Samurai Warriors 4 DX Game Review – Game Review

Samurai Warriors 4 DX is a great Warriors title through and through, and a surprise port dropped out of the blue for us to enjoy.

Like hot-blooded warlords mustering armies in past eras, even the mere mention of the Warriors games gets people gathering into warring camps. The detractors arrange their complaints into serried ranks: the games are all the same, the AI enemies are too passive, the power fantasy is obvious and boring, there is no sense of progression, the characters feel too similar, the stories are incomprehensible or shallow or both, and a host of others. There’s no accounting for taste, but I find myself in the opposite camp.

I believe the Warriors titles are incredibly fun video games. I mean video games in the purest sense of the term – you push buttons, and exciting things happen on your screen. Running around pseudo-historical battlefields and single-handedly slaying hundreds of enemies with the press of a few buttons is, scientifically speaking, radical. These games front-load the fun and give the player a type of spectacle and power fantasy that can only really be found within this series.

I also don’t know if the criticisms of the similarity in these titles are all that fair. Sure, Warriors games are relatively close in terms of the feel, but that could be said for many franchises. Most video game series are very close in feel from title to title, with minor mechanical or visual changes in between. Too much deviation from the expected norm often upsets existing fans, so this title feeling like other Warriors titles is both expected and a positive thing, in my opinion.

Let’s specifically talk Samurai Warriors 4 DX. The original Samurai Warriors 4 was released in 2014. This was followed by a suite of additional releases, including Samurai Warriors 4-2 the following year with added content, Samurai Warriors 4 Empires with its macro-level focus, and eventually Samurai Warriors 4 DX in 2019. The DX version includes all of the previous content from 4 and 4-2, as well as the bonus DLC, such as costumes and weapons. However, the DX release has only been on consoles until now, with the port to PC/Steam released in May. This port dropped without much fanfare or forewarning, coming as a nice surprise for many of us.

In terms of the setting, unlike the Dynasty Warriors family of titles that are set in China and depict events from the Three Kingdoms period, the Samurai Warriors titles are set in the Sengoku period of Japan. Samurai Warriors 4 DX follows famed leaders like Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shingen, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. You lead them across numerous battlefields, replaying historical battles or trying out alternative histories to determine the fate of the clans and Japan itself.

The gameplay is pretty familiar ground for Warriorstitles. You select a hero before each battle, adjust their equipment and item loadout, and then head into battle to face hordes of enemies. The battlefield maps are a mix of exterior and interior locations where larger spaces are connected by narrow pathways, not unlike the rooms and hallways of a sprawling building. On the battlefield, you and your allies clash with the opposing forces, and despite the countless enemy soldiers, it is mostly you and the other officers who carry the day. Each battle has certain mandatory objectives to be completed to avoid loss. Some secret or optional objectives can offer unique story beats and rewards. You will also go into battle selecting two heroes, and you can switch control and jump into the driver’s seat of the other officer at any time with the push of a button.

Light and heavy attacks can be chained into combos to slaughter dozens of foes in a single combo string. You can mount a steed to add mobility at the cost of more expansive combo strings. Characters have a unique special move that has no resource cost but often takes time to set up, such as a massive throw or a sword-sharpening technique that gives a damage boost for a short time. Super moves in the form of musou attacks allow you to devastate enemies. Lastly, you have a spirit gauge that builds up stocks over time that can be expended in small amounts to extend combos as well as guard break enemies. It can also be saved up and used all at once for even longer combos and more powerful musou moves. Between your various forms of offense, you will easily slay hundreds of enemies in a single level and, in many cases, over a thousand.

The most interesting wrinkle to the combat system is the hyper attacks. Mashing light attacks creates quick combo chains like you would expect. And if you start a combo with one or more light attacks and then start hitting the heavy attack button, there are other strings, again like you would expect from a 3rd person hack-and-slash game. What’s interesting, though, is that if you start a combo with the heavy attack button, your character dashes forward while surrounded by a powerful aura, and this can end in unique combos or pressed repeatedly to keep dashing.

Hyper attacks pick up multiple enemies at once, hitting them and automatically juggling them. However, if you make a hyper attack and it contacts an enemy officer, they will deflect your attack and stop your movement. Horseback is the fastest traversal method, but repeated hyper attacks are faster than walking at a normal pace.

The net effect of the hyper attacks system makes for a rather unique gameplay loop. I was hyper-attacking through rank upon rank of enemy soldiers, rushing around the battlefield like a mad comet and killing hundreds of soldiers at a time. Then I’d run into an officer, forced to pause and get into a more protracted and technical melee before dashing off towards my next target.

The story mode is spread across multiple campaigns in the Sengoku period. Each campaign is broken up into episodes and told from different perspectives. During a campaign, you will follow one clan – say, the Oda family – and follow their story through a series of battles. Each battle has a campaign-level strategic explanation for the political and military considerations that made the battle happen, including when and where it happened, followed by more personal cut scenes involving conversations between different characters. Once you complete a campaign, it will unlock another clan’s campaign, allowing you to explore another side of the same story, see conflicts you haven’t experienced yet, or play out battles from fictitious historical what-if scenarios.

The historical cast is huge and varied. Each character has a distinctive look and fighting style, with different weapons having just enough differences to feel unique. Each character has specific attack style preferences, unique musou attacks, special moves, and more. You will also gather unique items and weapons from the battlefield, and there’s a crafting system where you slot gems into item slots to get various bonuses. None of the systems was deep or complex, but added another layer of texture to each cast member.

This is where the real meat of the game rests, and it works very well. I tend to be more of a Dynasty Warriors guy since I am more familiar with the historical and literary background of the period. However, the mixture of tactical and personal overviews before each battle helps make sense of what is happening. Even if I missed a lot of detail, each clan’s overall ethos and objective were clear to me as I played through their stories.

The chronicle mode offers another way to explore the Samurai Warriors world. In this mode, you do not choose a historical character; instead, you create a custom character to follow through various battles. You have a relatively robust character creator for your visual look and the weapon type you want to wield. Your character moves across a map of Japan, taking up battles and meeting historical figures. You gain experience, strengthen bonds with them, and carve your own story in the annals of history.

There is even a free mode, which lets you play the battles using any characters you like, and a multiplayer co-op, too (although admittedly, I did not have anyone to test co-op with).

This all adds up to a very robust game. I found myself with plenty to do in each campaign. I was winning battles at different difficulty settings, leveling up the various historical characters, crafting the strongest items, pursuing my own legend, i.e., chronicle mode, and more. The combat is not always challenging from moment to moment in terms of defeating opponents. Unless you push outrageously deep into enemy territory, you will likely win nearly every fight without much effort. However, the side objectives and higher difficulty levels add much to the mix. Sometimes, you have timed objectives, or your supporting generals need help or escort, or there are specialist enemy troops that need to be taken out quickly, and so on. It’s not just about winning but clearing enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible or expending fewer resources to survive a rush of empowered enemy leaders, and so on. Chasing victories on higher difficulty levels or completing all the objectives on every level requires gearing up and leveling up multiple characters. Not all levels can have their objectives cleared in one attempt.

This is all to say that the hours and hours of gameplay on offer here can be as mindless or as mindful as you want it to be.

The other added benefits come from the nature of the port itself. KOEI–Tecmo PC ports have a… mixed reputation in the community. I have never had any problems with their games, but I know from close friends, Steam reviews, and online discussions that this is not the norm. Optimization is often poor, and frequent crashes or the outright inability to play these titles is the norm. This is why I’m delighted to report that Samurai Warriors 4 DX runs like a dream, and it is probably one of the smoothest experiences for a Warriors title I’ve had. This even extends to the Steam Deck, as it has verified compatibility. This was another exciting and unexpected feature, and I put in most of my hours from the comfort of my handheld.

As the DX version of Samurai Warriors 4, there’s yet another element to rejoice over: no DLC. I understand we live in a modern era, and companies must keep the lights on. Still, it’s always nice not to worry about whether you are getting the complete experience until you make a few more subsequent purchases. Everything is ready to go from the jump, and no additional purchases are needed.

That is not to say that the game does not have its faults. At times, the hectic nature of the combat can make it hard to discern precisely what is going on during the battles, resulting in awkward pauses or getting lost. The graphical quality is acceptable for a title of its age, but the frequent pop-in of assets and characters can be very disorienting. This often results in never quite knowing when a fight is complete or being attacked by enemies that appear from nowhere.

Perhaps the most frustrating feature is the way mid-battle dialogue is handled. Throughout every battle, both friendly and enemy officers are constantly chatting. Sometimes, they are commenting on the ebb and flow of battle, while other times, it might be their rallying cries or important plot points. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to process all this information while in the middle of a fight. There is no English dub, which normally would not be an issue, but that means every single voice line appears in a text box that splashes across the middle of the screen during the fight. It’s not so bad that it obstructs your gameplay moment to moment, yet it is distracting, and because it is so hard to read them in real-time while also trying to play, they often disappear before being read. Add in how common they are, and it ends up being a recurring pop-up that blocks part of the screen without adding anything to the gameplay. On lower difficulties, you can slow down and read what they’re saying, and obviously, if you know Japanese, then this is a non-issue. However, for me, it was the most frequent issue I had while playing.

The other factor to consider is the price. At the time of writing, Samurai Warriors 4 DX retails for $50 or your regional equivalent. That’s not quite what a full-price game will run you these days (at either $60 or $70, depending), but it is not so far below that I would call it a budget title, either. Another thing to consider is that this is the complete game with no extra DLC to purchase, reducing the cost of buying and enjoying it in the long term. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is a pretty steep up-front cost for what is a pretty as-is port of a 5-year-old game that compiles all the bonus content for a 10-year-old game. Good port or not, it is still just a port. As a fan of the series, I think it’s a solid game for a decent price, but I can’t deny that the sticker shock is likely the most brutal battle you’ll face.

Samurai Warriors 4 DX is a great game. A metric ton of gameplay is on offer if you love barreling through armies of enemy soldiers, and the story is presented clearly and understandably. It performs excellently on desktop and Steam Deck to boot. There are a few hangups around the constant text boxes to read mid-battle and the relatively high price given the title’s age, but they aren’t enough to spoil the fast-paced, frenzied fun.