Samurai Warriors 5 is published and developed by Koei Tecmo, available on PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC, reviewed on Xbox.
Synopsis
The story of Samurai Warriors 5 takes place during the Sengoku period, during which an inverted social order started to extend all across Japan. As war rages throughout the Sengoku period,several influential figures appear across Japan seeking to reign supreme over these turbulent times. Among those figures, the great daimyō, Yoshimoto Imagawa,dispatched his troops to escort the minor daimyo of the neighboring nation – Ieyasu Tokugawa – as a hostage.
While everyone was assessing the situation,there was one person watching all of this occur from high above.That person was Nobunaga Oda.This story begins with Nobunaga, along with his childhood friend Toshiie Maeda,as they make a raid on the Imagawa Army in order to rescue Ieyasu.
Review
Koei Tecmo have finally brought back the legendary Musou style hack and slasher, Samurai Warriors, with it’s 5th installment with a few changes to visuals and gameplay to bring it into the new gaming generation.
I’ll be honest I am normally anxious when I hear the word “reboot” when it comes to something I deem as a classic, it normally doesn’t feel the same as what we remember it to be, however Koei Tecmo certainly know how it’s done with the only major difference is the graphical style with the developers going for more of a hand drawn almost manga style with plenty of over the top effects and it looks amazing, the only down point for me personally is that there isn’t any blood effects but that is the style they have gone with and think that it’s more of a personal opinion from me I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more blood to add to the slashing going on.
There is something quite thrilling taking a full on warrior character like Nobunaga Oda into a full on battle wielding nothing but a samurai sword, but it’s not a case of just running into the crown just swinging and hoping (trust me I tried this) you need to be aware of the surroundings and plan your attacks with some enemies needing heavier attacks than others. At different times throughout the level different main enemies appear, a bit similar to a boss battle these are relatively straight forward to tackle but do pose a challenge and take you using most of your abilities to tackle using a series of blocks and heavy attacks to defeat the target to move on on the story.
I will admit as the dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles it can be a bit difficult to follow the story at times, my advice is to ignore the temptation to skip the cutscenes as they do help in telling the story.
All in all for me there were some slight flaws but other than that if you like hack and slasher games then come on in you’ll love it.
Verdict
Samurai Warriors 5 is a great game with an awesome graphic style. However, unfortunately it doesn’t have the next-gen upgrades to really make an impact. Repetitive gameplay and a story which is difficult to follow are not enough to detract from a game which his a whole lot of fun.
8/10
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