The Warriors franchise has a deserved reputation for being a button-masher. While many of the games have hidden depths you won't see without putting in some time, they're more of a new-age beat-'em-up than a technical fighter. Various games in the series have tried to find ways to add depth to the combat with rock-paper-scissors combat triangles, huge boss fights, and randomized dungeons. One of the most successful attempts is the Empires spinoffs, which add tactical gameplay. As you'd imagine, Samurai Warriors 4: Empires combines Samurai Warriors 4 with the Empires tactical gameplay, and the result is a mixed success.

SW4: Empires has two modes: Conquest and Genesis. Conquest effectively gives you a series of campaigns, but if you're only interested in taking on vaguely historical storylines, then Conquest fits the bill. You can choose a time frame and a clan. In doing so, you're given an ambition that you must complete, and it ranges from conquering various provinces to reaching the capital. Completing specific tasks and you’re the assigned ambition wins the game, but you can continue playing if you want to take over everything. Genesis is similar but allows for greater customization, so you can alter the composition of the armies. The latter is more fun if you want to use the Create A Character feature so you can slot your characters into the story.

Regardless of the chosen mode, SW4: Empires emphasizes the setup more than the regular Samurai Warriors 4. When you start a campaign, you're usually thrust into the Politics phase, where you appoint characters as magistrates and then issue commands. Depending on your fame, you can issue more commands and receive more rewards. During the Politics phase, you have to figure out if you want to get more rice, recover troop strength, or build up fame and tactical ability. It basically boils down to picking options put forth by your magistrates, but since you have a limited number of actions per phase, you'll have to be selective. You begin with a handful of options, but as you progress, they'll get more involved: make alliances, create weapons, learn abilities, etc. Once you're done, you enter the Battle phase, where you can invade an enemy's province, defend your own, or pass the opportunity so you can build up a greater reserve of resources. Once you choose to battle, the game switches to the more traditional Samurai Warriors combat style.

The political aspect has some interesting semi-randomized elements. Characters who repeatedly spend time together can end up in friendships, romances and rivalries — all of which can provide mechanical advantages. Friendships and romances allow you to swap between characters on the battlefield for more tactical flexibility. Rivalries unlock special events with rewards. It sounds intriguing, but in execution, two characters simply have a generic conversation, and you discover they've become friends. Still, it's a neat feature that adds some personality to the characters. A battle turning in your favor because your retainer defeated his rival in battle feels more meaningful than two heroes randomly smashing their heads against one another.

Almost everything you do in politics translates directly into battle. For example, your troop strength and positioning determine who can help you on the battlefield, and you can implement various tactics to boost your battle stats. SW4: Empires has some loose political elements, but as you'd expect from Warriors, force is the name of the game. Almost every action you take is designed to increase your advantage in the next battle.

Combat in SW4: Empires is almost identical to the previous Samurai Warriors 4 titles. Enemy bases have supply lines, and as long as those lines are intact, the enemies around them gain tremendous stat boosts. Rather than smashing through enemy lines, you have to sever their supply lines to make sure you're capable of taking out their forces. This is where the Power Attack system also comes into play. They do huge damage to regular soldiers but are blocked by enemy officers and empowered regular soldiers. To slay a lot of enemies quickly, you want to make sure they're vulnerable to those attacks, and that means breaking their supply lines.

As mentioned, it's very similar to classic SW4, and that includes its strengths and flaws. To me, the Power Attack system drains some of the fun from the game. Rather than swapping between different moves to wipe out as many enemies as possible, you're simply button-mashing when you're not in enemy territory. Other recent Warriors titles like Hyrule Warriors and Pirate Warriors show that it's possible to do more, so it's disappointing when Samurai Warriors goes the easy route. On the other hand, the need to manipulate the flow of battle and control enemy formations does make combat more fun, but ultimately, this is a middling title. It has a good cast of characters and is enjoyable to play but doesn't hit the highs or lows of some of the other recent Warriors games.

Unfortunately, one of the problems with SW4: Empires is that the features are cool and add an interesting layer to the traditional Dynasty Warriors gameplay, but they're only surface-deep. The various relationships, rivalries and romances amount to canned cut scenes and a slight stat change. The ability to manipulate the battlefield before going into combat is cool, but at the end of the day, it involves some minor number juggling before you smash enemy faces with your powerful characters. Had this been the base SW4 title, I'd have praised it for being creative and cool. If this is your first foray into the franchise, then this works in its favor. As a sequel, though, it feels weak. That is perhaps the most pointed criticism: Empires doesn't feel like it justifies being its own game. The Empires mode is a fun addition to the traditional SW4 gameplay (and in general I rather prefer it), but it isn't meaningfully different. It alters how you set up the battlefields, but most of what you're doing isn't any different than SW4.

The game also depends on how much you're going to enjoy the tactical layer. SW4: Empires lacks the Diablo-style feeling of gathering loot and leveling up that can make other Warriors titles so addictive. Rather than hopping in and playing, you'll spend some time manipulating combat environments beforehand. If you enjoy seeing your characters get more absurdly powerful with crazier weapons, the other Samurai Warriors 4 games offer the same reward feedback but are easier and faster. On the other hand, if you really need additional encouragement to avoid getting bored with smashing through half the population of Japan, then Empires can be a much-needed boost.

SW4: Empires isn't much of a visual upgrade from the other PS4 Samurai Warriors games. The content is largely recycled, and it runs smooth enough. The only big frustration is that the interface is not user-friendly and looks rather cheap. Things are not very clearly laid out, and it can be annoying before you're accustomed to the menus. A cleaner interface would've made it easier to hop into the game. The soundtrack is the usual Warriors fare, with cheesy high-energy music punctuating the combat in the best way. I didn't notice too much in the way of particularly memorable new songs, but the game does its job well enough.

Samurai Warriors 4: Empires is an interesting addition to the original games. It doesn't necessarily improve upon or replace them but offers a similar-but-different experience. Anyone who's long since burned out on Samurai Warriors 4 probably won't find Empires to be different enough to renew their interest, but newcomers to the genre or those who passed on Samurai Warriors II will find enough to like here. It lacks some of the addictive style of the classic Warriors games but makes up for it with increased tactical depth. It all comes down to defeating thousands of enemies by using absurd magical powers and even more absurd weapons, and that is where Warriors excels.

Score: 7.5/10