Xtreemly Average
Feudal Japan gets a beat-'em-up expansion in Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends, but only the faithful need apply.
Published: March 25, 2008
It's got to suck being a Dynasty/Samurai Warriors fan. If you dig wading through hordes of enemy forces, laying a perpetual beat-down on the masses a thousand kills (sorry, "K.O.s") at a time, hearing one reviewer after another spit out "hurrrr, is the same game for the 51st time!" jokes, but it's even worse for the folks at KOEI who make their living off pumping out, well, the same game over and over again.
So I'm not going to do that. The joke has been made so many times that it's long since stopped being funny and really by know if you're even reading this review, it's because you still share some modicum of interest in the franchise and its myriad expansions. Except in the case of Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends, there's really not a whole of expanding going on here.
Sure, the game piggybacks off the content that was delivered in Samurai Warriors 2, allowing you to play through the same stages with the same fighters (though unlike the six new warriors, you won't be able to play through their stories), rack up the same insane number of felled enemies, grind until you've hit the new level cap of 70, but after that... Well, there's just not a whole lot to go by. New weapons are nice, as are new levels, but unlike, say, the Empires expansions where entire side modes are included to bolster the usual hacking and slashing, there's really zero here in the way of complete modes that are new.
The allure of cruising through huge battlefields and mowing down enemies is still strong; the series, for all its endless milking, still carries with it an addictive quality that actually makes quick and dirty expansions like this possible, and with a stable of dozens of characters, there's plenty of grinding to be done should you be so inclined. The new characters, for what it's worth, at least introduce some new mechanics. Gracia, for instance, uses only her fists, while Chosokabe wields -- I kid you not -- a guitar, and most of the other characters seem to have been built around longer-range weapons.
Maybe I was painting things with too wide a brush when I said there's zero new modes. Things like orb synthesis to add upgrades to weapons, new difficulty levels and three dozen new scenarios are minor additions, yes, and one could be forgiven for glossing over those improvements, but one could certainly glean a healthy amount of play time from the Mercenary Mode if one were so inclined. Though it doesn't completely break out of the game to introduce a new way of handling battles, the fact that you can become, hire and level-up mercenaries to aid you in your unification of Japan under a single (or multiple, if you like to play the field) daimyo means there's at least a reason behind taking missions and, yes, slashing through fools with the quickness.
Most wouldn't expect that an expansion like this would bring with it a host of improvements to the graphics or sound, and they would be absolutely right. The Warriors games aren't exactly known for their amazing audiovisual experiences, and Xtreme Legends does the series no favors in that respect. Voice acting ranges from being fairly decent to downright cringe-worthy, and while the framerate is nice and solid, the textures, animation and models are all pulled directly from the other games. Again, though, this is an expansion.
Chances are if you're reading this, you've already bought the game and just want to see what we thought of it, either to rail against us for over-generalizing or to confirm that, yes, this is a rather minimalist offering for $30. But hey, look at the bright side: at least the PS2 version can be played with just the Xtreme Legends disc; the 360 one requires the original Samurai Warriors 2 to play it. So hey, uh, I guess there's that.
So I'm not going to do that. The joke has been made so many times that it's long since stopped being funny and really by know if you're even reading this review, it's because you still share some modicum of interest in the franchise and its myriad expansions. Except in the case of Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends, there's really not a whole of expanding going on here.
Sure, the game piggybacks off the content that was delivered in Samurai Warriors 2, allowing you to play through the same stages with the same fighters (though unlike the six new warriors, you won't be able to play through their stories), rack up the same insane number of felled enemies, grind until you've hit the new level cap of 70, but after that... Well, there's just not a whole lot to go by. New weapons are nice, as are new levels, but unlike, say, the Empires expansions where entire side modes are included to bolster the usual hacking and slashing, there's really zero here in the way of complete modes that are new.
The allure of cruising through huge battlefields and mowing down enemies is still strong; the series, for all its endless milking, still carries with it an addictive quality that actually makes quick and dirty expansions like this possible, and with a stable of dozens of characters, there's plenty of grinding to be done should you be so inclined. The new characters, for what it's worth, at least introduce some new mechanics. Gracia, for instance, uses only her fists, while Chosokabe wields -- I kid you not -- a guitar, and most of the other characters seem to have been built around longer-range weapons.
Maybe I was painting things with too wide a brush when I said there's zero new modes. Things like orb synthesis to add upgrades to weapons, new difficulty levels and three dozen new scenarios are minor additions, yes, and one could be forgiven for glossing over those improvements, but one could certainly glean a healthy amount of play time from the Mercenary Mode if one were so inclined. Though it doesn't completely break out of the game to introduce a new way of handling battles, the fact that you can become, hire and level-up mercenaries to aid you in your unification of Japan under a single (or multiple, if you like to play the field) daimyo means there's at least a reason behind taking missions and, yes, slashing through fools with the quickness.
Most wouldn't expect that an expansion like this would bring with it a host of improvements to the graphics or sound, and they would be absolutely right. The Warriors games aren't exactly known for their amazing audiovisual experiences, and Xtreme Legends does the series no favors in that respect. Voice acting ranges from being fairly decent to downright cringe-worthy, and while the framerate is nice and solid, the textures, animation and models are all pulled directly from the other games. Again, though, this is an expansion.
Chances are if you're reading this, you've already bought the game and just want to see what we thought of it, either to rail against us for over-generalizing or to confirm that, yes, this is a rather minimalist offering for $30. But hey, look at the bright side: at least the PS2 version can be played with just the Xtreme Legends disc; the 360 one requires the original Samurai Warriors 2 to play it. So hey, uh, I guess there's that.