Warriors Orochi (Playstation 2, 2007)

Finding a good game to play for 2007 was tough. Really tough. My first thought was Bioshock, which I've already played, 100%'d, and don't really have any reason to play again. Once I decided to go for something else, I looked to Super Paper Mario... but it isn't great and I have no real desire to play through all of it. Aside from that, I discovered that my choices were nearly nonexistent when it comes to good games, as 2007's short-enough-to-play games ranged from Petz Catz to Petz Babyz. Why do all of these titles end with a z? Just when I was about to give in and fire up Teletubbiez Extreme, I noticed a game at the end of the release list for the year that piqued my interest. This is Warriors Orochi, which combines Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors in a Marvel Team-Up for the ages. Yeah it makes no sense, but they do blend well and it's way cooler than Alien Vs Predator. Void where prohibited.

Like all of these Koei beat-em-ups, the game has the usual modes. This game has a darker feel to it right off the bat, though, and I like that. Taking a quick look at Free Mode...

 Huh, weird. Those are some tiny character faces, with no larger model of the character to look at. Also, considering that this game merges the rosters of two game-verses and likely has the biggest selection of characters possible, it's amazing how few of them are selectable from the start.

 You can choose three characters to go into battle with at a time. While I usually stick to one main character, this is great if I want to try out a few of them at once.

 The map... same as usual for these games. I also want to note that this game has some pretty great music. Some of it is rock and roll like DW, while some is atmospheric like SW.

There's Nobunaga Oda, the character I played through Samurai Warriors with back in 2008. If I could have played the second game with him yesterday I might have stuck it out, but unfortunately he was locked. He's an unholy demon lord of the highest order and swings what can only be described as a death elemental sword. I'll be using him for this playthrough.

 Starting story mode with a big cutscene. Nobunaga sure looks a lot like Cao Cao, which is sure to create some confusion with cutscenes. Wait a minute...is...is this Cao Cao? I can't tell them apart! WHO DO I SHOOT?

Wu arrives on ships. This is a hell of an intro.

There's Orochi, the villain of the game. He summoned the casts of the two universes to the same place to battle his unstoppable army, or something along those lines. Gotta say, this is new. I like it, as ridiculous as it is.

 Zhao Yun of Shu fame is seen locked in battle with Orochi's army.

 Lu Xun of Wu seems pretty distraught in the moments he appears onscreen.

 And here's Orochi, doing his best impression of Freeza. Holy shit, that intro was AWESOME.

 LET'S DO THIS.

 Nobunaga is brooding in the rain with his lightsaber, something typically only done by teenagers after being kicked off of WoW.

 Battling Orochi's soldiers, who vaguely resemble the White Walkers.

 This guy is BAD-ASS.

 Also... horse combat! So far, horses seem a lot more common than in the previous game, where they were nearly nonexistent if you didn't bring them yourself.

Switching characters mid-battle is great, and something I'm surprised we haven't seen in one of these games before. I'm not really interested in non-Nobunaga characters, however.

 Hideyoshi locks horns with an enemy officer. A standoff in the rain! How cool is this?

My God. It's...it's Man Chong! No way Nobunaga Oda can get out of this one alive!

...and he got out of it alive. Somehow, some way, he overcame the power of Man Chong.

When Nobunaga locks weapons with foes, he doesn't use his sword. He blocks their attack with his HAND. You don't mess with Nobunaga.

This game has the same officer problem as Samurai Warriors 2, but it isn't anywhere near as bad. It's usually just one or two officers that are easy to keep track of and stick to the main camp area. In this battle it's three officers, but it makes sense and once you rescue the Shu guys they're pretty much in the clear. Not like the battles in SW2 where you'd have to rescue like six officers and then they'd all charge into more enemies. This game DOES have some issues from time to time, like when your leader vacates the main camp to charge Orochi at the end. But for the most part, it's an improvement. I like this game a lot more than yesterday's game.

As Nobunaga fells the bastardly Cao Pi, we get a shot of one of the Orochi officers. They look like an army of Banes.

 Nobunaga, flanked by Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide. Awesome. Hideyoshi is pretty great in this game too, weird voice aside.

 THAT'S WHAT I SAID! China's most powerful archer is right. In any case, Nobunaga amasses quite an army as the story goes on.

 During the fight with the magic-wielding Zhang Jiao, Hideyoshi chimes in by "warning" Nobunaga. Once again, the SW crew wins on dialogue.

 It's SW vs. DW as Nobunaga locks horns with the legendary Guan Yu. This is the kind of picture that a fan of this game could set as their desktop wallpaper, in addition to being something that sure is weird to see. Like Kirk meeting Picard in Star Trek Generations.

 This sexy lady is Orochi's main henchperson, and she spends the latter half of the game Fandangoing right into our hearts... literally, if she gets the chance. She's a great character because she's sociopathic and diabolical while putting on a hilariously fake girlish facade.

 Here we are at the final battle. Orochi is the big boss of this game, and he's unlike any other big boss we've ever seen in one of these games. Except Lu Bu, perhaps. Speaking of Lu Bu, he's one of Orochi's officers in this battle. I didn't get to see what he looks like because my own officers took him out. What's this? My own officers did something besides die?

Here's Orochi, serpent demon lord of the damned. He's ten feet tall, but he still isn't as imposing as...

 "My client, BRRRROCK! LEEESNAR!"

Good shot of the White Walkers as I battle Orochi. His voice is well-done and sounds very alien.

 The biggest threat during the fight with Orochi is the fact that your field commander comes barreling into the fight and immediately starts getting mauled by Orochi's attacks, which usually affect everything around him and drop your officers the way you drop common troops. If your field commander falls, you lose. So my battle with Orochi turned into a race against time to deplete his massive life meter before the field commander died from running into Orochi's attacks repeatedly. ...Yay.

 I win, barely. That is to say, the field commander's health was getting quite low. Nobunaga was doing fine.

Nobunaga and company stand over the corpse of Orochi. With that, they've saved China and Japan, with the help of Wei, Wu, and Shu. Just for having those guys working together, this game is awesome. I had a blast with it. I wonder what all of these historical figures (well, the ones that actually existed) would think if they knew that hundreds of years later (thousands in the case of the Three Kingdoms guys) they'd live on as these godly characters in a video game?

For that matter, what would any of them say if they even saw a video game? They'd no doubt think it was some kind of magic. But in the immortal words of Thor, "where I come from, technology and magic are one and the same". Or was it science? In any case, moving on. Great game here. Oh yeah, one more thing...

LET'S FIGHTING LOOOOOVE!

LET'S FIGHTING LOOOOOOVE!

The Three Decade Project game list

Random noteworthy posts:

Samurai Warriors 2

Shien's Revenge

Bebe's Kids