- Total Score: - 8/108/10
Summary
Samurai Warriors 5, which focuses on the Sengoku period, evolves from its prior storytelling and gameplay formula which helps set it apart from other entries.
Developer – Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
Publisher – Koei Tecmo, KOEI TECMO AMERICA Corporation
Platform – Playstation 4/5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Musou games have a long and varied history. I remember my first experience of playing Dynasty Warriors 3 back on the PS2 and I have really enjoyed the genre ever since. From Dynasty Warriors to Gundam Warriors, the formula hasn’t changed drastically over the years, but for those that enjoy the mindless slaying of thousands of enemy troops, it really doesn’t get old. Samurai Warriors 5 is the newest entry, which focuses on the Sengoku period in Japan, and there have been some minor changes to the formula that sets this entry apart from the rest.
In the past, Samurai Warriors has typically focused on telling a story from the perspective of many different characters while never delving too deeply into anyone’s story in particular. You would see a few battles from many different characters such as Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Yukimura, and countless others. Looking back at Samurai Warriors 4, the campaign was split between at least ten different faction story-lines, which can lead to a bit of confusion on what exactly is going on in the grand scheme of things. The entry before Samurai Warriors 5, Spirit of Sanada, took the opposite approach and focused mainly on the Sanada for its campaign mode. Samurai Warriors 5 takes a similar approach by retelling the Oda history.

In Samurai Warriors 5, there is one major campaign story told from the perspective of two of the most influential figures: Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi. Each branch of the story has many overlapping points where the perspective of each character provides a deeper look at the motivations and feelings behind each character. While each branch is either focused on Nobunaga or Mitsuhide, there are plenty of other characters that are introduced and playable throughout the campaign. This is a welcome change of pace for players that perhaps want to learn more details about this time period. However, some fan favorite characters will not make an appearance in Samurai Warriors 5 due to them not being involved with this particular point in history.
The overall gameplay of SW5 is the same as the past. You are given a roster of characters to choose two officers from for each battle – some rosters are more limited than others depending on the fight. As you play those characters, they gain experience and mastery of their equipped weapons and horses. During the battles, you will collect new weapons and skill points and gems to use to customize your characters even further. Each character has a skill tree which allows you to unlock better stats or new moves to use as the character grows in strength. For instance, you can unlock the passive ability to have a “second wind” when your character’s health reaches zero – they are automatically revived one time during the fight. Another example of upgrades are unlocking multiple special attack gauges that allow you to use the ability multiple times in a row. These aspects are pretty familiar to fans of the genre.

In combat, you are able to select four abilities to call upon in battle. These can be buffs which allow you to deal more damage or bolster your defense. They can also be attacking abilities such as sprinting full speed into a group of enemies or performing huge attacks that sweep across the screen. These abilities are usable multiple times but have a short cooldown between uses. This separates older entries that may have relied purely on pressing combinations of light attacks and heavy attacks to perform a variation or special attack.
Weapons are still customizable as in previous Samurai Warriors games. Weapons are given ranks, attack stats, and modifiers that are dictated by the gems you add to a weapon. For instance, you may find a weapon that has eight gem slots and you can pick and choose which modifiers you want to add to a weapon. You may find yourself wanting your katana to have a longer range of attack, with a wind element, and when you kill an officer you gain a buff to your speed for 30 seconds. This is completely achievable and up to the player to choose how they want to customize their weapons. These gems can also be upgraded to produce greater effects.

Outside of the campaign, you can play an alternative mode called Citadel, which allows you to select two characters to fight waves of enemies to protect your castle. This mode allows characters to grow stronger relationships and provides you with materials to upgrade your buildings. As you upgrade the different aspects of your castle, such as the Dojo or Blacksmith, you are able to increase your gems’ level or upgrade your characters and their mastery with scrolls that provide experience. This gives motivations to play the alternative modes, but aren’t completely necessary to enjoy the base game. I was able to complete both campaigns without worrying about upgrading my castle on the normal difficulty, but I assume it would be very valuable as you increase the difficulty to Hard or Nightmare.
The biggest update in Samurai Warriors 5 is the visuals. The characters are beautifully rendered with a cell shading ink that gives new life to the officers that we have seen for many entries. The attack animations combined with the sheer number of enemies on the screen at one time are quite a sight. There were times that I had to see at least 100 enemies on the field at a given time, mostly flying through the air as I performed huge attacks to knock them off their feet.

There are a few downsides to Samurai Warriors, mostly being based on perspective – a lot of people do not like the monotonous killing of a thousand soldiers. The gameplay never really varies from battle to battle. Head to section, kill 200 soldiers, kill an officer, escort a support troop, retreat to another section. This is the bread and butter of Musou games so it should be expected. Also, I have no problem reading subtitles, and since this game is fully voiced in Japanese, you will definitely have to read. The issue with this is in mid-battle, characters will provide information that you will have to read on the fly, while trying to maintain combos and pay attention to the battlefield. It can be a bit much! I also miss modes that have been in past entries like Dynasty Warriors 7’s Conquest Mode or Dynasty Warriors 8’s Ambition Mode. Citadel just seems lacking comparatively but still not bad.
Overall, I think there is a lot to like here with Samurai Warriors 5. Fans of the genre will enjoy the updated visuals and maybe enjoy how focused the story is compared to past entries, but may miss fan favorite characters. The abilities are fun to use to break up the typical mashing of attack buttons. It took about 30 hours to go through both the Nobunaga and Mitsuhide campaigns and there is third unlockable timeline which requires completing stages with S ranks to unlock additional stages. I would say there is a good 40-50 hours worth of content here, with quite a few more hours for completionists.
