Samurai Warriors 5 (PS4)

Super jeu

It's pretty , ridiculously fun. Could be one of the games of 2021

L'envoi a été rapide, soigné, sans casse sur le produit. Compatible avec PS5, je m'amuse depuis !

Bought this for my son, he loves it!

Samurai Warriors 5 is the 5th installment in the long running series. Those who have played a game in the series before will be familiar with the premise - you take control of a historical warrior and run through the battlefield fighting thousands of enemies. SW5 does a few things differently but the core gameplay is much the same.To start the first thing you notice about SW5 is that the art direction is different to previous installments. They have gone for a more cel-shaded paintbrush style which for the most part works really well. Characters have been redesigned but are still recognizable from previous installments barring the odd exception.The game has 2 modes; Musou Mode and Citadel Mode. There is also a Vault where you can watch previously seen cutscenes and listen to music.Musou Mode follows the story and the focus is on Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi - there are six chapters in total (as well as one bonus chapter) and you follow them from their early years all the way through to their final battle. The game leans into this heavily and even has 2 designs for both characters, a young version and an older version. It was a bit odd that no other character ages but I guess they couldn't resdesign everyone twice.This choice to focus on just 2 characters in the story allows the game to explore battles and characters that haven't been seen in the franchise before but it comes with some disadvantages; in Musou Mode you'll find yourself playing as Nobunaga and Mitsuhide a lot as they take part in pretty much every battle. Although you do get the chance to bring 2 characters to the battlefield Nobunaga and Mitsuhide will inevitably end up being your strongest characters. Another draw back is that you will often play the same stage twice - once as part of Nobunaga's story and once as Mitsuhide's story. Sometimes it will be from opposing sides but not always. The game does try to provide a bit of variety and you'll find some stages that are from the perspective of someone other than Nobunaga and Mitsuhide. There is also a bonus chapter that focuses on other characters as more of a 'what if' scenario.In Citadel Mode you play short stages lasting around 5 minutes per stage to obtain materials to upgrade your castle. You get graded based on your combo count, whether you cleared the objectives, how many KO's you achieved and how many enemy officers you defeated. Although there are 30+ stages the objectives are very repetitive and it's a means to an end to upgrade your equipment and characters (you'll also have to spend a lot of time here if you want the Platinum trophy). Upgrading your castle isn't really that exciting as it just lets you purchase more items from a shop, purchase more horses, upgrade your weapons to a higher level and the like. The Citadel Mode is also used to build characters relationships which effectively means you have to play as two compatible officers in the mode for 3 or so battles so you can view a short cutscene where they talk to each other for a minute or two; it isn't really that exciting if I'm honest but some may get something out of it.So onto the actual gameplay. This is as smooth and as fun a previous installments. If you've played a warriors game before you'll be familiar with the concept. You pick two characters and then go onto the battlefield and defeat multiple enemies racking up huge combos with outlandish weapons and movesets. SW5 doesn't disappoint in this regard but there were a few things that stood out to me.There are around 37 characters but only 15 weapons. This means that multiple characters share the same weapons and movesets. Each character has a 'preferred' weapon where they will have one or two unique skills for that weapon but each character can equip any of the 15 weapons. In addition to this 10 of those characters don't have any unique skills at all and have a purely generic skillset - these are some of the more 'minor' characters but it did seem a bit rushed. With only having 15 weapons some of the more interesting weapons from the series have been lost whilst there are still multiple swords and spears.Despite the shortfalls of the game I still managed to have a lot of fun with it. You can easily spend 50+ hours on the game going through each of the stages and much more than that if you are looking to obtain the highest ranks, ultimate weapons, and the like. I do think some of the other entries had some more varied content but as the gameplay was till really good I still enjoyed it. As with any warriors game I'd recommend it if you've enjoyed previous installments or have never tried one before.