Warriors Orochi 4 captures some of the nostalgic magic that’s made the Musou games a fun button mashing romp. But the game is painfully safe – doing very little that feels new or exciting.
Warriors Orochi 4
Developer: Omega Force
Price: $59.99
Platforms: PlayStation 4 [reviewed], Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PlayStation 4 code for review.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to play a Musou game that’s captured some of the magic I felt when I first played Dynasty Warriors 3. I loved how dense each map was with enemies, making the battles feel vast. But I’ve also wanted a game that takes chances and does something different. Warriors Orochi 4, the latest entry in Omega Force’s series that mashes Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors together, captures that nostalgic magic, but does little to make it feel different. Instead, the game is safe and ultimately overstays its welcome.
Warriors Orochi 4 once again teams up the characters of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. This time, they face off against Greek gods as Zeus drags the warriors into conflict. The game’s story picks up after Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, so fans of the series will see a lot of continued narrative threads here.
The story is drawn out, and became less and less interesting as it went on. Unfortunately, that impacted the gameplay because the more time I spent finishing story missions, the more I grew tired with actually playing them. That’s a shame, because the setup of the story is a fun idea. Seeing characters who have long heated rivalries team-up to take on a greater evil was surprisingly satisfying. It works as a power fantasy, but there was far too much of it to ever feel like it was worth it.
I did enjoy the addition of the magic attack mechanic in Warriors Orochi 4. Every character in the game, of which there are 170, has access to three types of magic attacks. Magic adds additional options for players to use when facing down thousands of enemy troops. But there are some enemies that require players to use magic in order to defeat them, which creates moments of crowd control. The introduction of magic isn’t a huge step forward for the series, but at least felt flashy and made combat flow in more exciting way.
In fact, combat as a whole feels smoother than anything I’ve experienced in a Musou game. It reminded me of character action games similar to Devil May Cry, where players have a variety of attacks to help the combat feel smooth. One of the ways the Warriors Orochi 4’s combat feels smooth is in its mechanic that allows players to take any three characters into battle. Players can switch between their characters at any moment, allowing combos to carry across warriors. All of the characters are divided into different classes, like power, speed and technique. Any mixture of those three types can be created, but to be fair, I never spent a lot of time thinking about why type of characters I wanted.
As a whole, I noticed the game makes it easier for players to string along huge combos. Using a mix of magic and normal attacks helps to keep the combo going strong, while the game also does a good job of filling the maps with enemies. Musou games are known for having a ton of characters, and it’s been a while where it felt like there were constant stream of enemies. Just about every battle, I manage to have several 1,000 hit combos.
But, as mentioned before, the game is so drawn out that even the exciting combat felt dull after a while. All of the story missions played out pretty much the same, which lead to almost no variety in gameplay. It started to feel like a game reluctant to make players feel like they fought through an epic battle.
After finishing a battle, players will go back to base camp, which is all menu-driven. In their camp, players can do activities like level characters or manage their weapons and items. There are a ton of weapons to find and all them can be customized in different ways. Players have an option to sell or dismantle their weapons, the latter allowing different elements and buffs to be extracted and placed on other weapons. I really like this feature because it meant I could constantly recycle old weapons to beef up more powerful ones. The only issue I came across here, however, was how cluttered the inventory menu felt, meaning I often forget how many of a single item or weapon type I had.
Managing my long list of characters was easier than I thought. Experience points earned in battle can be assigned to any character available to the player. This made it easier to keep characters I rarely used ready to take on late game missions. Warriors Orochi 4 feels like a game that revolves around team building, as is evident in its story and the way you manage the cast of warriors in the base camp. And while that’s cool, it ultimately reminded me of the biggest issue I had with the game.
Similar to how I felt in my review of Dynasty Warriors 9 from earlier this year, I feel like there’s a better game hiding beneath the surface of Warriors Orochi 4. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock more and more characters. It plays into the story, but I wish it translated into the gameplay in a meaningful way. While playing, I imagined battles being immensely more difficult if I was unsuccessful in recruiting new allies. I imagined my roster constantly increasing and decreasing based on my success in battles. But nothing like that exists in the game. Instead, if you fail in a battle, you have to redo it until you win. It all felt too safe, a huge problem for a story that creates a dire situation that what is actually reflected in gameplay.
The Final Word
I really wanted to love Warriors Orochi 4 because, in a lot of ways, it scratches that nostalgic itch I’ve had for older Musou games. The premise of the story is fun and I love it pushes so many characters together, despite their storied rivalries. Combat is as smooth as it’s ever been, and has the right amount of flash. But the game is drawn out and overstays its welcome. Everything I thought was great about it eventually became dull and forgettable. And worst of all, I started to imagine all the things the game could’ve been as I slogged my way to the end credits.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
