REVIEW: ‘Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate’ is Fun and Daunting (Xbox One)

Before I begin this review, if you’ve played Warriors Orochi 3 or Dynasty Warriors 9, you’re given growth points, player experience, based on the numbers of KOs you’ve had in those games. So if you’re a fan of either series and have played the games prior to Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate, you will have a slight advantage over fresh players.

Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is a mid-scale hack-and-slash game developed and published by Koei Tecmo and Omega Force. In Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate you take control of a team of 3 officers from various factions such as Shu, Wu, Wei from the Dynasty Warriors franchise as well all of the officers from the Samurai Warriors franchise. This brings the roster to holding over 150+ different characters to play, each with their own playstyle, weaponry, Musou (special) attacks, and magic. This can all seem overwhelming reading that number, but I assure you, you won’t have all of them when you first begin, you must play through the story to start unlocking characters in the roster.

Now let’s talk about the story, it’s pretty in-depth as to what is going on. To avoid spoilers I won’t talk much about it, but to say that this story brings in the Greek mythology on top of the tried and true story of hunting down the Demon Lord Nobunaga Oda. There’s a lot of the story to digest as you play, but in these games, the story isn’t the selling point of the game for many people, it’s the gameplay.

Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate plays like you would expect games in this genre to play. You have your team of officers going through a medium-sized battlefield defeating foot soldiers of varying weaponry and other officers to get to the main officer and complete the mission all while making sure you don’t lose yours. The gameplay cycle is fun and can easily have you sink hours into playing, whether solo or in co-op, which can be played both in split-screen and online. As you progress through the story mode, you will unlock other modes in the game, such as Battle Arena, Challenge Mode, and Infinity Mode.

Battle Arena is Koei’s PVP mode as you bring a team of 3 officers to compete against another team and capture locations to earn points, similar to that of Call of Duty’s domination mode. Challenge Mode has players completing various timed challenges with either basic gear or their story mode gear and compete for best clear times. Lastly, is Infinity Mode which doesn’t open until you complete the entire campaign. In this mode, you go through challenges and have the chance to earn better weaponry for your characters of choice.

The new feature that was added in would be the usage of “magic” via “sacred treasures” which every character in the game will have equipped automatically. Magic has its own gauge that recharges over time and lets you use 1 of 3 types of magic skills, which vary in usage by character. Magic poses to be a useful gimmick as you can use your magic to negate the magic of another officer, as well as take out new enemies called, Chaos Origins. Some magic skills are pure utility, whereas others are offensive. As you use your magic you will fill up another gauge which allows you to use “Unity Magic”. Unity Magic has all the members of your team appear on the battlefield and channel all their magic into a giant orb that plummets into the ground and does massive amounts of damage to all enemies in the vicinity. It’s visually appealing, but at times can feel very gimmicky.

As you play through the game you will earn Growth Points and gems based on completion time and kills. You will also earn them as well as skill orbs and crystals for completion of Battle Objectives. These items are then used to upgrade your officers and later on in the game, when you unlock the feature, you can upgrade your camp to allow for universal upgrades that apply to everyone. Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate may have a lot going for it, but it’s not without its faults. Firstly, the extra game modes feel like they were just kind of slapped into the game for the sake of having extra content once the story campaign was completed. Next, online multiplayer is a hassle to do as you cannot change anything for your team while in an online lobby. You have to exit the lobby, change your stuff around, then join back up, each time. This needs to be fixed.

Overall, Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is a fun experience to be had, both solo and with a friend. There is quite a bit to do from the game modes to character unlocks and even leveling and finding the best weapons. Yet, even with that being said, the game at times can feel stale or even daunting because of how much work you have to put into the game to find officers you like and enjoy playing with possibly.

Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is out now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch for $59.99, click here to buy.