Samurai Warriors 2 Comments by Dave McCarthy

Slightly higher review score than nearly every other one that I've read :/
Ohh and before anyone else says it ''Is that all the 360 can do,ports of older gen games hahahaha lolz''....Orrr ''So as good as Halo then?''
There we go.

Never played one game of the series. Am I really missing something? Bought my first Hitman used on 360 and I was more than surprised to find a game so good and so refined (I strictly play stealthy).
Is this any good on 360? Or I may just take the Ps2 version confident that the quality of the presentation is almost the same?

I really been put of buying these 360 versions because they seemed to have made very little effort to upgrade the visuals.

So... Just as good as halo then? ;)

The screen shot is borked.

Its larger than the area allowed in the adverts...

So in the reviewer's opinion it's basically enough for the game to deliver the visceral feel of the battlefield - and that justifies not talking about the quality of these elements compared to other games in the series and at large? How do the battles flow? What do the charachters control like? What is the story like?

A very slim review that presupposes the quality of SW2 lies in its engine only. Since this is not a print mag space should be of no concern - therefore a longer, more accurate review would be appropriate. Lazy.

I actually appreciate the brevity. Its quite clear you can get that info from the review of any of the previous games and I reckon its given me a good enough picture of what SW2 is like.

So, if I only want to buy one large scale brawler on the Xbox 360, is this better than Ninety Nine Nights? Not a heck of a lot of useful information in the review to help me make that decision.

Cool finally a reviewer that likes this type of game reviews one. Normally this or Dynasty Warriors review start with a "I hate this type of game" disclaimer. Can't wait for SW Empires next year.

Goodness me... 7/10 for this last-gen trash?!? I spent a couple of hours playing this last weekend on my nephew's 360 to get a good guage of what it was like but I was really forcing myself to play it in order to get a fair impression of it. My own view is that this game is incredibly mediocre.

I reckon EG are being far, far to generous personally. If this had been the PS2 version then I'd have grudgingly accepted that score even though I still think the game is little better than average. Even though this is "only" a £35 RRP Xbox 360 game, it simply doesn't deserve to be on the machine in the form it's in, i.e. there's been no attempt to enhance it beyond running it in 720p with the graphics being incredibly poor overall, particularly the appalling textures.

Better or worse than N3? I fancy a big, dumb, over the top brawler but they both seem to have their relative merits.

I picked up Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires on the 360 the other week, and I was surprised at how enjoyable it is. Yes, the graphics are a bit meh.

The animations are naff. The voice acting is shit. But, taken together with the amazing scenario campaigns, it all forms a brilliantly fun gaming experience in my opinion!

I'm curious how DW5:E compares to Samurai Warriors 2 - they seem to be identical, although SW2 doesn't seem to have the rather entertaining strategy mode that DW5 has. Anyone know?

DW5:E on the 360 is a very enjoyable game. Providing this is something like that, a 7/10 seems like a very fair score.

Despite not owning a 360 yet, I do fancy a bit of mad battlefield close combat action - this or N3?

"Big weapons and lots of enemies. What more could you possibly want from a videogame?"

Innovation?

@ Asphaltcowboy and nickthegun This is more fluid, more fun and less frustrating than N3 and far cheaper. DW Empires is also better than N3 to play but not as nice looking.

Cheers :)

Yep, just you.

On a side note, I found the Monopoly minigame thing to be a lot of fun with other people.

"Cool finally a reviewer that likes this type of game reviews one."

My thoughts exactly. Its frustrating that Gamescentral (for example) will make the effort to get a sports-game fan in to review sports games, but wont afford SW/DW type games the same curtosey, resulting in yet another "I hate this sort of game- 3/10" score.
And yes, for once someone realises that Fotball/Ice Hockey/Basketball/Golf/F1 fans can have their yearly updates without any journalists complaining, so why the hell cant us DW/SW fans?

I've put a number of hours into SW2 and I'd say it is, like the other games before it, a decent progression on the overall formula. The levelling up system is a welcome change, and means you can no longer transfer items gained in one characters campaign onto a different, new character thus overpowering them for the first missions. However you can stockpile cash using the various game modes to give yourself a bit of an easier time by buying a few upgrades before your characters first outing. I also like the way you level-up during the battle and aquire new abilities right there and then.

As for the camera.... Hmmm, certainly on the 360 version I'm playing it feels as though they've cropped it at the top so you often dont get as good a view in front of you as you did in, say DW5.
Wonder why?

It's less than £35 if you go looking around online. Picked it up for £26 off Amazon, which I think is a fair price.

It has quite a different feel to it than Dynasty Warriors. There seems to be more going on in the missions, and it has the castle stuff as well.

Whether it's better than N3 I couldn't say, still waiting for that to drop in price.

I personally would go with N3 over this or DW. Maybe the price would have swayed me toward DW before, but with N3's recent price drop (£30 new, £27 used in GameStation) I would opt for it out of all three.

That was a really good review. It hit every nail about the 'Warriors series bashing that goes on.
And no N3 is not as good as any Warriors title. It may look better (cause it's actually a next gen game) but they haven't learned a damn thing about strategy.

On a side note, anyone else notice the various things that Koei have lifted from Devil Kings (not that Devil Kings didn't pinch everything else first). The special moves and retreating enemies that can be killed in one hit are straight from Capcom's game :) nice to see developers learning things off of each other.

Finally. I've been waiting for a reviewer to 'get it' for a long time. These games are -fun-. That's all there is to it. Who cares about story really? So what if you hit buttons a lot? It's an arcade masher of legendary proportions rendered in 3D. Good solid simple fun, with a smattering of tactics to lift it up a bit.

And for the record, compare screenshots of this and N3. N3 looks better (aside from the distance blur that they should have toned down a bit on SDTVs). Now compare them moving, N3 loses by a country mile. This was a lesson in what really matters in graphics.

I came late to this genre of games, as dominated by Koei, starting off with Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires on 360, then Ninety Nine Nights, Samurai Warriors (BC), and finally this, and I love and play them all equally!