Warriors Orochi Review (Xbox, PlayStation & PC)

It seems that, between regurgitating the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Warring States periods across dozens of mainline installments and Ultimate and Empires spin-offs, Omega Force hungers for a new era of Warriors combat and generational talent. Rather, it craves an opportunity to branch out and wrangle all of its figureheads into the one timeline. And I suppose, to some extent, Orochi delivers exactly that: a communal hub for all warring factions. It’s a bit of Dynasty Warriors, a bit of Samurai Warriors, and a lot of Warriors, in general. It is, quite simply, Omega Force’s all-round haymaker of hack-and-slash gaming. Or at least, an incredibly exaggerated one that turns a blind eye to historical events and openly embraces mythology. Zeus, the God of Olympus, for example. And that’s barely scraping the tip of the iceberg here, believe it or not.

While both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors opt for the traditional timeline—the Nobunaga and Three Kingdoms eras, to be more precise—Orochi, on the other hand, aims to dabble in the multiverse. Alas, it isn’t historically accurate, and it doesn’t perceive the world as being a desperate place for warring parties. Instead, it chooses to shake hands with mythological creatures and supernatural powers, and conceive an original, albeit somewhat cliché tale that pulls all of the eras together to create one monstrous adventure that goes big on bombastic, oftentimes magical stage-based combat, and even bigger on that franchise-locked battle schematic.

Unlike the original Warriors sagas—timelines with which you can loosely resort to for a well-needed lesson on Chinese and Japanese history every once in a blue moon, Orochi is a little more extravagant in its storytelling style. Don’t get me wrong, it still brings the same level of historical flamboyance as its ilk, and it still remains as bonkers as ancient hack-and-slash games go. That being said, Orochi decides to go one step further with its art direction, in that it idolizes magical infusions, promotes mythical combos, and favors souped-up combat systems that dare to be a little, shall we say, different. And that isn’t even including the storylines, either.

The Orochi timeline, while still loosely based around the existing Nobunaga and Three Kingdoms periods, usually orbits a similar chain of events: warriors from both eras mistakenly traipse into an ominous fog, and soon find themselves entwined with a supernatural realm where historical figures collide with mythical heirlooms—bracelets from Mount Olympus, for example. As one of dozens of characters in this world, it falls to you to build an alliance, conquer battles, and gradually upgrade your party as you progress in your quest to restore peace and stability before returning back to your respective time period. More often than not, the final sequence abolishes everyone‘s memory, and the following sequence sees them all back at the same helm to, well, do it all over again in yet another installment. That’s the Omega Force trick, I guess.

Of course, the combat remains mostly the same as the other entries in the Warriors saga, as does the classic one-versus-thousands format that shaped the series and helped it to establish that ridiculously powerful rhythmic edge. Oh, the campaigns continue to harness that traditional formula, with stupidly large armies for you to obliterate, devastating combos to unleash, and hundreds of battlefield gems, weapons, and gauge-boosting perks to obtain. The only difference here is that there’s more of a storyline for you to unravel. But of course, if you’re familiar with the Warriors style, then you’ll feel right at home here with Orochi.

While the battling system is pretty self explanatory—eliminate generals, capture bases, and complete side missions whilst protecting an allied unit, usually—the series does cater to some additional features outside of the battlefield. For example, if you collect enough gems, then you can purchase base upgrades, fabricate weapons with elemental abilities, develop stronger friendships with companions, and accept Side Stories, which serves as an entirely separate collection of battles that can aid your ongoing quest to establish an elite force. And don’t even get me started on the Ultimate editions; the amount of content you get with each entry in the Orochi series is staggeringly high, to the point where you need to clock upwards of fifty or sixty hours just to break the ice.

Granted, there can be a lot to absorb here, especially if you’re a newcomer to the Warriors franchise without any prior knowledge of either time period. Given that hundreds of characters across several timelines flesh out the Orochi roster, it can feel rather difficult to wrap your head around, more so when you begin to forge new alliances and your initial warrior begins to fall behind a smokescreen of thousands of conflicting voices and personalities. The plot, however, is about as simple as they come. Characters come and go, but the general structure remains the same throughout, as do the “twists” and the climaxes, almost like a traditional good-versus-evil anime flick, complete with all of the exaggerated dialogue and cliché motives. But that’s Warriors Orochi, in a nutshell. It’s bulky, it’s cliché, and it’s absolutely epic. 

Verdict

Warriors Orochi abandons the Three Kingdoms era in search of a fresh and exciting take on a multiverse chapter—a world in which both sides of history can openly share a level playing field to swagger their respective strengths in an all-encompassing pit of power and ravishingly complex battle schematics. Sure, the plot lines might be ridiculous and about predictable as a bog-standard good-versus-evil flick, but where the series fails to deliver an original source for exciting plot details, it most certainly makes up for in its stupidly satisfying carve ‘em up combat and in-depth character development system. The amount of content that you receive, too, just sort of says it all.

It goes without saying at this point, but if you have grown a little weary of the usual Three Kingdoms era, then it’s best to keep Orochi in your back pocket. It might lack the loose historical context of the existing dual Warriors timelines, but it does make for a heck of a multiverse story arc, and what’s more, a perfect bridge for two genuinely fantastic hack-and-slash series.