MSRP: $19.99

1-Player

The Koei’s Dynasty/Samurai Warriors series have been around since the birth of the Playstation 2 some 11 years ago. Since then, dozens upon dozens of sequels and spin offs have been created to varying levels of quality and success. While some have been lackluster (Strikeforce, DW: vol.1 & 2, the Wii games), others have been excellent.

Warriors Orochi is one of the more entertaining games to come out for the PSP. People who’ve played the D/S Warriors series have always wondered what would happen if these worlds would collide; and Koei delivers by mahshing the two brands together into one meaty package.

The story’s actually pretty interesting for a game that’s basically all about hack-and-slashing enemies and boss characters to oblivion. The Serpent King Orochi is brought to life, and for some mysterious reason, as his power increased, he merged the worlds of the Three Kingdoms (Dynasty Warriors), and feudal Japan (Samurai Warriors) into one, matching the fighters with each other in some of the greatest battles in series history.

The player can create three-man tag teams by choose from over 77 characters from the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors video games. Once chosen, they can equip weapons that can be upgraded through experience and game play.

Once in-game, each of the characters can hack-and-slash their way through hordes of enemy soldiers, officers, and generals while attempting to complete objectives like protecting their general from assassination attempts or assassinating the rival generals to win the battle. The player can switch between his three-man team at will, making for some really cool character combinations.

For example: my team consists of the fast and agile Zhou Yun, who can dish out quick combos; Sanada Yukimura, who is a bit more powerful and can launch enemies into the air for juggle comobs; and finally Shimazu Yoshihiro, the tank who can absorb hits while laying waste to anyone in sight with his giant hammer.

With each kill, the character gains experience points to level up their character for more powerful moves, weapons, skills, and abilities. They can also use the experience points to fuse collected weapons together for more powerful ones.

Technical Presentation

Audio – Audio presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. There is some really catchy music playing during battles and in the menus. Yet voice acting is downright atrocious. It’s quite horrible to hear the voice actors butcher the names of each character and location since they can’t pronounce Japanese or Chinese words properly. The player will also have to deal with repetitive sound effects and death cries throughout each battle.

Graphics -It is quite amazing that the developers at KOEI could cram every single feature, character, and locations into this PSP game. During each battle, the player will see more than 20 characters on screen at one time. As it is on the handheld system, graphic fidelity has taken a hit, however, the game looks, feels, and performs as well as its console counterpart.

Final Thoughts

Warriors Orochi’s pick up and play style is a perfect fit for the PSP. The player is given a temporary save file if they have to stop their game to do something else. The RPG-style leveling up system in conjunction with the 77 plus characters that are available lengthen the game’s lifespan considerably. This is one addictive game, and is recommended to anyone who’s looking for straight up action game on the go.

Final Grade: 75%