Buy Samurai Warriors 4

Three console generations have seen Tecmo Koei's Musou games perform a steady evolution. Starting with the ability to fill the screen with more and more enemies to kill, the game slowly expanded by adding one or two new features per title while maintaining the core mechanics. It comes as no surprise that a number of fans are recent converts, since the more recent Musou games provide a nice balance between mowing down hundreds of enemies per level and introducing enough new wrinkles to keep the carnage interesting. If you want a good example of this in action, look no further than Samurai Warriors 4.

Unlike past games in the series, there are only four modes available in the SW4. Free Play lets you replay any past mission with any character you want. Dojo is the home for all of the unlockable items, like character biographies, cut scenes and music tracks. It's also where you can create a character to use in Free mode. The creation system is surprisingly robust, as you can choose a number of looks for your male or female fighter. You can also select the type of weapons and the kind of leveling they'll do as you progress. There's even the ability to add a custom image for your armor, character portrait, and kanji characters that appear before your super moves. Compared to some other games, what's here is quite deep, especially since you can keep up to 10 custom images for the 20 available character slots.

Story mode takes place during the Warring States era of feudal Japan, and it's a lot more structured than expected. You go through several chapters that chronicle the rise of the various clans. Each of the chapters stands independently, and each varies in level size and available characters.

The core game is still the same, so you're pitted against hundreds of enemies at a time, most of whom simply stand there while you slash away with combinations of basic and power attacks. While your main objective is usually to go after the head of the army, you can choose to attack barracks commanders to whittle down the number of enemies coming after you. You can also go after officers to lower enemy morale and obtain gems to add attributes to your weapons, health, power-ups and weapons.

For a franchise that's known for taking small steps in improving its titles, SW4 can be considered as a few leaps forward. The team mechanic from Warriors Orochi 3 is here but tweaked. Instead of being able to switch between three characters, you have one other AI-controlled teammate on the field at all times. You can order that officer around with basic commands, like defend and follow, or you can swap controls to hit another part of the battlefield faster or use a different weapon set. Combat has been beefed up, so you can start combos with power moves instead of just basic ones. Hyper moves are also in the picture since they're faster, so users can knock back or knock out large groups of enemies while propelling forward.

The new moves make you a more powerful fighter, but the missions require you to use the power efficiently since it tries to make you quicken your pace. Levels may have the basic structure intact, but they add lots of secondary objectives to the mix. They're mostly the same in that they ask you to kill certain officers instead of the main boss, but there are variations, like trying to kill the target under a small time limit. The objectives can happen simultaneously and take place all over the map, making you want to rush through areas to clear them all instead of dawdling at every outpost. Though the time limit for all the missions remains the same, the constant announcement of secondary objectives makes the game feel faster since there's always a sense of having something to do — even if it's the same task over and over again.

The faster gameplay and other changes make for a tighter experience, but the developers decided to entice players even more. All of the characters that are active in a battle earn XP for stat boosts and additional moves in their combo chain. Those you control also get specific boosts to their attack type, depending on what gets used the most. Loot drops also happen often, making the game a bit like Diablo or Borderlands in that you'll repeat skirmishes just to see if you can obtain something better.

Surprisingly, Story mode is packed with lots of unexpected technical extras. There is no split-screen like the home console versions, but you can engage in two-player ad-hoc play, with each player controlling an officer. You can also play co-op online, something most games in the Vita library don't bother with. Unless you specifically arrange for someone to join you online, you'll have a tough time finding a random player to join up. Though the game shares the same trophy set with its PS3 and PS4 versions, it isn't a cross-buy title. It is, however, a cross-save title, so you can continue your progress at any time on any device — provided you pay separately for those versions.

As if the lengthy Story mode weren't enough, Chronicle mode proves to be equally as long, though with a more singular approach. After creating a character (provided you didn't already do so in the Dojo), you pick your lord to act as a starting point. You're tasked with going around Japan in a quest to become a great warrior and chronicle the exploits of the great warriors of the time for historical preservation.

All of the mechanics from Story mode are also in Chronicle mode, but the nature of your journey means you'll acquire a wide number of characters to act as potential partners for your missions. Though the gameplay is the same in each mission, they're smaller in size, so there may be one or two additional objectives per level instead of the larger number seen in the Story missions. They may be short in length, but there are more missions here than in Story mode. It also means that Chronicle missions are better suited for short bursts of portable play.

There are also a number of things that are different from the core experience. For example, you have a map that shows where all of the warriors are. The game is treated like a strategy RPG in that every move you make is countered with everyone else moving around, sometimes automatically initiating fights if you're met with a kunoichi instead of an officer. A day and night cycle means the availability of certain stores and officers can differ, and your personal quests depend on the choices you make when interacting with certain people. The quests can be tackled concurrently, and your proficiency in each determines which officers you'll encounter. The only thing that drags this down are the optional missions from your mentor, which often ask you to kill specific officers out of a group of three. However, he refers to the correct officer with facts like his relationship to others and nicknames, and unless you're up on your Japanese history from this time period, you'll mostly guess and hope for the best.

Of the four games in the franchise that have been released on the Vita thus far, SW4 is probably the best in terms of graphics. The models look very good and detailed, and only a few textures look blurry. The in-game animations are good, but they falter a bit in cut scenes, where mouth movement is minimal and the eyes look unnatural because they either never blink or blink too often. The particle effects, while not abundant, look quite good on the handheld, and the environments also look sharper. Textures look a little better than in previous entries.

The graphics are better balanced. The Vita port of Dynasty Warriors 8 did a good job of keeping lots of soldiers on-screen, but the frame rate often tanked. Meanwhile, Warriors Orochi 3 improved the frame rate by making sure that almost everything suffered from pop-up. SW4 manages to strike a nice balance by maintaining a good frame rate while minimizing the pop-up effect, particularly for the environments. Soldiers and breakable items still pop up, but they do so at a more manageable distance. The title still maintains a decent number of soldiers on-screen to qualify as a real Musou experience.

The Samurai division of the franchise has been cited as the stronger one in the audio department, and this entry is no exception. The musical score goes for a blend of electronica and traditional Japanese string and drum instruments, and the mix is more appealing than the Chinese rock guitar one in Dynasty Warriors. Fights feel more epic, and the mood to fight is always there. Cut scenes, meanwhile, go for a more sweeping orchestral sound that fits best with the characters' philosophical musings. The voices are completely in Japanese, and they sound good despite not being loud enough to overpower the effects and soundtrack. Effects sound rather clear, and the screams of slain enemies don't get old no matter how many times you hear it.

Samurai Warriors 4 is probably the most fleshed-out realization of a portable Musou game yet. Despite the relatively low number of available modes, there's a wealth of content packed in each one. Combat is kept fresh with constant leveling and unlocking of new moves, and the partner mechanic introduces some interesting strategies. Even though the objectives are relatively similar in execution, their presence makes missions feel like they're going by faster and lessens the chance of the experience going stale. Vita owners who want a good hack-and-slash title would do well to pick up Samurai Warriors 4.

Score: 8.0/10