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Sweeping across feudal Japan, amongst the clash of swords and the roar of cannon fire, emerged the greatest heroes and villains the land has ever known. Seeking to rule the land by might or honor a deep friendship, they were known as samurai. From the start, there's a feeling of melancholy in Samurai Warriors 2, conveyed in the most cinematic cut-scenes I've ever witnessed. Beyond the latest Final Fantasy, there's a tangible weight to the drama where fields of dead lay under the falling rain.
Then you get to play
Samurai Warriors 2 is also deceptive. Four game modes in Story, Free Play, Survival, and Sugoroku with only seven initial characters. The individual story modes are relatively short compared to the Dynasty Warriors series, with only five stages, plus a "dream" map that's usually far outside of historical accuracy. Each of these sagas feel complete and satisfying without dragging on so long they wear out their welcome. Yet finish one storyline and another warrior will be unlocked. Wipe the floor with ancient Japan with them and you might get two more characters to play. This continues until there are twenty six unique generals to command, and all but two having their own stories with a flood of pre-rendered cut-scenes view. You'll also unlocked Hell difficulty to really bring the challenge. As one minor flaw is easy, normal, and hard are far too similar and only really increase your chances of getting stunned by an attack.
The pre-mission map is still familiar, as are some of the combo trees where regular attacks lead to various powerful charge attacks, though some characters change this up with multi-stage charge attacks instead. There are also two special attacks that allow generals to do everything from making duplicates of themselves to laying mines. The result is fun and frantic when you mix in blocking with the new evasion abilities, not forgetting the two variants of musou attacks, one being the normal powerful attack, and the other slowing down time to allow you to slip behind block happy generals to do a little backstabbing before they can blink. Still, the rigid combo system is starting to feel overused, especially compared to the more flexible system found in the upcoming Ninety Nine Nights that allows the player to mix attacks at will. At least you can finally swing around the camera with the right thumb stick to admire all the soldiers that fill the screen with no sign of unintentional slowdown. Loading is quick too.
The story mode isn't just bashing every general on the map. Every mission contains a selection of sub-missions to make the battle go a little more in your favor, with a monetary bonus on the side. They can be saving an ally from danger, escorting workers to the proper location, or taking out a fort before a retreating enemy has the chance to escape. If this wasn't already enough of a reason to keep your horse handy, your allied generals have all the fighting ability of a wet kitten. There's a good side and a bad side to this. On one hand, it makes the battles far more dynamic and challenging when you need to race to the rescue at three different points on these sometimes convoluted maps, forcing you to plan out how your actions will effect the flow of battle. On the other side, you can clear away every last enemy general, and still your strongest allies can drop dead from a group of plain troops. Not only is this silly, but in missions where you can't allow a single ally to drop, it's beyond frustrating. It made me long for DW5: Empires, with the ability to command and level my important allies.
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