#Sengoku Musou 1

[butchered-cherry]

pt.1 of ice cream flavours I think sengoku musou characters would like :]

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 6: Samurai Warriors 1 Spinoffs (State of War/Pachislot)

Samurai Warriors State of War (激・戦国無双) Platforms: PSP Release dates: Japan: 8 December 2005 USA: 7 March 2006 Europe: 24 March 2006

Like Dynasty Warriors before it, Samurai Warriors has also released spinoffs that explore new concepts or take advantage of the technology in new consoles. The amount of spinoffs that Koei and Koei Tecmo released can feel daunting and wasteful, but the purpose of this series is to determine their merits and call out their faults.

With that in mind, let's continue with the two spinoffs for Samurai Warriors 1.

Samurai Warriors State of War

Like Dynasty Warriors before it, Samurai Warriors has its own spinoff for the PSP called State of War, or Geki Sengoku Musou in Japanese.

The Story Modes for each character vary depending on the character, though they do share scenarios most of the time and some characters do have their own scenarios. All characters from Xtreme Legends are featured and are split into three groups, namely the Oda, the Eastern Warriors and the Western Warriors. The Tokugawa are kind of unique as they only share one scenario with the Eastern Warriors instead of two.

Unlike the Dynasty Warriors PSP game, stages are in a grid format rather than an area format. Each enemy space you go to will have a mission, whether it is to defeat enemy unit leaders, defeat as many enemies as possible, or preventing enemy spies from causing a mutiny among others. At the end of the mission, you will get an A/B/C rating that will allow you to move 1 to 3 spaces depending on what you get.

Throughout the stage, you can obtain charms from defeating enemy officers or passing chests. These charms can affect enemies or benefit your allies. Some of them can take effect in a wider area and some of them continue to be effective as long as you have them. Aside from these battle charms, you can also earn tactic charms that can open gates and dams or deactivate cannons.

During the battle, you can obtain weapons like you would in the vanilla game. You can also obtain subofficers that give you stat buffs, abilities or charms from the start of the battle (subofficers don't cost anything, but you can only have one playable/Musou subofficer). The Level 4 weapons are unlockable on Hard or Chaos difficulties. Skills are also obtained when you level up or defeat certain officers in Story Mode.

Characters from Dynasty Warriors 4 also appear as subofficers (like how the Samurai Warriors characters appeared in the Dynasty Warriors PSP game) and in the final Ultimate Warriors story. It's pretty interesting to see the beginnings of a concept that would become a mainstay in the future.

Like the Dynasty Warriors PSP game before it, State of War is another great adaptation of the main Samurai Warriors game, showing how you don't necessarily need to fully adapt the main game to provide a fun experience on the go.

Samurai Warriors Pachislot (Pachislot Sengoku Musou)

Pachislot Sengoku Musou (パチスロ戦国無双) Platforms: PS3 Release dates: Japan: 6 September 2007

Imagine going down the pub and seeing this among the pokies. Slot machines based on licenced franchises are not a new thing, but I don't pay much attention to them, whether I'm at the casino or at the pub, because I'm not much of a gambling person when it comes to money. My dad used to buy lottery tickets sometimes when I was little, but he doesn't do it anymore now. Scratchie tickets are a rare occurrence, but even then they're gifts from his boss.

Yamasa Entertainment has licenced Koei's IP to make pachislots of the first three Samurai Warriors games, but only the first one was made into a PS3 game in 2007 for the Yamasa Digital Slot World series (because adapting further sequels would be more of the same anyway). As such, this allows the first four generations of Samurai Warriors games to be represented on the PlayStation 3 (Yes, Warriors Orochi exists, but I'll get to that later). For a time I wasn't able to play it until I realised that I had to decrypt the ISO, after which I managed to get it working. Same goes for a few other games that I downloaded for the sake of it.

Look, this game is just a simulation of the actual game running inside a simulation of the pachislot machine. You use the controller to enter credits, start the reels and stop each individual one. Pressing Select allows you to switch the camera focus between the reels and the screen where all the CGs are displayed, while pressing L3 switches you into a free camera mode.

The main characters playable in this are Yukimura, Keiji and Hanzō, with others appearing in events. You can view the CG loops and events for the three of them in the Museum.

Simulation Mode is just as what it says on the tin. It allows you to set the frequency chance multiplier for bonuses so that they can appear more often. Practice Mode allows you to simulate a machine in a shop that has been open X out of Y hours, accumulating simulated playtime from previous plays. I think this sets a benchmark for up to 6 settings in Simulation Mode but I'm not even sure what it even does. You can activate the Auto Play so you don't have to do much.

There are three modes to be played in Challenge Mode; there is Medal Attack, where you play to see how many medals you get in 300 plays; Sengoku Rush Attack, where you play to see how long you can keep the Sengoku Rush replay sequence going for; and Bonus Attack, where you have 40 plays in the Big Bonus Game to see how many times you can fill your Musou gauge, or rather, trigger the minigame event with the Strike Ninja and beat him by getting a bonus reel, namely a kanji symbol in each reel. I have no idea what "Bell Musou Gauge" even is.

Yeah look, this isn't something I'm going to be that serious in reviewing. If I can play something to try it out I'll definitely do it, but if I can't enjoy it properly for whatever reason then I'm just going to talk about it a little and move on. This game was a thing and that's it.

We're sailing back to China next time as we get into the pinnacle of classic era Koei Warriors with Dynasty Warriors 5.

[ariparri]

Samurai Warriors Masterlist

A list of all my artworks for Koei Tecmo's Samurai Warriors series. Mostly contains OC content with some fanart.

Blog Masterpost | Dynasty Warriors | Sengoku Basara

Mayu

Samurai Warriors 5

Archive Bio

Musou Art

SW4 Reference

Kana

Nobunaga's Ambition

Musou Art

Archive Bio

WO4 Design

Cherry Blossoms

SW4 Reference (Outdated)

Yasohime

Archive Bio

Reference

Nobunaga's Ambition

First Mission

Momoka

Archive Bio

Reference (Outdated)

Other Content

Templates

Expression Chart

SW4 Reference Sheet

SW4 Character Bio/Archives

Fanart

Multiverse KiyoKana

Mother and Daughter (Kana & Yaso)

Valentine's KiyoKana

Mitsunari Ishida

Kunoichi Alt. Design 1

Kunoichi Alt. Design 2

Sisters

Idiot Trio's Wives

Ninja Training

Pool Party

Li Dian's Pursuers

DianAi & KiyoKana

Crane Wife (KiyoKana)

Secret Santa

Alternate Designs

Mistletoe (KiyoKana)

Secret Santa

Yurami

Miname x Nagatada

Nohime

Aya

Nene

Gracia

WO4 Dream Team

Unlikely Duo

Gracia

Chibi Tachibana

Couple Arts

Lady Yamanote

Idiot Trio Halloween

Kana's Onigiri

Collabs

Art Trade

Art Trades

Art Trade

[necromancer-4-hire]

1: Shinnok: Mortal Kombat.

2: Raziel: Legacy of Kain

3: DIO Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OVA

4: Halloween Michael Myers

5: Mono Little Nightmares 2

6: SAW Mark Hoffman

7: Frankenstein's monster

8: Kanetsugu Naoe Sengoku Musou

9: Creepy pasta Laughing Jack

10: Tiberius Kingdom of Heaven

10 characters, 10 fandoms, 10 tags

Tagged a while ago by @ablatheringblatherskite (thanks! :D)

Edmund Pevensie (Narnia)

Snotlout Jorgenson (HTTYD shows)

Charlie Dalton (Dead Poet’s Society)

Tony Stark (MCU)

Elizabeth Turner, née Swann (POTC)

Gimli (LOTR)

Chuck Bartowski (Chuck NBC)

Robert Chase (House MD)

Linus van Pelt (Peanuts)

Thomas Palmer (Sense and Sensibility)

no pressure tags (feel free to ignore if you've already done this!): @chaotic-bumblebee-agenda @sliverswords @friendrat @myfairkatiecat @whilewewereyetsinners @i-fear-neither-death-nor-pain @restbeyondtheriver @lightthewaybackhome @frustrated-writer-skyeknight @rosiethedragongeek

[simayeeet]

i thought this was an ok thing to do

[satoshi-mochida]

Koei Tecmo will release Touken Ranbu Warriors digitally for Switch on May 24, 2022 in North America and Europe, the publisher announced.

In Japan, Touken Ranbu Warriors is due out for Switch and PC via DMM Games Player on February 17, 2022.

Here is an overview of the game, via Koei Tecmo:

Touken Ranbu Warriors is the first-ever console game in the Touken Ranbu series. The all-new experience promises to combine the Touken training of the Touken Ranbu -ONLINE- simulation game with the breathtaking action of Koei Temco’s popular Warriors musou series, delivering must-play 1 vs. 1,000 combat.

Touken Ranbu Warriors features 15 characters from Touken Ranbu -ONLINE-, where famous swords take the form of warriors named Touken Danshi (swordsmen), and the elite fighters are sworn to protect history. In Touken Ranbu Warriors, members of Touken Danshi have been drifting through time without their master—the Saniwa—to lead them, when they are suddenly attacked by the fearsome History Retrograde Army (HRA). After the initial conflict, the Touken Danshi are approached by the Government of the Time, and sent on a mission into the war-torn Sengoku Era where the revision of Japanese history is already underway. Can the Touken Danshi heroes restore order while restoring the original timeline? The fierce but beautiful battles of the Touken Danshi are finally a reality!

The game is set to feature the electrifying musou action fans expect from a Warriors title including battling alongside partner characters and head-to-head duels against enemies! Touken Ranbu Warriors also features the “Honmaru,” the main base of our heroes. Here, you can freely place members of the Touken Danshi in order to get a glimpse of their daily lives that can only be experienced in this game.

The rousing action of Touken Ranbu Warriors will be on full display during this year’s Tokyo Game Show. On October 2, beginning at 23:00 JST, an exclusive first-look will be showcased as part of the official TGS 2021 Online DMM Special Program, with the highly-anticipated segment simultaneously interpreted in English. To watch the presentation, please visit the official DMM Games YouTube channel.

Watch the announcement trailer and presentation video below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery. Visit the official website here: English, Japanese.

Announce Trailer

Presentation Video

[onioncatalogue]

Sengoku Musou 2 Original Sound Track Album disc 1 & 2 scans

source: VGMdb

[mitsundere]

i'm getting back into my really old interests and i'm scared of what i'll get into next... so far (in order):

1. fire emblem (2015??)

2. sengoku basara (2016?)

3. sengoku musou / samurai warriors (2018?)(slight)

4. one punch man (2015)

it's getting older and older and, knowing my interests pre-2015..... not pretty good 😭

[samuraifacts]

The True Cost of an Alliance

 So for anyone who doesn’t know I am unapologetically a fan of the Sengoku Musou/Samurai Warriors series.  While It was actually the series Kessen that got me into the Sengoku Period to begin with it was Sengoku Musou that really helped keep me interested in the era. With Samurai Warriors 5 coming this year and the introduction of a rather unexpected character named Sena (whom I will be referring to as Lady Tsukiyama) I thought this would be the perfect time to discuss one of the most infamous incidents of the period.    This is a facts tumblr so I’m not going to really touch on them until after the story is done, but I will start by saying that this event has spawned several tales of both ghosts and curses throughout Japanese history. Now that I have your attention let me set the scene for you. It is the year 1579. Oda Nobunaga and his clan have taken over all of central Japan. To the West is the Mori clan, and to the East is the Uesugi. The mighty Takeda clan had been decimated at the battle of Nagashino and the Oda-Tokugawa alliance was taking over more and more Takeda land by the year. While the Takeda’s home province of Kai would not fall for another four years, no one would consider the Takeda clan a viable opponent to the Oda-Tokugawa alliance at this point.    Nobunaga’s alliance with Ieyasu, forged after the fall of the Imagawa in 1560 and sealed three years later in 1563 by a marriage of Nobunaga’s five year old daughter Tokuhime to Ieyasu’s five year old son Nobuyasu was considered unparalleled at this point. However, in 1579 Ieyasu would learn the true cost of this alliance. His eldest son Nobuyasu was considered a rising star in Japanese politics. He seemed to have a natural talent for leadership and battle alike and was being perfectly groomed by Ieyasu to be the next head of the Tokugawa clan. He had a loving wife whom he treated well and was said to be quite popular across the Tokugawa and Oda controlled provinces. Ieyasu even put Nobuyasu in charge of his home castle, Okazaki. Nobuyasu was deeply loved by his father and adored by his mother Lady Tsukiyama. So much so, in fact, that his wife Tokuhime apparently had a long standing grudge with her mother in law. While we don’t know the exact reason some speculate that the two butted heads quite a bit over what was best for Nobuyasu, how Tokuhime could be a better wife, and what Tokuhime could and couldn’t do to properly respect her inlaws. One tale states that Tokuhime only gave birth to two daughters for Nobuyasu and failed to produce an heir. Wanting a grandson Lady Tsukiyama arranged for the daughter of a Takeda retainer to become Nobuyasu's concubine in hopes of the concubine having a son. While this certainly wasn’t unheard of at this time it apparently this didn’t sit well with the 21 year old.    I want to take a brief pause to say that some sources also say that Tokuhime and Nobuyasu’s marriage was horrible, Nobuyasu was a mama’s boy, he never took his wife’s side and despised her for arguing with his mother, etc. etc. but we can’t verify any of that and given that Tokuhime didn’t seem to have any direct problem with Nobuyasu himself I’m going to say this was unlikely. Anyway, back to the story of Nobunaga’s angry daughter.    Deciding she had enough of her mother in law’s interference into her marriage Tokuhime wrote a letter to her father. For anyone who knows about Nobunaga, I’m sure you’ve realized this can’t go anywhere good. Tokuhime told her father that since the concubine was from the Takeda, clearly Ieasyu’s wife was colluding with the Takeda forces and had been in direct contact with Takeda Katsuyori to undermine the Oda-Tokugawa alliance and possibly even get the Tokugawa to switch sides. Obviously this didn’t sit well with Nobunaga and Nobunaga demanded that in order to keep the Oda-Tokugawa alliance alive Ieyasu would have to execute his wife.    Understanding how important the alliance was, being aware that his son had in fact received a Takeda clan daughter as a concubine, and not wanting a war to break out in which he would be pinned between the Oda, Hojo, and Takeda, Ieyasu agreed. On 9 September 1579, Lady Tsukiyama (Sena in Samurai Warriors 5) was beheaded on the shore of Lake Sanaru, in Hamamatsu on Ieyasu’s order. Her primary grave is at Seiryū temple in Hamamatsu. However, her head rests in Hachioji Shrine. Sadly the tragedy doesn’t stop there. Remember the entire point of this was to maintain the Oda-Tokugawa alliance. Nobuyasu now had a reason to despise the Oda and when he became head of the Tokugawa household would likely have no sympathy if the Oda ever found themselves in danger. Knowing that his son would now have a grudge Ieyasu would also order his first born son, the rising star Nobuyasu, to commit seppuku. This meant Tokuhime would live the rest of her days as a widow, returning to the Oda clan and that leadership of the Tokugawa after Ieyasu died would go to Tokugawa Hidetada. ultimately this would prove a good thing as it would mean Hidetada’s son Iemitsu would become Shogun. Though we are left to wonder how history may have changed if Nobuyasu had been allowed to live or if his wife never sent that letter to Nobunaga.   Now as I said at the opening this in and of itself isn’t a ghost story. However, for the next 400+ years several tales would arise of seeing the ghosts of Lady Tsukiyama and Matsudaira Nobuyasu. When Nobunaga died a few years later at the hands of his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide some would say it was Lady Tsukiyama’s curse. Some would even go so far as to say that it was actually planned out by the Akechi and Tokugawa together in revenge for the loss of Ieyasu’s son and wife. Even when it came to Ieyasu losing the battle of Komaki and Nagakute it would be labeled as his late wife’s curse. Just like at any point throughout history whenever something bad happened to the Oda or the Tokugawa people would be quick to find a horrible story from the past and claim that it must be a curse from someone involved with that event.    Will Sena’s fate be the same in Samurai Warriors 5? I doubt it. Koei tends to leave out particularly gruesome things like this from their titles. However, it will be curious to see what fate they have in store for Ieayasu’s wife and how long she lasts within the game’s world. Though, some of you may recognize this story from Nioh 1 as the wraith of Lady Tsukiyama appears as a demon mourning the death of her son before attacking William.

[neobrogrippa]

What Do I Do Until SM5?

  Alright. Here you are. You have finished watching Friday’s livestream, you are all excited for Samurai Warriors 5, you have looked at the calendar ANNNDDD you have now realized we are still several weeks away from the game’s release. So, what do you do now? Well, Today I have come to offer some things to help pass the time until Samurai Warriors 5 is released. I will be offering various games and projects in various genres and platforms that may help either sustain you until SM5 or help build up your hype even more! I have even organized then by genre. I will not be including any other games in the Sengoku Musou series in this list. 1. Pre-Order The Game On Your Platform of Choice: No. Really. Remember to Pre-order the game if you haven’t already. It is great to be hyped but let Koei know that we love this franchise and hunger for it. 2. Mobile Games: If you are in Japan you have so many Sengoku based mobile games to choose from that it is mind blowing. In the west, however, it is a bit tougher. So I am going to suggest two. -Dating: Ikemen Sengoku: If you want historic accuracy this is seriously not the right game for you. It is several famous samurai as very pretty men all wanting to steal your heart and your attention. While some of the events may be a bit of a money grab on the part of the company who runs it the storylines and events are fantastic and the community is amazing. I recommend this highly! -Collection/Card/RPG: Touken Ranbu: For those who haven’t heard the famous Japanese mobile game “Touken Ranbu Online” launches in the west on Tuesday and I am hyped! It is a great game similar to Kantai Collection (Kancolle) or Sengoku Asuka Zero. Famous weapons as cool looking samurai guys! You can pre-register HERE. 3. Portable Games: Now, several of these games are also on Steam, the PS4, and possible even Xbox. However I am going to focus on games on the Vita and Switch. -PSVita: Toukiden, Toukiden Kiwami, Toukiden 2: Also on PS4 and Steam. I love this game so much. Toukiden and it’s upgrade Toukiden Kiwami are by Koei! Think of monster hunter but with a super heavy samurai feel to it! Fight horrible, giant yokai and craft amazing armor and weapons from their flesh! -PSVita: Muramasa The Demon Blade: Also on Wii this game is a fun side scrolling RPG with plenty of hack n’ slash all about leveling up the special weapons you get all with crazy powers and different magic abilities associated with them! -Switch: Fighting Game: Samurai Shodown: The new release/reboot of the classic fighting game series Samurai Shodown has met with great success. Set in the Edo Period you have fighters from all over the world but the game has a very heavy Japanese feel to it with Kabuki based characters, samurai based characters, ninja, priestesses, and all kinds of other unique fighters with their own themes and movesets! 4. Console Games: Games that you can sit down and play on Playstation, Xbox, or Steam. -RPG/Souls Like: Nioh and Nioh 2: I can’t say enough about these games. They are brutal, violent, and wonderful. Feudal Japan is full of Yokai for you to fight and slay your way through. While the story is full of demons, ghosts, and corruption Nioh (focusing on Sekigahara) and Nioh 2 (Focusing on the rise and fall of Toyotomi Hideyoshi) offer great incite in the era and strangely enough have some of the most historicly accurate portrayels I’ve ever seen when it comes to people of the time period. -RPG: Way of the Samurai 3: A unique RPG set in the Sengoku Era. Run around and collect weapons and play a fun, short story with a lot of different endings. -Strategy: Nobunaga’s Ambition Series: A wonderful series. These games take several days worth of play time to beat but they are a great experience for those that like strategy, town planning, and resource management. -Strategy/Military: Total War Shogun 2: If you enjoy samurai and the Sengoku Jidai and resource management but want more exciting combat and a larger focus on combat compared to Nobunaga’s Ambition check out this great came that, in spite of it’s age, is still played by many across the world even today. 5. Youtube and Podcasts: I know this isn’t quite as action packed as anything else I mentioned but for those that want to keep the hype up, brush up on history, and listen to something awesome I have three offerings for you. -Podcast: Samurai Archives: A great podcast hosted by great people who know their stuff. Every episode is focused on something from the Sengoku Era and I can’t recommend it enough. -Podcast: History of Japan: This podcast by Issac Meyer is great. He covers far more than just the Sengoku Era but he covers his topics thoroughly and passionately. He recently did a series of episodes on the Azai Sisters and as a large Azai fan myself I couldn’t help but be thrilled about it. -Youtube: The Shogunate: The Shogunate is a cool dude. He hosts Shogun 2 Total War tournaments and has very informative episodes organized into playlists about the history of the Sengoku Jidai.  6. Roleplay Forums: I’m going to shamelessly plug my own roleplay forum on this list. No one can stop me. For those not familiar with the concept you make your own original character(s) then you and others write a story based on those characters, taking turns to describe what your character is doing in various situation. So you might have a roleplay about your character and another having a dinner conversation, or being in a large fight against an enemy army! It is creative writing at it’s finest and is like D&D but with pen and paper. -Modern Era: Sengoku Horizon: It is a fantastic forum with a very niche theme. In modern times the Tokugawa government and it’s feudal system not got overthrown. Samurai, ninja, and lords still exist! You get to play as a college or high school student at a prestigious academy training the future leaders of Japan and can make a character that carries both a katana and cell phone in this exciting mix of modern life and Sengoku Era concepts.

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 11: Warriors Orochi 1 & 2

Warriors Orochi (無双OROCHI) Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, PC Release dates: Japan: 21 March 2007 (PS2), 13 September 2007 (Xbox 360), 21 February 2008 (PSP), 20 March 2008 (PC) USA: 18 September 2007 (PS2/Xbox 360), 25 March 2008 (PSP/PC) Europe: 21 September 2007 (PS2/Xbox 360), 28 March 2008 (PSP/PC)

The era of the PlayStation 2 was reaching its conclusion and the gaming industry was beginning to move onto the PlayStation 3, just as it did with the Xbox and Xbox 360 a couple years earlier. Dynasty Warriors and with it, the Warriors series, was also approaching its tenth anniversary in 2007, hence it was decided to create a crossover game between Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. The game served multiple purposes; to farewell the sixth generation of gaming consoles (namely the PS2 and the original Xbox), to celebrate 10 years of Koei Warriors games, and to provide fanservice wish fulfilment for both developers and fans alike. The game was called Warriors Orochi.

The first I heard of this game was when my cousin, who had played the first Dynasty Warriors PSP game, teased a game that combined Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors together. I got to play the first battle for a little while, then later I got Warriors Orochi 2 on the PSP and focused on playing that; I didn't even get the first game until quite later. Some years later, I bought Warriors Orochi on PS2 at a discount around 2012-13 (when the PS2 was starting to become obselete), then I got Warriors Orochi 2 from an online store the year after just so I could play both games in English. When the lockdown happened in 2020, one of the games I played was Warriors Orochi Z on my potato PC, which was still decent even if the cutscenes and True Musous lagged.

Anyway, the retrospective starts after the break.

Warriors Orochi

The main and only mode that matters in this game is the Story Mode. In each story, you start off with a team of three characters, then you unlock more as you progress through the story. Once you have cleared the story, those characters can then be used in other cleared stories and you will be able to use characters from other stories in that story. By the time you clear all the stories in the game, Free Mode is essentially redundant except for if you don't want to change your teams in Story Mode.

The Shu, Wei and Wu kingdoms of Dynasty Warriors, along with Samurai Warriors as a whole each get stories of eight main stages plus seven side battles (aka X/Gaiden stages) for a total of 15. The eighth (or rather, seventh) side stage is unlocked by completing a special condition in the seventh stage. In those stages, you will also be able to face Orochi if you have cleared the eighth main stage at Koshi Castle.

The game and the subsequent series as a whole takes place in an alternate dimension, combining characters and locations from the late-Han and Three Kingdoms periods of ancient China with the Sengoku era of Japan. The dimension was created by the Serpent King Orochi, whose army of demons conquered all armies of both lands, causing them to be scattered or absorbed into the Orochi Army.

Shu's story begins with Zhao Yun being locked at Ueda Castle, with his lord Liu Bei believed to be dead until he freed by Zuo Ci with the help of Xingcai and Yoshihiro Shimazu. Zuo Ci tells Zhao Yun to flee and he does, meeting up with Yoshihiro's rival, Ginchiyo Tachibana, on the way. While gathering up the remnants of Shu forces including Yueying and Wei Yan, Zhao Yun is confronted multiple times by Zhuge Liang, who is currently serving Orochi for reasons he does not divulge to anyone.

Wei's story follows Cao Pi and Mitsunari Ishida, the former serving the Orochi Army after his father, Cao Cao was apparently killed in the initial battle against Orochi. Throughout his story, Cao Pi works to gather Wei officers under secret pretences.

Wu's story follows Sun Ce, whose family serves the Orochi Army alongside Ieyasu Tokugawa. Sun Ce is dissatisfied with his servitude until he is approached by Sakon Shima, who reveals to him where his father is being held. Sun Ce goes to rescue his father, but is forced to flee without him when the Orochi Army catches up with them. This then causes a rift between Sun Ce and his younger siblings, who are still serving under Orochi.

And finally, the Samurai Warriors story follows Nobunaga Oda as he travels the lands, recruiting officers such as Guan Ping, Huang Zhong and Zhang Jiao under his banner while also hoping to entice Xiahou Dun and Sun Ce (through Sakon) along with the Takeda and Uesugi into fighting Orochi.

Just out of interest, what clans and factions are fighting with or against Orochi (aside from the main ones)? Starting on the Orochi Army's side, there are Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Masamune Date and Keiji Maeda, and with them are smaller warlords like Yuan Shu, Tao Qian, Zhang Lu and the warlords of Wujun along with the Miyoshi, Hōjō, Mōri, Satake and Mogami clans. As for the clans against Orochi, there are the Yellow Turbans, the Nanman and the Saika Renegades along with the Chōsokabe, Azai, Asakura and Imagawa clans. And then there's Kotarō Fūma who's just there to spread chaos as he can be seen fighting against both the resistance and the Orochi Army.

All characters and battlefields from DW5 and SW2 are featured. In the case of Goemon Ishikawa, Kunoichi and Yoshimoto Imagawa who were cut from SW2, they appear in their SW1 designs. Although Hideyoshi, Yoshimoto, Tadakatsu and Ina made their playable debuts in SW1XL, they are counted under SW2 in an effort to balance out the lineup against SW1. In regards to DW5's stages, Guan Yu's Escape is known as the Five Gates and The Trials of Sun Ce is known as Jianye Castle. As for SW2's stages, Kuzegawa and Tetorigawa are included as separate stages taking place at day and night respectively, with only the latter being represented in the original game's Free Mode.

Tadakatsu Honda and Lu Bu are unlocked by impressing them in the seventh and eighth side stages for each story respectively; impressing Tadakatsu requires some effort, but impressing Lu Bu just involves defeating him without running away from him. While many characters are unlocked as you play through the story, characters who are unlocked in side stages are only unlocked after fulfilling certain requirements, some of them easier than others. As such, those unlockable officers will appear in stages as third-party troops/armies fighting with your allies. This is how I got the misconception that third-party armies in Samurai Warriors were allies when they were actually enemies.

The original characters in this game are Orochi, the Serpent King, and his strategist Da Ji, who essentially does most of the work pitting humans against each other while Orochi seeks out warriors who can defeat him, which eventually happens in the final chapter of each story. Orochi's army does have its own generic officers, named after supernatural beings in the Japanese script or snakes in the English script.

The battle mechanics of this game are similar to that of SW2, but each character retains the movesets used from their games of origin. Dynasty Warriors characters are able to use their Evolution Attacks as part of their Normal Attacks after reaching level 19. Special Skills for Samurai Warriors have either been scrapped or worked into their Type Action special attacks, which are activated by pressing R1.

Starting from this game, all characters can summon their horses by pressing Select. Horses cannot be summoned within the castles of Samurai Warriors battlefields and Dynasty Warriors characters cannot perform their horseback C1s because that function is reserved for making the horse jump. You are also unable to change characters on horseback, which can be a bit annoying.

Orochi's moveset, being a character from Japanese mythology, follows the SW Charge Attack moveset, while Da Ji's moveset, being a character from Chinese history and folklore, follows the DW5 moveset. This pattern would continue for all original characters introduced to this series, albeit with some variations that will be covered when we get to them.

As is obvious, you play a team of three characters and switch between them in battle. While your other characters are in standby, their health and Musou will slowly recharge. You can still charge up your Musou Gauge by holding Circle, but your Musou Gauge does not fill up with attacks like in the main games. If you switch characters during a Musou Attack and immediately perform another one with them, you can perform a Musou Chain, which has them perform their True Musou while also adding an effect depending on their character type (Multi, Agility, Drain). The Musou kanji does not appear for Samurai Warriors characters.

Characters are divided into three character types, namely Power, Speed and Technique.

Power Characters have a Power Attack for their Type Action, which uses a good portion of their Musou Gauge to perform a powerful attack or buff the character briefly. They also have Hyper Armor which protects them from enemy attacks and arrows while the character is attacking.

Speed Characters have two Combination Maneuvers/Arts for their Type Action, which can be activated by pressing R1 on its own or while the analog stick is tilted. For most Speed characters, this doesn't cost any portion of their Musou Gauge, so it can be used even if the gauge is empty. They can also "double jump", or dash in the air by performing an Aerial Thrust and they can also cancel their own attacks by performing an Aerial Escape.

Technique Characters can perform Enhanced Strikes by pressing R1 in place of Triangle when you perform a Charge Attack, which really is just the same Charge Attack but in sanic speed. Each character has a special EX combination that performs a unique attack; for some characters it is the C1 so you just need to press R1, but for others it is performed in place of another Charge Attack. In addition, Technique characters can perform critical hits on airborne enemies with Charge Attacks or Enhanced Strikes, plus they can use a part of their Musou Gauge to perform a Counter Strike on enemies after taking damage.

Each character can keep up to eight weapons, which can be combined together by using the growth points you've earned in battle (which can also be used to level up characters). There are four levels of weapons for each character, with the fourth weapon available as random weapon drops on Hard (for stages with at least 3-stars) or Chaos (all stages) difficulty. Weapons can have a maximum of 8 attributes out of a total of 14.

18 types of skills are available of which 7 can be equipped at a time. All characters contribute a level to 4 skills, which can be unlocked by fulfilling the requirements, which usually involve achieving a certain amount of KOs or officer kills. Other conditions can be tacked onto them, namely time limits, maintaining your life over a certain amount or not using a Musou Attack or Type Action which uses any portion of your Musou Gauge. The Cavalier skill is the one that gives you a horse and maxing it out will allow you to use Red Hare or Matsukaze depending on what side your leading character came from (China or Japan).

Characters level up using the Samurai Warriors XP system (and not the backwards ranking system as used in Dynasty Warriors) to a maximum of level 99. There is also a Proficiency bar that increases after you defeat a certain number of enemies (with one officer being equal to 100 soldiers). The higher the Proficency (up to 9 bars), the stronger your Type Actions become.

Each character also has a unique item/treasure that can be obtained by fulfilling conditions on any difficulty akin to obtaining fourth weapons in the original games. Obtaining the unique items unlocks an image in the gallery for that character and makes the Type Actions even stronger.

In battle, you can rendezvous with your allies or form an alliance with a third-party army when you meet up with them. This doesn't really do much other than gradually recovering your life, but if an officer is struggling and you rendezvous with them, they can recover their health once. Also, there are secret dialogues (and events) available when you play as certain characters and approach certain officers on the battlefield, providing for some interesting interactions between the warriors of the Three Kingdoms and the Sengoku era.

This game has Xbox 360 and PC ports as well, both providing higher quality and additional gallery items for all characters. While the PC port does have the SafeDisk DRM, it apparently isn't used to run the game so later versions of Windows can open it easily.

A PSP port is also available and it is the first full Warriors game to be ported to the PSP, with full battlefields instead of split areas. Being a first attempt, the PSP port of this game is fairly cut down compared to other versions; battle events are replaced by kamishibai-esque still montages with character portraits, while other voices in battle are not included except for the usual officer defeated lines. The only movies in this game, namely the pre-rendered opening and ending movies for Story Mode, are played whole.

Warriors Orochi 2

Warriors Orochi 2 (無双OROCHI 魔王再臨) Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable Release dates: Japan: 3 April 2008 (PS2), 4 September 2008 (Xbox 360), 27 November 2008 (PSP) USA: 23 September 2008 (PS2/Xbox 360), 28 August 2009 (PSP) Europe: 19 September 2008 (PS2/Xbox 360), 4 September 2009 (PSP)

Koei pulled a Dynasty Warriors 2 with the naming of this game. Yes, this game is a sequel (or rather, a continuation) to the original Warriors Orochi, but presumably, Koei didn't know if they were going to make another Warriors Orochi game after this, so while the sequel (continuation) received a subtitle in Japan, the West just named it Warriors Orochi 2, meaning that future instalments in the West would be one more than what they were in Japan, just like Dynasty Warriors and Shin Sangoku Musou.

Given what we would see later, this game could be considered the "Ultimate" expansion of the original Warriors Orochi, but despite the subtitle in Japan, this game doesn't have the content of the original game with it. On the PS2 and PSP, having save data from the last game does let you unlock the first ability for all characters from the start.

On a side note, I did briefly take a look at the ISO sizes for both this and the last game along with the folder size of the next expansion and given their sizes, I think I can say that both games can fit on a dual layer DVD-9 disc, but Koei wasn't willing to do it given how many PS2 players had issues with SW2XL. There's probably no reason why they couldn't do it for the Xbox 360 either.

Elements from the Xtreme Legends expansions have been added to this game, which include 5 new characters (Toshiie, Motochika, Gracia, Kōjiro and Katsuie from SW2XL), the refreshed costume for Yoshimoto and 15 new stages. However, the C5s and C9s for Samurai Warriors characters have not been ported over, thereby nerfing the five new characters in their inclusion. As a result, the Samurai Warriors cast has also been split into three groups of 11-12 characters to balance them out once again, creating the misconception that there were three Samurai Warriors games when at the time, there were only two.

In terms of stages, 15 stages from the original game (including Tedorigawa/Kuzegawa, Xiliang, Jieting, Tianshui, Xiakou, Mt. Dingjun and the ministages of DW5) have not been carried over to the continuation in favour of stages from the Xtreme Legends expansions. Out of the new stages from DW5XL, The Two Qiaos (Jiangdong) and The Ten Eunuchs' Rebellion (Luoyang Castle) have not been adapted into this game. Of note, the Battle of Jing Province in Dream Mode uses the Mt Kunlun map as used in DW5XL's Struggle for the Book, which kind of makes sense because it's a rehash of the parent stage.

An additional four original stages have been added in addition to Koshi Castle from the first game, namely Itsukushima, the Wuhang Mountains, Yamatai and Hinokawa.

The new original characters in this game are as follows:

Taigong Wang

Sun Wukong

Fu Xi

Nuwa

Yoshitsune Minamoto

Kiyomori Taira

Himiko

Orochi X

Dodomeki

Gyūki

Fu Xi and Nuwa return from DW3, bringing their weapons that had been used by edit characters in DW4 and 5. Dodomeki and Gyūki are also the root models for two new types of Orochian generic officers, the English script naming them after spiders for the former and minerals for the latter.

The game's Story Mode is set some time after Orochi's defeat (Japanese Wikipedia says a month) where the remnants of Orochi's forces have scattered and created their own armies to rule the land while Da Ji and Kiyomori Taira work behind the scenes to unite them as they plot to revive Orochi. The Three Kingdoms of Shu, Wei and Wu along with Sakon Shima, the new protagonist of the Samurai Warriors story, are joined by mysterious characters as they inform the heroes about their new enemies and the revival of Orochi. There is also an additional story set before the first game covering the story of Orochi's conquest, defeating the major players of both Japan and China. The five stories in Story Mode are made up of eight stages with no side stages.

Also, this is the first game to show Lu Bu become enraged upon Diaochan's defeat. This would continue to be the case in future DW games.

Dream Mode is this game's answer to the side stages of the first game, with the DW and SW characters assigned into trios as they fight in dream teamup showdown battles, like the rulers of the Three Kingdoms and the Sengoku era fighting each other at Ōsaka Castle and Fan Castle or the three proteges Jiang Wei, Lu Xun and Sakon Shima facing off against their mentors Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu and Shingen Takeda. Each stage in Drama Mode is unlocked by completing certain requirements, like clearing certain stages and stories, having every character's levels total a certain amount or having every character's proficiency levels total a certain amount, which is easier said than done. Some stages fit into the overarching story of the game while the rest are merely non-canon Gaiden stages.

VS Mode is a new addition in this game with four mini-games available, namely Tag Team, Elimination, Tower and Steeple Chase. Tag Team is a one-on-one duel stage akin to the original Dynasty Warriors, but with a simplified control scheme and the ability to switch between three characters. The match is decided by whoever defeats the other player or throws them out of the ring first. Survival Mode is a continuous series of Tag Team matches where you can beat your own record of wins. Elimination is similar to Tag Team, but it's character against character without the ability to switch characters, meaning that whoever is the first to defeat all three of the other player's characters (while also keeping the last one alive) is the winner.

Tower is similar to Bridge Melee in DW's Challenge Mode, where you gain KOs by knocking enemies off the tower and the objective is to score more points than your opponent. Steeple Chase has you race a course around the Escape from Chibi (Huarong Pass) stage with all three characters in your team, the first to complete their laps being the winner. Tower and Steeple Chase have items which can be used to boost yourself or impede your opponent by picking them up and pressing L3 (Select or R for Steeple Chase on PSP).

Some changes have been made to the battle mechanics for a quality-of-life improvement. Character switching is now totally performed with L2/R2 (whereas in the first game you could change it to the left/right buttons) and can now be performed on horseback. Musou Chains are made easier as the next character's Musou will activate if you hold down the Circle button as you change characters. Dynasty Warriors characters can perform C1s on horseback at the cost of performing a horse jump.

New team mechanics have been introduced as well. When you have one or both standby characters with full Musou Gauges, you can have them perform a Support Attack when you take damage. When your life is in the red and you have a full Musou Gauge, you can perform a devastating Triple Attack with all three characters. On top of that, you can perform special Triple Attacks when you have certain combinations of characters in your team.

All characters now have one of five strategies that are activated after fulfilling particular conditions. They are Command, Shield, Dance, Face Off and Volley. With the new characters in this game, skills that originally had a maximum of 10 in the previous game have now been increased to 15 and all characters only contribute to three skills instead of four. The Proficiency gauge has also changed to be a level bar with a maximum level of 50 and this time around, the Proficiency level determines how much damage taken is reduced.

Upgrade Skills are a new mechanic introduced to weapons for this game. These upgrade skills are kind of the equivalent to the items of previous games as they can allow characters to do things like perform True Musou Attacks and Triple Attacks without your health being in the red. To obtain an Upgrade Skill, you need to have acquired the required materials/treasures (which serve as a replacement to the unique items of the last game), then you need a weapon that contains the required attributes to use as a base to create the skill. A maximum of 3 skills out of 15 can be equipped onto a weapon and up to 99 of each skill can be banked.

Where the last game only had two costumes for each character, this game adds an additional costume that gives most characters their designs from DW4 and SW1, otherwise they get another original costume.

The PSP port ports all battle events as is from the main console releases without the still montages. Battles are fully voiced except for encounter, defeat and 100 KO praise lines. The Japanese release gives Zhao Yun, Xiahou Dun and Sun Shangxiang their Fury forms from Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce as their fourth costume after clearing their kingdom's stories. All non-Japanese releases, however, have additional elements ported back from Warriors Orochi Z, which I will cover next.

Warriors Orochi Z/The Collective (Musou Orochi Z)

Warriors Orochi Z/The Collective (無双OROCHI Z) Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC Release dates: Japan: 12 March 2009 (PS3), 27 November 2009 (PC) Taiwan: 30 July 2009 (PS3), 24 December 2009 (PC)

The late-2000s and early-2010s were a significant transitionary period for video games. The analog experience of the PS2 and Xbox would make way for the high-definition and net-supported experience of the PS3 and Xbox 360. This kind of transition was something future game console generations could never hope to match.

Koei had begun their transition into the modern (HD) era with DW5 Special for the Xbox 360, before they followed through with Dynasty Warriors 6 for the PS3. Samurai Warriors 2 and the two Warriors Orochi games so far were also being released on the Xbox 360 alongside the original PS2 release. As such, the classic era would truly come to an end with Warriors Orochi Z, combining the two previous games for a last hurrah on the PS3.

So yeah, this was the original Warriors Orochi's answer to the Ultimate expansions of future games. Story Mode contains all the stories of the first two games, with each faction requiring you to beat their story from the first game before moving onto their story from the second. As was the case with SW2XL, the generic officer Toshiie Maeda is replaced by other Oda officers in the first Samurai Warriors story when theoretically, it would have been easy to fit in Katsuie and the playable Toshiie.

Two new characters, Sanzang (who is female compared to the male monk Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West) and Benkei are introduced in this expansion. Dodomeki and Gyūki are playable in Story and Dream Modes after they were limited to VS and Survival Modes in WO2.

Another costume has been added for characters; most DW characters receive their designs from DW6 and characters who were in SW1 receive their alternate costumes from it, but Yoshimoto's fourth costume is his original design from SW1 that was seen in the first game.

Dream Mode adds 12 new stages focused on the original characters along with an additional ninja stage. Among these stages are mini storylines for Sanzang and Benkei which also play into the overall story of the game. Some unlock conditions for the other stages have also been made easier, such as lowering the proficiency condition from 50 to 20 or the level condition from 99 to 28. Also, once you've cleared a stage once with the recommended characters, you can then play it again with any three characters, a feature that the second game never had.

As is obvious, the move to a next generation console means more computing power and to Koei, that means adding more enemies on the screen. However, that comes with a consequence - message and dialogue spam. There are enemy encounter lines every time you meet an enemy officer, then after you defeat them, they'll have their defeat line, then you say your "enemy officer defeated" line and an ally will compliment you. Allies will also praise you every 100 KOs and you can see how it adds up. But no, it's not the annoyance of this that I'm complaining about, but how the dialogue spam affects how you achieve some objectives within a particular timeframe.

Take the unlock condition for Wu's Chapter 8-X for example. In Chapter 7 (Battle of Komaki-Nagakute), you need to rescue Sun Jian and Sun Quan and have their event play within 3 minutes of the start of the battle. If your characters and weapons are strong enough then you could achieve this close to the 3-minute mark (on Hard or even Chaos), but not everyone wants to grind or use cheats for this. I recall being unable to do this when I initially played the stage, even on the PS2 or PSP versions (I checked an old PSP save I had for this), showing how this was also a problem even before Z's release.

A tip you can try to mitigate this is to pause the game when someone starts talking, then continue once they're done. The dialogue will finish as time is frozen, which can help in saving you time. Later games changed this so that the dialogue would pause when the game is paused, which creates another similar situation in Warriors Orochi 4 which is harder to mitigate, but I can't be sure exactly where it happens. On the PC version, you can also use Van's OrochiZEditor and activate 去除战场冗余信息 (remove redundant battle messaging) under the patch menu. You can also use the editor to reduce the number of troops in a unit using the 减兵补丁 (troop reduction patch).

Another annoyance I've found is that when you're supposed to guide someone to an objective, the people you're guiding will easily be distracted by the first enemy that's near them. This becomes obvious in Orochi's Chapter 7 (Battle of Mikatagahara), where the main objective is to guide two sorcerer units into the supply base. If sky ninjas get near them and they bury themselves into (a dustball above) the ground, the sorcerers will attack them regardless of the futility of it. This could easily lead them to be defeated if you're not powerful enough to clear away enemies quickly, or the mission to fail because you're taking too long. Similar phenomena may be seen in earlier games, but those examples aren't as frustrating compared to this one.

A couple more tips for the PC version; first, be wary of what video converters you have installed on your computer and two, turn Resizable BAR support off in BIOS. In the former case, the Video to Video Converter that I was using installed the Haali Video Splitter that was affecting the DirectShow codecs, causing the game to crash before the Koei Tecmo logo displayed (which didn't happen on my potato PC but then again it was running Windows 7). After discovering the cause by examining the generated crash log (on a whim), uninstalling the converter resolved this issue and I haven't bothered reinstalling it because by that point, I was downloading my music from YouTube anyway (plus, if I needed to convert files, I could use something else that didn't use Haali). In the latter case, I have an AMD GPU and turning Resizable BAR support on caused the game to fucking lag in battle. Had I been unable to figure this out, I would have had to play the PS3 version which, before an RPCS3 update in August 2023, was fucking unplayable because it crashed when the battle started. But really, I'm practically familiar with the game at this point so I don't know why I'm even trying.

Now to address the elephant in the room, the English localisation of this game. Just before the game was released in Japan in March 2009, Siliconera reported that video game rental service Gamefly listed Warriors Orochi: The Collective for the PS3, this assumedly being the localisation of Musou Orochi Z. However, when it was noted that no mentions of that game were made at E3 in June the same year, a Koei representative was asked about it and they apparently confirmed that while plans to localise the game did exist, they have been shelved.

And as always, because gaming companies never seem to explain or justify their reasons for anything, the reason as to why this game wasn't localised was left to speculation. There are two reasons I could find for this; one, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA, now Sony Interactive Entertainment) apparently had a rule about not allowing games to be released on the PS3 if it had come out on the Xbox 360 first, or SCEA wouldn't allow Koei to sell what was essentially two updated PS2 games on the PS3 at full price.

No matter the speculation or real reason, these justifications are batshit and everybody sucks here in this situation, because like SW2HD, this is one of those games that should be easy to localise because most of the localisation is already there. There's also no telling why they didn't just decide to release this in Europe only or on the PC, but I suppose Koei did an "all or nothing" for the localisation of this game. What happened instead was that the extra content in this game was released on the PSP port of WO2 for the West and Asia (as an "enhanced version" 增值版 of sorts) with dual audio options.

Honestly, if Koei were smarter about this, they should have skipped the PC port of the first game and aimed to release Z worldwide as a backup plan. Like seriously, the PSP and PC ports for the first game were released within two weeks either side of WO2's release on the PS2 in Japan. If they didn't want to wait another year to release WO2 they could have waited it out on the PC port of WO1.

English text patches do exist for this game, but they are incomplete because they only translate the menus, weapons and abilities for the most part. I think the hardest part of this is getting the English text to display as half-width characters instead of full-width that Japanese and Chinese uses, which is why nobody has bothered to continue working on it years after it was released. Maybe there might come a day when modders will end up localising the game through reverse-engineering, and it'll happen before Koei decides to rerelease anything from the classic era on Steam.

Since I'm covering it here anyway I might as well talk about the localisation situation for the two games. Both games were localised by Voicegroup as usual, meaning that the Samurai Warriors characters go back to having American voice actors instead of Quebecois ones. However, the entire English voice cast for SW1 characters has been recast, except for G.K. Bowes as Kunoichi by some miracle. As implied in the SW2 retrospective, I prefer the Warriors Orochi voices for the SW characters mostly because it's the game where I played with them the most and because of my toxic nostalgia, I hate when people say they prefer the SW2 English voice cast compared to this or even SW3.

While the English officer defeated quotes remain the same for Samurai Warriors characters (except for Yoshimoto whose quote is different between this game, SW1XL and SW2XL), there are variations for Dynasty Warriors characters. DW5 had most characters say "Enemy officer defeated!" or some variant, but in this game, efforts have been made to add more variety to the quotes. Some characters' quotes have been carried over from DW5 (like Xu Huang, Cao Pi, Huang Gai and Zhang Jiao, mostly because they were already varied) and some characters' quotes would continue to be used up to DW8 (like Sima Yi, Sun Jian, Pang Tong and Lu Bu). Some characters who had different lines in this game would go back to their DW5 lines in DW8 (like Pang De, Sun Shangxiang, Sun Ce, Liu Bei and Ma Chao) or retain them (like Lu Meng) even if they ended up being reworded (like Xiahou Dun, Huang Zhong and Zuo Ci) or said by different characters (like Xiahou Yuan/Taishi Ci).

Like how DW5 Special to WOZ was a transition between eras for Koei Warriors games, Dynasty Warriors would also go through a transition of English voice actors between the classic and modern era. Some DW characters have retained their voice actors since 4 and would continue to retain them through 8 (like Xiahou Dun, Cao Ren, Lu Xun, Zhuge Liang, Ma Chao and Dong Zhuo). For other characters, their voice actors would change, whether in 5XL, WO, WO2 or 6 before settling by 7. Interestingly, for characters who voice actors changed between WO and WO2 (like Xiahou Yuan, Cao Pi, Lu Meng and Zhou Tai), the officer defeated lines would continue to be voiced by the old voice actor while the new lines were dubbed by the new voice actor. Remember this point because it will get ridiculous later.

Rant: Why I did The Recollective/Timelineing

Earlier this year, I did a redux of my 2015 series Warriors Orochi: The Recollective, named after the intended English title for Z. The concept for this was bringing the characters from DW8E and SW4-II to Warriors Orochi Z while also improving on the shortfalls and errors from the first two games. Such shortfalls and errors in the story included:

How did Lu Bu come to join Orochi if he wasn't seen in his story mode?

Why is Nobunaga Oda in both the Wei and Samurai Warriors stories in WO2?

How did Sun Wukong, Himiko and Kiyomori Taira come to join the Orochi Army?

The original elements to my work included a double-length Orochi story, ensuring that the Orochi Army fought or encountered every character from DW and SW, along with a Jin story that split into two paths, one following Sima Yi as he served Orochi and one following Sima Zhao as he later rebelled against his family and Orochi. While most characters from newer games could easily fit into existing stories, there were others that couldn't so they were relegated to the Jin stories. Some stages in the Jin Sima Yi story were existing battles written from the Orochi Army's perspective.

Even in 2015, my storywriting skills weren't as mature as they were in 2024, so there were more shortfalls in my story that I decided I needed to resolve:

There were some characters I forgot to account for in the stories for both games

Masamune Date, Keiji Maeda, Dong Zhuo and Sima Yi defect to the Resistance in one story and yet they are still with the Orochi Army in others

The first four stages for both Jin stories were shared and it didn't feel fair on that story

Something I thought about was that with all the new clans being featured in Samurai Warriors 3 and 4, which of them would serve Orochi and which of them would side with the resistance? My takes were as such:

Hisahide Matsunaga would side with Orochi alongside the Miyoshi

Motonari Mōri would also side with Orochi to maintain the stability of his clan while also hoping to meet the different heroes of China and Japan

Motochika Chōsokabe (and Muneshige Tachibana) would stay independent, building up an army before rising in rebellion, however they were quashed and assigned to Sima Zhao's army

Ujiyasu Hōjō, Kai and Lady Hayakawa would split themselves from the rest of their clan led by Ujimasa Hōjō (who surrendered to Orochi) and go into exile before siding with Sima Zhao

The redux was made to be as perfect as I could get it, but despite this, there was something I couldn't change, which is the multiple storylines and endings of the two games. While each story does have its connections (particularly in the Samurai Warriors story for the first game with Nobunaga meeting Sakon and Xiahou Dun), there are separate Koshi Castle stages for each faction as they fight Orochi (along with Da Ji and some of Orochi's main generals). The second game repeats this as each faction defeats Orochi X at the end, albeit in different battlefields. There's not a lot of theories out there that explain why this is the case, but after finding an interesting post from Blizzanity on r/DynastyWarriors (that had no comments despite being there for three years), I developed a theory of my own.

The theory goes that the timeline was split into four (one for Shu, Wei and Wu and one for the Japanese), whether by the mystics in an effort to delay Orochi's plans or by Orochi to evade detection by the mystics. The generals who were committed to serving Orochi were split into those timelines with him. The others were assigned into one of those timelines, but depending on the situation (mystic willing), they could be transferred into another timeline (such is the case with Sakon and others like Ma Chao and Lu Xun in the side stages). Maybe Tadakatsu Honda's prowess allowed him to split himself into the timelines as well because physical strength equals supernatural ability.

(Originally, The Recollective had Sima Zhao facing Orochi at Koshi Castle which would have made a fifth timeline, but I changed it in the redux because Jin is the successor to Wei and Sima Yi was willing to serve Orochi.)

Orochi was defeated in his separate timelines, but spoiler for the next Warriors Orochi game, it didn't cause the end of the world yet because Orochi's original self remained in him to suppress his echoing wish to be destroyed, but also because the catalyst wasn't introduced or Orochi was merely in a coma. Da Ji and Kiyomori's plan to revive Orochi using Himiko was the catalyst to unleash the God of Destruction, but once again, Orochi's original self was still there to suppress it, even if its growing power would become too much for even him to bear. Ultimately, the defeat of Orochi X was what finished off his original self and created the foundation for the events of the next game, because with Orochi X's defeat, the four timelines became one again and what was four would become eight.

"But if the events in the four timelines are connected to each other, then is it possible that there could be one timeline for this game?" Maybe. Before working on the redux I tried to mock up a combined timeline of the two games' stories but I gave up because it was too hard. Later on, though, while trying to find lore for Warriors Orochi 4, I stumbled upon this website by Nanasi aka Yupzhou detailing everything, and I mean everything about the lore of the Warriors Orochi series. Although the site is only in Chinese, the creator has gone into much detail to create a comprehensive timeline of the games' stories, even if there are parts that I disagree with. The different endings are listed separately as there is no way to reconcile them, but an alternate theory I have is that the timelines were split towards the final battle before joining back up together after Orochi's defeat. This would happen again following his resurrection.

I wrote the redux in a way that would make sense regardless of whether the timelines were split or combined. Originally, I wanted to create original scenarios for the endings, but I decided against it as I didn't want to change the existing stories that drastically.

"But what about the random characters appearing in the prologues and epilogues of each battle that might not be a part of that faction's story?" Look, there is only so much I can do. Maybe they're weak clones created by Tamamo in the Killing Stone, I dunno.

Warriors Orochi 1 and 2 were legendary games for the Koei Warriors franchise, bringing together the characters of DW5 and SW2 to wrap up the classic era in a neat bow. There's no telling what kind of game would have resulted had this been made with only the characters of DW4 and SW1, but at least their costumes are in WO2 and WOZ at the very least. The stories are good even if there are inconsistencies and unaddressed elements, but let's face it, nobody plays Warriors games for the storytelling.

Now that the classic era has been covered, we must now descend into the dismal degradation of the Warriors franchise as we enter the modern era with Dynasty Warriors 6. See you then.

[wooleeza]

Nakada Hiroki

I’ve been really fascinated by this stage actor’s work recently, and of course it doesn’t hurt that he has such a beautiful face and build (he did, after all, sign on with Oscar Promotion as a model when he first entered the entertainment industry!) That said, he has had a really difficult 2020 and I am so glad that the run of Musical Touken Ranbu’s Kotobuki (5th Anniversary celebration) was completed safely. May the rest of this year be plain-sailing for all his scheduled projects! Anyway, I wrote up this profile in case anyone who’s just begun watching Toumyu (or any other show he’s been in) develops an interest in learning more about him.

Both pictures were shared by Hiroki himself on Twitter!

Details under the cut!

Profile

Name: Nakada Hiroki

Birthplace: Okayama Prefecture 

Birthday: 17 October 1987

Age: 33 (as of January 2021)

Height: 181cm

Weight: 65.2kg (last checked during his May 2020 livestream)

Blood type: A

Personality: shy, sensitive, serious, gentle, dedicated, fluffy, loves sweets and snacks

Pets: Ohagi-kun (a 3-year-old hedgehog) and Hope-chan (a 1-year-old toy poodle)

Talents: Table tennis, saxophone, swordplay, dance (thanks to Tsukista’s training!)

Years of experience in the industry: 7 

Twitter: @nakadahiroki

Instagram: nakadahiroki1017

Blog: https://ameblo.jp/nakada1017/

Niconico channel: 仲田博喜チャンネル「仲茶ノ間」(Nakachanoma)  https://ch.nicovideo.jp/gsn-nakadahiroki?ref=pc_mypage_follow_channel

Notable roles: 

Takasugi Shinsaku (Haruka 5)

Yayoi Haru (Tsukiuta Stage)

Senoo Tasuku (Prince of Stride)

Munakata Kyousuke (Danganronpa 3)

Akechi Mitsuhide (Samurai Warriors)

Liu Bei (Shin Sangoku Musou)

Kozuki Akinori (Bugbusters Stage Yellow)

Martin Baird (Tougenkyo Labyrinth)

Akashi Kuniyuki (Musical Touken Ranbu - Kishou Hongi)

Masaferry (Gekidan Shining – Bloody Shadows)

Background:

He left home at the age of 18 with a dream in his heart of becoming an actor, but chickened out of actually starting out and worked various part-time jobs (including one in an izakaya) in Sendai instead. He had a late start in the entertainment industry compared to his peers because he lacked confidence about whether he could make it, and when he finally decided to pursue his dreams and join the entertainment field in his mid-20s, he sent out over a hundred handwritten resumes but was rejected continuously by agencies (perhaps due to age and lack of experience). He was eventually accepted as a model by Oscar Promotion in 2013, and studied acting by renting movies and paid for sword-fighting lessons out of his own pocket while taking on small commercial roles as a rookie actor.

His big break came in 2015 when he landed the role of Takasugi Shinsaku in the 2.5D stage adaptation of Haruka 5. Fans took notice of his good looks and steady swordwork. His next big break came when he landed the role of Yayoi Haru in the 2016 stage adaptation of Tsukiuta, which he sustained for 5 full acts. He refined his dancing ability during the two years he was with the cast. He graduated very reluctantly from Tsukista in 2018. It broke his heart to leave the cast, whom he considered a family, but he’s moved on to bigger and brighter roles ever since.

He’s known for immersing himself emotionally and completely in whatever role he has been given. He believes that he must convey the roles right down to his fingertips each time, and he has always managed to do so. He’s always been called a yasashii oniisan (gentle older brother) by the younger actors who have had the privilege to work with him. He is currently working on improving his singing to do better in musicals and might perhaps take on more voice work as his voice has been praised for its unique quality.

The following is also a translation of a critique from one of the directors who has worked with him,  Kōtarō Yoshitani, in Sengoku Musou and Musical Code: Realize. It was shared on Twitter.

In the words of Kōtarō Yoshitani:

Nakada Hiroki is an actor with a glamorous appearance, but feels like an artisan. He approaches his roles with very steadily. He is a serious character and very diligent. He repeatedly asks himself questions about his performance as he goes along. He thinks about the role he's been given and dives into that world view. With his neat face, you'd think he'd be a little less muddy, but he's got a lot of passion inside him. He has an insatiable appetite for theatre. It is a rare thing to find a performer who is so smart and yet so muddy, and it is a great weapon for a performer. If a performer's image on the outside is the same as that of the inside, it may not be as appealing or as interesting to explore. Nakada is a man who has a lot of things that drive him visually, but it is not enough to judge him only by his visuals, it's his depth that is his true appeal. That's why he makes you feel interested with his visuals and then pulls you in with his true charm on stage.

You might think he'd look good in Japanese costumes, but he'd look great in Western clothes too. If you look inside, you can see a passionate heart, but if you look at the visuals only, you might think he is a cold-hearted person. He laughs both like an adult and like a child. He is clear and elusive. He is at home in both showbiz and traditional theatre. He looks well in comedy, but he could also be a dark hero who doesn't smile at all. What a mysterious actor. And yet, I don't think he is considered strange. That's what makes him so fascinating. That is why he can be any colour in the world of the play.

I met him on stage in "Sengoku Musou" and in the musical "Code Realize". One character was just and the other was mild, a study in opposites, but both were full of Nakada’s charm. In other words, the director can ask him to be anything. I don't have to tell you that this is a very important quality for an actor. That's why I described him at the beginning as a craftsman. But to describe him in that way may be out of tune with his nature. If I see him again, will I be able to see his true self?

[mysticdragon3md3]

Have there always been this many new musou games released around the same time?

I know Dynasty/Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara have been continuing to release more games this whole time, but they don't get the worldwide mainstream attention that P5S and Zelda do. And Touken Ranbu Musou may have been cut from the English Nintendo Direct for 9/23/2021, but it was in the Japanese Nintendo Direct for 9/24/2021.

Picture sources: https://twitter.com/touken_musou/status/144117010803486720

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/persona-5-strikers-playstation-4-playstation-5/6442461.p?skuId=6442461&ref=212&loc=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw7rWKBhAtEiwAJ3CWLMje7gTbZ3vYCNdaXT0lW52dXKhPvKaPMxWUjbEG_hI00v2uwg8BSRoCadIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hyrule-warriors-age-of-calamity-nintendo-switch-nintendo-switch-lite/6414111.p?skuId=6414111

[daeva-agas]

Article on the life of Kyounyo (Kennyo’s son), but it also mentions Kennyo, the situation at Honganji, and Nobu stuff. Not sure if this is strictly scholarly because the writers had inserted personal opinions in some places. I also sense salt against Nobu, but maybe I’m just seeing things. Could be just tone not carrying over well in translation.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44362528?read-now=1&seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents

^ This was why Magoichi was of interest to me TBH. He’s considered part of the Ikko. 

I remember thinking that the Mouri who fought Nobu was Motonari the whole time back in the day, thanks to Sengoku Musou. I had the same mix-up with Shingen and Katsuyori in Nagashino and Tenmokuzan, also because Musou. 

^ This was what I meant by salt. The author was clearly biased in support of the Honganji (might be a believer themselves?). Outright calling Nobu dishonest doesn’t sound like a fair assessment, because you have no proof he’s lying when he made the promises he reneged on. I imagine a more neutral comment would be to call Nobu “fickle”, or “too easily provoked”. But as I said, might be caused by imperfect translation.

I have no issue with refusing forgiveness part. The Oda clan record says that was true. However, it says that in the end Nobu does accept the surrender of one temple/castle. Not sure which source describes that Nobu broke the promise and bombarded them anyway.  

If true this is interesting. I really don’t hear much about Kenson. The middle son always neglected LOL.