Only a few months have passed since I reviewed Samurai Warriors 4-II for Shonen Jump, and not long before that I covered the first version elsewhere. Now, here’s a third version, with a gimmick that has surprisingly lied dormant for a few iterations. I never played any of the other Empires entries, being more of a “play the first version, skip a year” kind of guy with the more traditional Warriors games. In this version, the Warriors formula replaces the historical story modes with more of a tabletop, strategy game approach. It’s a bit simple for the sake of not plowing through tons of menus, but where it succeeds is how the series’ trademark action translates under this new framework.

Samurai Warriors 4 Empires starts not unlike a game of, say, Civilization. There’s not a story mode in the traditional video game sense, but a few preset scenarios are available for a quick start, or the player can opt to set up their own. After that, most of your time will be spent navigating the menu-based nuances of the strategy component. The game doesn’t explain anything well, but things are streamlined enough (compared to something like Nobunaga’s Ambition) to be able to figure out the causes and effects by just by playing around.

The general flow of Empires gameplay is as follows: choose a target, choose some new policies and either wait a turn or go mess somebody up. It’s pretty easy on the default difficulty to make mistakes without ruining your game, so don’t be afraid to toy around with everything. If you can play through a Warriors stage well enough, you’ll be okay. Just keep your numbers high. 

I was feeling my eyes glossing over a bit while cycling through the menus, but then I noticed how long I had played, and how much that glossiness disappeared whenever the time came to drop the proverbial elbow on opposing armies. Empires may be about nerdy strategy board game stuff on the surface, but underneath it all is a distinct, distilled version of Warriors “beat-‘em-up” play that is frantic and furious.

Empires alters the formula in two key ways: First, the time limit. In regular Warriors stages, the arenas are huge, and there’s plenty of time to run around and cause bonus mayhem. Here, however, the levels are smaller and the time is capped off at ten minutes. You have ten minutes to capture enough territory to open up and defeat the boss fight. Again, an achievable feat on the default difficulties, but the pace is still significantly altered, and that changes the nature of the game big time.

Second, as far as I could tell each character had all their combo options open from the get-go. In most games it takes a while to level up and gain access to all the options. This is no longer the case, as levels now are more about stats on the game board. So, you have ten minutes to tear it up as much as possible while simultaneously racing for the finish line. Losing can be catastrophic, and winning is pretty dope too (you can assassinate POWs). With each victory comes a sense of accomplishment I usually didn’t feel from individual levels in previous Warriors games. And I do love Warriors games but in a much more broad sense.

Not only is the bite-sized level structure appealing to smaller play sessions, but the no-holds-barred out of the gate style makes combat feel like an award for getting through the cumbersome politics. Add to that the return of the pretty robust character creation feature (notably absent from the more story-focused Warriors 4-II) and you have something that actually feels like an alternate take on the formula rather than a set of gimmicks haphazardly scattered over the same old core. There aren’t any bonus bells and whistles or alternate modes, but Samurai Warriors 4 Empires sets out to do a specific thing, and it does that specific thing better than I expected it to. It’s a neat bridge between the two sides of Omega Force that brings a welcome feeling of freshness to both.

Hint: When choosing where to politically station your officers, take note of the arrows. They indicate the effectiveness and will change over time to encourage the player to try new things and build new relationships between characters.

by Lucas White