Warriors Orochi 4 is the fourth all-star beat ‘em up video game that combines Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters into one game and I love how fun the concept is: legendary Chinese and Japanese warriors meet up and beat up a common foe or to settle scores with one another. There’re just some issues with the game, but I’ll talk more about that below.

The usual “Warriors” visuals but slightly lowered in detail

Warriors Orochi 4 has some nice 3D models and awesome “body” animations, but there’s something about the texture or the colors of the game. Compared to other titles of the whole Warriors or Musuo franchise, the fourth iteration of the  series’ colors looks a bit pale. Maybe it’s just me, but  it doesn’t look all that colorful to me. I mean, the Dynasty Warriors games from the PlayStation 3 looked way better in terms of texture and the colors just danced on the screen; It looked lively and appealing to my eyes. Here, it’s a bit… pale. The in-game 3D character models and facial animations need a bit of work since it looks to have some unsharpened edges on some characters, but the rest are okay. In particular, the women in this game look way too beautiful and sexy, but hey, that’s a Musuo game for you from Koei Tecmo. They know their stuff.

The locations/areas in the game are not that highly detailed of course since they focused more on the 3D character models. Also, here I thought most of the stages in this game had unique areas, but in the later chapters, you could finally see the use of the same maps from earlier ones. I was half expecting that they would have unique ones for each chapter and just use the same ones on side stories, but hey, gotta use the same resources to save up, right?

The CGI scenes look stunning and the 3D animation is perfect. Even the mouth animation is on point with the voice overs, well in Japanese anyways. Anyway, it looks spectacular, just like with the previous titles of the franchise.

For the visuals, I want to score the game a 6 out of 10 points. Colors look pale, not so detailed map areas, some unsharpened 3D models, but great CGI scenes and superb 3D animation.

Nothing beats beat ‘em up gameplay with added features

One of the greatest features of Warriors Orochi 4 and the whole franchise is its beat ‘em up gameplay. While there are added features that makes fighting enemies feel more sophisticated, there’s nothing like hitting them with your weapons by pushing one or two buttons most of the time. That’s what I love about this title because it doesn’t stray away from its basic gameplay.

There are additional features in this particular title though like magic and some changes to the camp. For starters, there’s magic now since western mythology is in the mix in the main story. At first, I thought it was such a silly idea and it might just become something obsolete from the get-go. Turns out I was wrong and it was such an important feature in this iteration. It’s the best way to clear up a crowd, stop an enemy officer from doing magic or special attacks, and more. The characters use sacred treasures that are blessed by either Greek, Japanese, or Norse supreme beings to bring forth magic spells to help them. Hint: it’s particularly helpful against the Chaos monsters.

The camp has changed too. In Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, players could explore the whole camp and watch it grow as the roster of characters increases and with enough upgrades you put into it. This time around, no more exploration, just portraits and menu options to fiddle with, which is kind of easier than walking around with your character. You can level up your characters, add new abilities, check the gallery, upgrade the camp, talk with certain officers to unlock bonds, break down weapons for their elements, sell them, and many more. No more buying of weapons though, but you can get ample amounts of weapons dropped from officers and the like in different stages, so it’s no loss at all.

Aside from the gods and goddesses from the Norse and Greek mythologies, the monsters (well a few of them) are also in this game. Cyclops and Griffins are tagged as Horrors that are usually enemies to bring down but are sometimes allies, depending on the situation of the map. They aren’t that big of course, but enough to be taller than your average officer. Brings a rather interesting difficulty for both sides and drops some interesting items to boot.

Everything else is more or less the same I guess. Musuo attacks, rage, button combinations, weapon upgrade system with elements and slots, upgrading stats, and others. Well, there is the Deification ability that certain officers can do and it is story driven so you don’t have to worry about it. The cool thing about this ability is that it can spam unique magic as long as the Musuo energy bars are full.

So for gameplay, the game has a rating of 9. It’s still the same old fun Musuo game with the same gameplay but also with some new additional stuff without really changing the whole gameplay at all. They are just spices to make it a little bit more interesting and new.

As Usual The Story Is Quite Simple But With A Bit Of Twist

Truth be told, Warriors Orochi 4’s story is the same old story that we have known since the first title emerged: some big strong guy creates a fused world, he brings in all of the heroes from Japan and China from different timelines, let’s them fight each other or even become allies, and them beat up that strong guy in the end. Same old story formula, which for me is not a bad thing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it right? Well… with some fine adjustments and additions, nothing could go wrong and if they did it right in this title. The game is still easy to follow, nothing too complicated about it, and you can actually relate to the characters with their own personal stories with their small talks and bonding.

The game does have a slight twist to it, but it ain’t that much of a surprise since, for the discerning eye, it can be seen from a mile away. It’s a straightforward story as it can be however and not much of a conspiracy or complicated plot. That’s a good thing because I don’t want my favorite easy-to-understand beat ‘em up game to have too many complex twists because that’ll only bore me in the long run.

The characters are quite charming though. There are certain ones that I couldn’t believe have that kind of characteristic or trait. Hint: Ares, he’s quite something.

For the story, I rate it a high 9. Easy to understand with a few hints of twists and turns on the plotline, intriguing characters, and no complicated plots to uncover.

Same old Warriors music

Too bad I didn’t hear any new music or original soundtracks in Warriors Orochi 4. Some might be new, but to my ears, it’s just the same musical score, but it does hype me up whenever I go into battle, so there’s that. You can change the soundtrack at the beginning of the battle if you want.

The voice dubs are perfect as usual with emotions flowing in each delivery of a dialogue. It perks up the game honestly and does not make the long dialogue scenes boring. Actually, it makes me intrigued with how the story is going on right now and makes me care about it. That’s how good it sounds like. The special sound effects are great too.

I can rate this category a 7 out of 10 only. In my opinion, the music tracks sound the same from the previous titles, but the voice overs are always superb.

One playthrough is enough for me

Sure, I know what’s going on in your mind right now: “AC’s not interested in the replayability of Warriors Orochi 4? But how?” Yeah, I’m quite surprised as well, but frankly, after finishing this game, I don’t want to touch it again. Well, if someone’s interested in playing co-op or online, sure why not, but playing it again in single player mode? It’s a bit tiresome.

Yes, there are a few post-game missions to finish and yes there are unlockable characters that do not need to be paid by real-world money, but damn does this game slog in the long run. You can up the difficulty if you want to make it interesting, but for me to go through everything again and make over 100 characters have better weapons, higher levels, and new abilities? I’m going to stop you there bro. That’s enough for me. There’s no variety of things to do and it’s all beat ‘em up missions so yeah, it gets boring in the long run.

For replayability, I’m going to score this a 5 out of 10 points. There are some unlockables, in the end, a few missions to tackle, and a new difficulty to choose, but it gets so boring in the long run that it lowers its value to play it again.

Warriors Orochi 4 is just another Musuo game with improved gameplay, additional features, and more characters to choose from. Still, it gets boring and tiring to play in the long run if you’re alone, and I’d just put this in my gaming shelf until another player convinces me to play it together with me. I still had fun though, don’t get me wrong.

Disclosure: This review is based on a review code provided by Koei Tecmo. Read our review policy to know how we go with our game reviews.