Cutting down your foes with spear, sword or scythe, Warriors Orochi 2 delivers you more warriors and mayhem. New and exciting features added for more replay value will have you glued to the screen, plus a new force you can choose from is pretty sweet as well. Does this game stand up to the task of making you spend hours on end leveling up all your warriors and obtaining their weapons like the others had done?
Yes, it does and even more so with this sequel. Just to get the bad stuff taken care of before I talk about the goods, you will come across slow downs in battle. A lot, actually. It can get annoying at first, but once you killed a hundred or so, then you’ll notice how quickly the game speed picks up. What’s funny about this, is that the graphics are that of a PS2 not a 360. It’s not surprising, but it shows the laziness of the developers. If you’re going to make a game multi-platform, then at least make the effort to give the customers more for their buck.
The graphics from Dynasty Warriors 6 could have been used since the 360 can handle what that game pull off. Hundreds of enemies surrounding you and not a single slow down to break that feeling of immersion. Also, there were supposed to be “secrets exposed” about Orochi’s back story, and not to spoil anything but there’s not much to it. In fact, the “secrets” won’t even matter or get you interested as to why Orochi is doing all of this. It’s just another excuse to have a Warriors Orochi sequel, that’s all.
New characters are introduced, be it from the Dynasty or Samurai series, and seven new ones in this game. While they are fun to play as, the relevance of having them in there is kinda weak. Three of these new characters want to bring back Orochi while the other three are are trying to stop them. The last one, I have yet to figure out. Of course, Da Ji comes back and you never get the chance to cut that bitch’s head off. I swear to fucking God, that I would it if I was able to impale her on Tadakatsu’s spear as a finishing move. Some how, she escapes from battle right when you beat her. And even in the last battle, she’s all like “Oh poor me! Looks like I’ll have to stop playing around next time.” Next time? Bitch, I just whooped your ass! Her, Himiko and that damn monkey should’ve been killed off in this game.
Which leads me to another annoying bit, and that is the voice acting. I loved the VA (voice acting) in DW6, but it took three steps back in WO2. You can’t hear the anger, sadness or humor in these characters. Not only that, but the acting is awful as well! Most of these characters act too damn cute for a bloody battle! It’s a mesh mash of Japanese school girl cute acts mixed with light fantasy violence. The trouble brews even more when they try to act tough and give off a sense of realism. Sorry, but you guys fucking failed on this one.
There are two new demons added in as well, and both are pretty spiffy looking. One of them is freakin’ huge while the other is small but fast. And that’s it. Nothing new in the demonic department. It’s like the creativity of having demons in this game went down hill. Since there are more supernatural forces at work here, I expected more demonic creatures and environments. Instead we’re served with plain ol’ bipedal demons that look like humans but with a different skin texture. I wanted to see vile creatures you’d see in nightmares or mythical looking demons from the Japanese and Chinese lore. But no, none of that because that would make you guys happy and create too much work for the peeps at KOEI.
Now onto the good news! You start off with the forces like last time, but you can play Orochi’s force as well! Right from the get-go, you can play as the Serpent King himself, unleashing devastation and slaughter where ever you go. He’s a broken character, just like in the first game. Da Ji is still a bitch to fight and play as, but her new companions are worth the time to know. Himiko plays just like Da Ji, but with some alternate moves. Sun Wukong is the monkey demon that shares a familiar resemblance to Son Gokou from Dragon Ball Z. He carries a bo staff and glides on the ground on a cloud… Hmmm… His attitude is that of carelessness and being playful, but the voice acting is horrible. When beaten, he has this cheery attitude and flies away on his magical cloud.
It’s as though all these characters are from a happy place where they dance around gum drop trees and they play so innocently. If you’re a demon and hell bent on enslaving all of mankind, I wouldn’t be fucking around. This is what needs to happen in the next Orochi, if they decide to make one; Have finishing moves so that you can kill off a character, for good. As I said before, I want to cut off Da Ji’s head in front of her troops to lower their morale. After that, stick it on a flag pike and carry it with me to the next battle, showing how fucking bad ass I am. Have my soldiers set fire to the dead bodies and then fling them to the enemy camps. Anything to make this game as bloody and sick like it should have been. The style of this game is just too damn cute for it to be taken seriously!
Aside from that, the ability to create new weapon skills is interesting, but not worth the time or effort. Just stick with weapon fusions and you’ll do just fine. Then there’s the Dream Mode, where more story line is revealed and you can obtain more upgrade points, powers and weapons. It’s a good thing to have in case if you’re not looking into battling in the Story Mode to level up your character. Also, beating a scenario in Dream Mode will unlock more scenarios. Then again, you could always play Free Mode to level up your guys.
Well, that’s it for this game. I wish that there were more good things to say about this game, but there isn’t. Too bad, it had potential if KOEI got off their lazy ass and developed more for the 360 version.
