If the Musou series can boast of having one of the most consistent longevity of video games, it is largely thanks to its ability to offer a completely uninhibited release combined with a desire to always offer better over the episodes and to an ability to diversify by offering spin-offs with their own and different characteristics compared to the main series, sometimes eyeing anime (One Piece, Hokuto No Ken, Gundam), sometimes other games (Dragon Quest, Zelda).
Among these spin-offs, the Samurai bent is probably the one that has had its roots the most rooted in the basic concept, and for good reason, since we are on the same theme of reuniting a country as in the original game.
However, that's not to say the Samurai hasn't gone its own way, and that's what we'll see in the Samurai Warriors 5 review.
Far from the madness - not to say debacle - of Dynasty Warriors 9 and its open world, Samurai Warriors 5 has decided to take a few steps back and offer a more intimate and more scripted experience. This translates into a story mode, called Musou, which takes place from the point of view of certain central characters in the unification of Japan, and no longer from the perspective of events in which we throw characters. On paper one might think that this does not change anything but, concretely, the player, if he loses in number of playable participants, gains in narrative intensity. This does not mean that the roster of playable characters is puny either, since it is still composed of about forty playable Japanese historical heads, each with their favorite type of weapon, but all able to wield each genre. weapons and deploy its potential by killing opponents with them.
And this is a bit of the prowess of this opus: to provide flexibility by offering characters, weapons, story and allowing the player to nest these elements and many others in the way he wishes.
So be careful, we are still dealing with pure Musou with his hordes of enemies to humiliate in packs of 100, his spectacular attacks, his non-stop action and his camera which is still just as crazy and heavy to manage.
By that I mean that since the beginning of the series, since the Playstation 2 era, the camera has always been a concern. Admittedly, it has been greatly improved, but we are once again faced with unplayability due to the illegibility of the action, which is very annoying when we find ourselves near a vertical wall. It's been 24 years, guys. Maybe we should fix this problem once and for all, don't you think?
Since I'm talking about technical issues, let's talk about this bug that launches a loop of backup requests that only stops once you refuse by selecting "no", thereby making it impossible to save anything afterwards. .. And that if you have the misfortune to do afterwards, regardless of the number of intermediate missions, a manual save, the game erases the presence of your save(s)... Fortunately, a reboot of the game solves the problem and , normally, the backups made just before the triggering of this loop are still there, at least if you were lucky like me, but it sucks as a thing when that happens (twice during the gameplay phase of this test) .
It's a shame that these 2 points taint the board a little because this Samurai Warriors 5 is really very pleasant to play with an escalation of combos, techniques, ultimates which combine with exemplary fluidity, leaving room for a fun you can't purer if you are a fan of the Beat Them All genre.
Especially since the game is not content with the story mode, but offers a development of your domain, a bit like but less advanced opus Empire. In this mode called Citadel, you will have the opportunity to glean resources, gold, but also boost your friendship with a partner with whom you can switch with a simple press of a button in order to manage several points simultaneously in dedicated missions. Moreover, it is a feature that will be grafted into the Musou mode after having progressed a little in the story. And this is not the only point, since the game likes to encourage in this way to switch from one mode to another to add new features and options. Ingenious progressiveness for players to explore all the game has to offer.
Moreover, for once, we are entitled to the return of the 2-player mode in split screen locally or each at home online.
- Xbox One (tested version)
- PlayStation 4
- Steam
- Nintendo Switch
