Throughout the years, Dynasty Warriors has been hated as being repetitive and button mashing. The difference between Dynasty Warriors and the other series is that Koei does it right. Which other company recently has actually managed to create a good classic beat em up or hack and slash title? I can't think of many good ones that weren't done by Koei and the others that tried to copy it failed (Devil Kings and N3 comes to mind). To date, I believe Warriors Orochi 2 is probably the best beat em up game available and I decided to write this review for it. This review is based on the PS2 version. The 360 version has some pretty prominent bugs at first but I think its all fixed by now. In another week I hope to be able to review Red Cliff for you guys. Seems like a decent game so far but the problem is its cubizone

Story:

Each of the different factions in the game have their own storyline that has a little difference. However, it all culmulates in the final showdown between True Orochi and you. The title of the Japanese version references the return of Orochi. There are a total of 5 storylines. Shu, Wu, Wei, Samurai, and Orochi. The only story that is different is Orochi's which is a prequel to the Warriors Orochi series and shows a bit of how Orochi obtained his reality bending powers. The story is fairly poor and unless you play all of them, you don't really have much of a grasp of whats going on. There are only about 4 or 5 major characters in each faction and the rest are pretty much people randomly thrown in at regular intervals.

Graphics:

Not much has really changed since the game still relies mostly on the Dynasty Warriors 5 system. On the PS2 it still looks good until theres so much crap on the screen that it starts to lag. This rarely happens but it still does happen. Each character also has 3 costumes but usually the 2nd one is just the first one in another color. Enemies for the most part are generic and effects look like recolored versions of other attacks. Of course, even these plain attacks can be pretty insane when used with the right special abilities. For the most part, the stages are just brought over from the other games such as Warriors Orochi, Dynasty Warriors 5, and Samurai Warriors 2. Its recycled, but it still just looks about as good as ever. Unfortunately, this game isn't out on the PC otherwise it could be vastly improved.

Gameplay:

If you've played other Dynasty Warrior titles, you kind of know what to expect. If not, you play a 1 man army fighting against another horde with AI characters on both sides. Generally your side ALWAYS starts at a disadvantage. There is like a 60 minute time limit on all stages and if time runs out you automatically lose but the average stage rarely lasts more than 10 minutes and the longest ones usually don't last for more than 30 minutes even if you run around and kill everything before completing the objective.

There are many many characters in the game. Pretty much every character from every Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors game is present as a playable character. They also have a few new characters that you can play as but you don't unlock them until the end of each campaign so you only get the full use out of them when you replay the main story mode or replay bonus stages. Many of the characters also have distinct fighting styles unlike most other games with loads and loads of characters. Even characters who share the same weapons have very different combat styles. Unfortunately, having this many characters forced them to remove the character creation feature from previous games.

Each team consists of 3 characters that you can pick based on who you have unlocked. In story mode, you cannot use all your unlocked characters unless you completed that story mode once before. You only control 1 character at a time and the ones that aren't in combat are recovering. However, if multiple members of your team have their special meter (musou gauge) full you can unleash a multi elemental team attack. Characters are divided into 3 types. Power, speed, and technical. Each type has their advantages. For example, power types are not stunned when hit by arrows. These tend to be not that important for most of the game and its just up to you to choose players that fit your style. My favorite is the overpowered Sun Wukong, Himiko, and Lu Bu team.

The controls are simple. Square attack, triangle strong attack, x jump, circle special, r1 character special, l1 guard, l2 and r2 to switch characters. Followed by the almight taunt with the r3. If you have a horse ability, you can summon it too with the push of a button. Its simple to pick up, but difficult to master due to requiring to learn the timing of some attacks to pull off counters with some of the characters.

The difficulty of the game is fairly well set apart too. There's a very easy mode for beginners who are new and is very simple to get through. Then on the other end of the spectrum is the chaos mode for those insane players who maxed out the stats of their level 99 character and want to kick some more butt.

Characters can level up in 2 different ways. The first is character level which increases their stats. The second is proficiency level which unlocks new attacks. Killing enemy officers raises both faster but generally killing minions will reward with some minor exp still unlike proficiency which is near impossible without killing officers. Each character has to be improved separately so if you want to complete everything, there is tons of replay value.

Weapon customization is also back from the first Warriors Orochi. Each time you pick up a weapon box, each of the 3 characters on your team receive a random new weapon. Sometimes with stats. By combining weapons you can increase its power and add new slots. Higher difficulty results in better overall weapons. Each character has 4 type of weapons and the 4th weapon is the strongest overall. If you use a specific set of abilities on your weapon, you can add a bonus ability provided you collected enough "treasures" in game.

If you want to unlock everything, at some point you will have to play as all of them. Dream Mode stages require you to meet certain requirements with different characters to unlock. Each character has 3 or 4 abilities that they can add to your total abilities. Abilities are unlocked by completing specific objectives with the character such as killing 60 enemies in 10 minutes. Each time you complete it, the ability is unlocked for everyone else to use. All of the abilities cap at 20 which provides insane boosts.

Stages generally play out in just rushing the enemies and killing everything you can. However, following the plans made by your allies results in improved overall combat performance compared to just trying to rush enemies. Traps for example greatly lower enemy morale and causes the enemies to weaken and attack less often. Completing some of these tasks also sometimes unlocks rare "treasure" items that will allow you to put rare special abilities on weapons once you meet the requirements for them. The only complaint is that in some stages, there are very cheap bosses. Most noticeably Orochi X in all of the final battles with his 1 attack that can kill several of your ally officers and the fact that he doesn't seem to flinch from any attack.

There is also a VS mode set up like a classic fighting game. Its pretty fun since it allows 2 players to pick their teams and just beat each other up. Matches are generally quick compared to other fighting games which is what makes it more enjoyable for me. I just didn't like the ring out feature.

Sound:

If you played other Dynasty and Samurai Warriors games you kind of know what to expect. Its always that rock, metal, and techno mix. The only thing it was lacking was probably the J-Pop song from Dynasty Warriors 4 by that Initial D band. It is annoying sometimes to hear 1000s of people die and scream so it might be worth it to turn it down sometimes. All in all I kind of liked the sound except for the generic grunt death groans. It could have used more variety but I believe they just ran out of disc space for the most part.

Overall:

If you want a decent hack and slash or beat em up game for the last console generation, Warriors Orochi 2 is probably the best. N3, Devil Kings, or any of the other games that have tried to copy Koei for the most part feel like complete crap in comparison. It might be repetitive to some, the story might not be good, but they do gameplay right. As Koei moves further away from trying to stick to the original Three Kingdoms tale, it seems to get better overall. If you enjoy these kinds of games, then Warriors Orochi 2 is the one you should look for. It is available on PS2, PS3, 360 systems and has massive replay value. Now if they could just add online co-op mode, this would be awesome.

Final Score

8/10 - If you like hack and slash and beat em up games, Warriors Orochi 2 is the way to go.