Koei has released a lot of games under the Warriors franchise - the main one being Dynasty Warriors that takes place in feudal China. Last year the released a new game entitled Samurai Warriors and it was based during the feudal Japan time frame, and it incorporated a few new things that helped make the game stand out. It was seen as a slight evolution of the series and many gamers were rejoicing. Now the developers at Omega Force have released a sequel entitled Samurai Warriors 2. Read on to find out if it is worth your time.

The game has more than 26 characters to do your bidding, but only 10 of them are unlocked from the beginning, you have to beat the game in order to get the other ones unlocked. There are five different modes to play in: story, free mode, online, survival, and a new mode called Sugoroku. The story mode is where you take a character and complete various missions, once you finish the mission you usually unlock another character to play with. Free Mode allows you to play any previously cleared stage with your character of choice. To play online you have to have an Xbox Live account, and you and another person race to defeat a boss.

In survival mode, you will go through a castle, which has many floors, and attempt to set new records as you go across. This mode is really challenging and will have you grinding your teeth as you play it. The last mode is entitled Sugoroku, and it is a board-game style using the characters in the game, think of a Samurai Warriors version of Monopoly. It is a nice distraction from the main story game and is a nice addition.

One thing that I liked about this game is that it allows you to build up each and every character to your liking. Before each mission you are allowed to go into the shop where you can buy additional skills or upgrade the ones you currently have. These skills range from getting more health back from each recovery item to finding rarer weapons on the game field. You can even purchase a horse, upgrade your weapons, and buy additional servants that will help you out on the battlefield. This lets the player have a little bit of customization and helps with the replay factor.

What is so hard about adding a real in-game save between each of the missions? If you make one mistake it is all over and you have to start from the beginning. This gets really annoying fast because each gameplay session can last at least 20-30 minutes. I hate to see all my hard work flushed down the toilet because of one stupid move. Plus it is also really hard to find the time to just sit there for an extended period of time for one mission. This needs to be corrected in the next version of this game.

The graphics engine for this game needs to be taken out to the back and put out of its misery, as it is done. This game has the look of a PlayStation 2 game and that is sad since it is on the Xbox 360. The developers need to scrap this engine and start from scratch as the game should look like this on a “next generation” console. Samurai Warriors 2 contains the same amount of popup and horrid drawn-in distance as all of the other games in the series. This is something that should not be happening on a console that is way more powerful then the previous console that this game has graced.

The character models are not that detailed either. The main characters are moderately detailed but nothing to write home about. Also the enemy soldiers look like they are all related as they all are identical, you will feel that you are killing the same person over and over again. My biggest complaint is that while the game is fluid, it is not as fluid as it could be. I have played some recent hack-and-slash games released on this system and after playing those and then playing this game it felt like something was lacking. Pretty soon it became apparent that the game was just not as fluid as other games, and the enemies on the screen at one time was a lot less.

What happened with the sound and music for this game? In the original game you had the option to use the Japanese voiceovers and in this version you do not get that. Instead you get to listen to really crappy English voiceovers that are poorly done. The voices do not match up with the characters in any sense and really distracts from the game. Combine that with the fact that each character has only one or two different catch phrases and you will want to hit the mute button before you are driven insane. The music from the first game was also really well done, but this game it is really lame and you will be glad you can turn on custom soundtracks so you can listen to something good instead.

Samurai Warriors 2 is rated Teen and contains mild language, suggestive themes, use of alcohol, and violence.

Gameplay: 5.5
The gameplay hasn’t changed in this series for a long time now. I just wish that you could pull off some more combos or something to help break up the repetition. Instead it is the same thing over and over again to each major character fight until you beat the mission.

Graphics: 5.0
The graphics are very bad. The game doesn’t take advantage of the hardware in any sense.

Sound: 4.9
The mute button will be your friend. The voice acting is done with very poor taste and don’t fit the characters at all.

Difficulty: Easy
The game is very easy since all you have to do is just press one button and defeat hundreds of enemies. No strategy involved at all. Also the AI is in need of a real face lift if you want any challenge.

Concept: 5.0
The first game showed so much promise and added new features into the hack-and-slack games. This game offered a couple of new things but overall it is the same game as last year.

Multiplayer: 5.0
The multiplayer aspect is just a whole lot of fluff. You and another character race to see if you can defeat a certain boss first. That is pretty lame; I was hopping for a true verses mode, but that is the best that you get. Playing co-op with a friend is a good time though.

Overall: 5.3
Omega Force really needs to go back to the drawing board with this franchise. There are so many things that need to be improved on with this game it is not even funny. It is fine that the developers want to keep milking this franchise, because it is fun and does provide many hours of mindless entertainment, but at this time the negatives outweigh the positives of this game.