Developer: Omega Force
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Genre: Hack and Slash
Format: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One
Released: October 19th 2018
Big thanks to Koei for giving us a review copy. Go support them by buying Warriors Orochi 4 here: http://www.koeitecmoamerica.com/wo4/
One of my favourite hack and slash franchises is back with the 4th installment of the Warriors Orochi series. The question is how does it differ from the previous titles. The short answer not much however that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The gameplay is solid as usual. Combos are easy to pull off and feel extremely fluid. The objectives are easy to complete so you’ll always finish the missions with some bonuses to upgrade characters and weapons. The music will get you pumped up and you’ll try and match your hits to the poor fodder in front of you.
The weapon customisation is very simple and you can add the better skills to your new weapons pretty easily. Although you can’t merge new and old weapon directly, you can dismantle the old one for materials to help with enhancements. When your back is against the wall if you absent party members have a high bond rating they will smack your enemies to help you get away and buy some time.
Added to the standard combat system are some magical powers. You get 4 stages, normal, charge, musou and finally unique. Normal, charge and musou work just like your regular attacks however your unique magic harnesses the power of the 3 playable team members and the 4 support characters who are boosting your stats from the sidelines. This does a huge amount of damage and the gauge is easily filled so you use it time and time again. Unfortunately this leads into some of my personal issues with Warriors Orochi 4.
It’s way too easy. Unique magic is too powerful and is pretty much always an option to use. You need to get a combo of 300 plus hits to fill up the gauge quickly and with certain characters you can use the regular musou attack to get a quick combo of 1000+. The unique officer AI is as useless as always on anything lower than Chaos difficulty. They run at you and don’t block, if they manage to blindside you, then you could lose around 40% of your health but with 3 characters to easily switch between it doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t help that when you use unique magic you get a ton of experience points. This will help over level your team after the first fight.
The magic and musou attacks also have animations which last too long. It freezes the action, makes you watch then lets you continue. It’s such a sudden shift to go from fast paced action to hitting the pause button. There should be an option similar to playing online where the animations are simplified to keep combat going without this break. It gives me that annoying feeling of watching a TV show or movie getting really engrossed and then the adverts show up. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a bunch of side objectives to keep things fresh on the battlefield as well. Too many times it feels like you are going from point a to b then waiting for gates to unlock before you can proceed.
The story itself is pretty linear with about 5% of the characters actually having a purpose in the storyline. More often than not you’re favourite character will barely be mentioned. This is helped somewhat with events that happen after battle which shows of the personalities of the character really well but as soon as you start the next fight there is a huge shift in tone with everyone sharing the same serious personality trait.
And my final huge issue is when you beat a boss only for them to have somehow escaped. For example I beat an apparent super strong Nobunaga ,who didn’t even hit me, yet he manages to escape when there are thousands soldiers from my army surrounding him.
With all these issues did I enjoy myself? Absolutely yes. Ok the story is nonsense and the attacks are over the top. But honestly the combat is just so enjoyable. Everything is so smooth and feels like it has a purpose instead of me just mashing buttons. Sure I want the named officers to be tougher and there to be more options in battle but that is why I am giving Warriors Orochi 4 an 8/10. There is a lot to work on but the FUNdamentals are exactly that. Now I’m off to thrashed in Chaos mode.
Not going to lie, it's still fun smacking thousands of people around. -Mamushi
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