Samurai Warriors 4 DX Review – A series favourite returns

thesixthaxis.com:

It’s been almost a decade since the initial launch of Samurai Warriors 4, which was quickly followed up by 3 spin-offs: Samurai Warriors 4-II, Empires, and Spirit of Sanada. With the franchise’s latest numbered instalment still in recent memory, Koei Tecmo has decided to take a trip down memory lane with the newly-released Samurai Warriors 4 DX on PC via Steam.

It’s unclear why the Japanese publisher chose now to do this, possibly fuelled by the recent surge in popularity surrounding samurai media, and a need to plug a hole in its release calendar. After all, it’s been a while since we last had an update on what’s happening with Koei’s long-running Warriors series. It didn’t seem all that long ago that hack n’ slash fans could reliably look forward to a new Dynasty Warriors game every few years, with Samurai Warriors instalments comfortably sandwiched in between.

Regardless of its motives, Samurai Warriors 4 DX allows Koei Tecmo to showcase one of the series’ most popular offerings to a new audience of PC gamers. If this is somehow your first dalliance with these games, they follow a similar template that honestly hasn’t changed too much since Dynasty Warriors 2 (known in Japan as Shin Sangoku Musou) first tore up the genre on PS2 back in 2000. Taking on the role of famed warriors from Japan’s Warring States period, you’ll blitz through entire battlefields, annihilating enemies by the screenful as you bash out button combinations in an almost zen-like state.

Samurai Warriors 4 is fondly remembered for a number of reasons. Firstly, the game offered a playable roster of 55 characters each with their own unique movesets, and customisable weapons. It also offered a wider selection of story-driven missions, allowing you to watch events unfold from the perspective of certain clans and characters, including Nobunaga Oda and posterboy Yukimura Sanada.

In terms of gameplay, original developer Omega Force also made some welcome improvements starting with Hyper Attacks. These