fonts and no mouse control implemented. In fact, the mouse is completely obsolete throughout the game and the settings don’t allow you to change the default key controls to mouse buttons if you wish.

The video settings were disappointing too. The maximum resolution does not live up to today’s screen standards and settings reset every time you load the game. Pretty annoying.

I have mixed feelings about the graphics. The opening cinematic was amazingly beautiful and the playable characters are detailed and life-like. But the environment has hardly been given any attention and the lack of variety of enemy mobs gives the feeling of being in the middle of a huge clone war.

In Story Mode you can choose between different characters that each have a unique storyline. Each scenario opens with a little cinematic that adds a feel of being part of an epic tale about a great warrior. This mood setting atmosphere is ruthlessly torn apart once the scenario starts. The voice acting is dramatically overdone and the silliness of some of the lines made me cringe. You don’t exactly expect a great samurai warrior yell “Yeah! Way to go, me!” now do you?

The enemy AI matches their low graphics quality as well. Most of the time the enemy mobs just stand there doing nothing and the boss enemies don’t prove much of a challenge either, not to mention the lack of ability of your allies’ to defend themselves. You’ll be finding yourself going back and forth across the map to rescue allies in need. Luckily, you have a mount to speed up your travels across the battlefield and you can fight while riding, which adds a little extra to the gameplay.

The combat system is as you’d expect from games of this ilk; Basic attacks, that in combination, will make you perform special moves. As you kill the nameless enemies, your Musou bar powers up, and once full, you can release a unique attack. Additionally you can spend gold earned on tweaking weapons and skills.

With combo-moves and special attacks, the game offers space to build up and develop your own, personal fighting style. However I found that just mashing the same 2 buttons with a special Musou attack now and then proved just as effective.

Controlling the character felt smooth and I was satisfied with the movement response. Playing on a keyboard in these kind of games tends to not live up to the experience of playing with a controller, but the character reacted quickly to my button mashing whether it was attacks or change of direction.

Although you can choose between different characters with unique attacks and storylines, the gameplay itself quickly gets monotonous. Hacking your way through the low polygon clone enemies feels the same no matter which character or mode you play. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Some days you are just in the mood for a mindless grind and I admit that it can be very addictive, even enjoyable to just sit and mash buttons while you watch the KO counter go up.

‘Samurai Warriors 2’ is a good game if you don’t expect too much from the graphics or presentation of the story, but just take it for what it is: hack’n’slash. But it’s a lazy port with no real adjustments to the PC platform. It should’ve stayed on the consoles that it was originally released for 2 years ago.