Samurai Warriors 5 (Review)

Source: Review Copy
Price: £54.99 (£79.99 with Season Pass, £26.99 Season Pass)
Where To Get It: Steam

The Sengoku period is one that is heavily used in Japanese media, and it’s for a good reason: There was drama, there was intrigue and backstabbing, and it was a time of great and bloody change. And Samurai Warriors, well… It’s been a long running Musou series, alongside Dynasty Warriors, and of the two?

Pictured: One of the two main draws of a good musou game.

Yeah, I like Samurai Warriors more. Sorry, Lu Bu.

Okay, primer on Musou games: They’re an action genre, involving cutting through vast swathes of weak enemies, fighting their commanders, taking territory rapidly, and fulfilling objectives to clear each mission, usually ending in either an escape or a boss fight. It’s twitchy, it’s button mashy, it loves high combos… And it’s grand. There’s a great feeling to slashing up tons of foes in an over the top fashion, people literally being juggled before your blades, slammed before your special attacks, and slammed into the ground by other specials.

Hot guys and gals, the other main draw of a good musou game… Okay, no, it’s the ease of play, but still…

So… Yeah, Samurai Warriors is fun. But is it accessible, does it look good, are there any critiques?

Accessibility wise, it’s solid. Aesthetically, it’s great, I’ve always loved the kinds of flair the game puts in (giant brush strokes, loud kanji, and soft 3d characters), and its music is solid. Mechanically? Well, it’s one of those simple in practice, hard to master type deals. With RPG elements like skill trees (and skill points shared between the entire cast, which means you’re going to be grinding a fair bit if you want to do it well), and skill gems, weapon skill upgrades, that sort of thing, it nonetheless eases you in nicely with the first campaign (With ya boi Oda Nobunaga), then branches out. And then, well, you’re going to be working out how to get certain side missions, getting skills, upgrading buildings… But the core remains walloping the shit out of people to get territory in a map.

A general, getting walloped because… Well, that’s a good 80% of what you do. You wallop things until they fall down, and it’s fun.

Overall, I really enjoy Samurai Warriors. The difficulty curve isn’t too steep, the tutorials aren’t too heavy, and I recommend it to people wanting to get into the subgenre, or musou fans.

Become a Patron!