Day: September 29, 2021

“I was standing on the castle battlements, overlooking the fields ahead of me. It was a hot day. The sun had been beating down on me and my men and fatigue had begun to set in. It was only midday and yet I felt that I had been awake for days. My armour was heavy and stifling. The sword at my hand felt as heavy as a tree trunk. But yet, I could not show weakness. Not to my brethren. Not today. The castle gave a perfect viewpoint of any approaching force from miles away but the enemy did not care. They stood there. In formation, in plain sight. The commoners knew that they outnumbered us and the stench of their fear was rancid in my nostrils. Hold fast. Let them be afraid, as I will not falter. I will not falter. I will not…“

…A hand on my shoulder from my mother snapped me out of it. “Want some Ice cream?” How could I say no? I love ice cream. 

 Say what you will but growing up in a country full of castles was brilliant for a 10-year-old with a vivid imagination and a love for medieval warfare. Who would have known that a couple of decades later, I would be able to relive that feeling once again? But this time, I am the one hacking off limbs and striking terror into the heart of my foes. I am the one charging head-first into death and glory. I am the one who decides who dies first. Prepare yourself for battle m’lord, Chivalry II has arrived. 

Chivalry II is the second instalment in the Chivalry series from Torn Banner Studios. Their first medieval combat slasher was a massive hit (and a personal favourite of mine). This new outing comes with 8 maps (5 objective and 3 team-deathmatch/free-for-all) all of which support 64 player game modes. The objective maps have you setting up sieges and storming castles whilst the enemy desperately tries to repel your advances. The graphics are a notable step up from the 2012 instalment. The game boasts a 4k UHD feature on PS5 with the Unreal Engine 4 driving the chaos. You can see that the developers have put a lot of work into making the game look as cinematic as possible and the game looks fantastic. I will say that there are some areas that are rough around the edges: NPCs during cutscenes look awkward and clunky and the peasants cheering you on during the tutorial are copy-and-paste but it is all excusable. This game is a perfect example of making things count where they are most important, and the graphics are stunning when it matters. I want to see the fear in my enemies’ eyes when they realise they are about to take a mace to the face. 

Speaking of maces to faces, it is worth solidifying what this game is about: medieval combat. The gameplay focuses on large-scale online battles where you can choose one of two factions: The brutal Mason Order or the loyal Agatha Knights (or to simplify it: Red vs Blue). You can then choose one of four classes: Knight, Footman, Vanguard, and Archer. These classes also have sub-class options which allow players to tweak their playstyle. Fancy being a Knight with a shield? Be a Guardian class. A dual-wielding Vanguard? Hello Devastator. This level of customisation sits perfectly with me. Four classes are enough to keep things simple but having the ability to customise each class allows players to go deeper. There is no overwhelming feeling of needing to learn too many classes to even have a chance at surviving. In my first game, I picked the Vanguard and sat pretty on 55 kills by the end of the game. 55 glorious kills for the Mason Order. 

The controls are also a huge part of the game’s allure but can also be the one thing that puts people off. The game is a hack-and-slash slaughterfest but you are the one in control of the hacking and slashing. You have a block, downward swing, side swing, and stab. You can chain these into combos (or use feints to fake attacks), and blocking certain attacks with different timings can trigger parries and ripostes. You can also use the controller to turn your body into your attacks. I mean, how else can you ensure a good blade to flesh ratio has been maintained?  All of this is explained in the tutorial but I can see how a lot of people would find the combat to be difficult to pick up. Especially if they were not used to this style of action gameplay. Still, I loved the original Chivalry and the combat system was a big selling point for me. Chivalry II has built on that system and improved it.

The big question to be asked is: Well, is it fun? Yes, yes, and YES. This game is pure carnage on an epic scale and I love it. The 64 player maps are chaotic without being overwhelmingly large and the game modes do well to guide you along to where the next battle will be taking place. I didn’t find myself getting lost for 5 minutes trying to find people, only to get sniped and having to do it all again. When you die, you respawn with your weapon in hand, already charging back towards the action. It is little things like this that keep the blood pumping and the intensity up. Another huge plus-point on the fun factor is the hardiness of your character and the ability to hold your own against multiple foes. This may be a medieval combat simulator but you do not go down easy. With careful blocking, parrying, and riposting, you can defend yourself when outnumbered and if you’re lucky, even turn the tide. I audibly cheered when I found myself outnumbered 3-1, blocked the first hit, straight into a sword-sweep which decapitated two of my foes and allowed me to follow-up with a stab in the face to the third. It may not happen often but when it does, it is beyond satisfying. Oh and I forgot to say, you can pick up anything and use it as a weapon…even someone else’s limbs! I’ve yet to kill someone with a severed arm or a flaming chicken but when I do it, it will be glorious*

*Nb. I did it whilst writing this review. It was better than I ever could have expected.

Chivalry II is a gaming experience that can be summed up in one word: fun. I admit that I have been falling out of love with online gaming recently. The pressure felt during high-speed, meta-dominated matches eventually end up taking the fun out of it for me. Mistakes are usually punished heavily and you feel a sense of disconnection from your teammates when you end up inadvertently costing people precious ranking spots. I did not feel this with Chivalry. Quite the opposite. It may take a while to get into the combat system but the pure joy you get from swinging a broadsword around a battlefield is unparalleled. Levels of individual skill also become blurred when 64 people are swinging swords, axes, and chickens into each-others bodies. Everything from the graphics to the stellar sound design is there to take you into this world and push you right into the mud and blood. It may not be as polished as other AAA titles and the voice lines can be annoyingly repetitive but when it is this much fun, does it really matter? I certainly think not. So, don your armour, sharpen your sword, and fight…for the Order! 

Yes, I play Mason Order. Don’t like it? Come and find me on the battlefield. I’ll be waiting.

I give this 9 bloodied polearms out of 10

GameRev was provided with a digital download of the game for the purpose of this review.

Perched high up on the cliff edge overlooking the enemy warehouse across the lake, target marked over 2000 metres away, I take aim, set the range of the scope, adjust to factor in wind direction, breath held, trigger pulled…missed. Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is a stealth-based milsim, and is the 6th edition of a series that began all the way back in 2008. Contracts 2 follows a similar formula to its predecessors but it is certainly the most challenging, with sniper shots ranging almost as long as the game’s title. It boasts one of the most realistic and challenging sniper mechanics I’ve ever played draped in some beautiful visuals, but the story and layout of the game feel somewhat dull and unpolished.

Set in the fictional middle eastern dictatorship of Kuamar who’s newly powerful autocrat has decided to invade a neighbouring country, the world’s response is to send in one man and his sniper. The story itself feels all too common for military shooters, stereotypical evil dictator and his cronies are up to no good again, and your job is to put a bullet in them. After a brief tutorial handholding you through the various mechanics for sniping and the different gadgets to play with, you’re thrown into the action with your first target. From there, the campaign spans a series of individual contracts in which you track down and assassinate members of the evil network, and when you’re not sending bullets into heads from 1000+ metres away, you’ll be interrogating enemy grunts, corrupting communications and sabotaging equipment. To help with this there is a wealth of gadgets at your disposal, a drone to help mark hard to reach targets and hack CCTV camera as well as a range of special bullets which vary in realism, from the standard armour piercing and explosive all the way up to sci-fi style tracker bullets and ones that don’t factor in wind or distance.

With each target to assassinate comes a wide variety of ways to do it, you could go in full guns blazing, locate the target, fire and exit, or you can make use of the environment to get creative. In a style similar to a Hitman game, I was able to lure one of the key targets underneath a shipping container, and will a well-placed shot that squashed him with it. It is kills like these which I found most enjoyable from the game, the big finale moments and the payoff from getting creative allow you to take your targets out in a whole wealth of different ways. Those calculated sniper shots against the target miles in the distance were brilliant and served as the standout high point in Contracts 2, but unfortunately, the rest of the game felt a bit soulless and packed full of filler. After being helicoptered into each new area comes a very rinse and repeat process of sneaking around clusters of enemies, interrogating certain ones to find information on the next target and the occasional up close and personal firefights with your assault rifle and pistol. For the sake of fluidity, the developers had to add something in between sniping from vantage points, but unfortunately, these other elements feel very rushed, even though you play from the first person and have the standard automatic rifle and grenade loadouts it doesn’t feel like a polished FPS, but instead a repetitive, unavoidable mechanic that had me constantly searching for the quickest way to get to the next target.

Contracts 2’s strength comes from that point beyond reaching the vantage point, scanning the area, planning your move and executing the attack feels very rewarding and really felt like I was behind the scope myself, with a great deal of weight behind every minor adjustment or decision. Rather than rushing in to kill the target and get out of there, I was much more inclined to take time and meticulously scan and plan out the method of attack. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had with a sniper rifle in a video game, the mechanics are very realistic and challenging at first, but once you get a hang of adjusting for target distance and wind direction you start to feel like a true sharpshooter. Unfortunately, the other mechanics pale in comparison, the stealth is fairly basic and minimal with clunky enemies that all seem to struggle with hearing, must be from all of the newly acquired fighter jets and helicopters ploughing through the Kuamarian airspace. Movement in general just looks a bit too robotic and very jerky, I thought I was wearing an exo-suit with the way you snap up ledges in the rare bit of climbing you have to do, it put my back out just watching it. The visual layout of the HUD and menus are quite clunky as well, for a game with a pretty simple premise and core mechanics comes a mess of different menus, upgrade screens, HUD options and customisation sections that can be all quite overwhelming until you’ve gotten used to how they all combine together, it feels like this element of the game got the smallest slice of the budget.

Visually Contracts 2’s world and objects are stunning, currently there is only a last-gen (PS4/XBOX One) version but the CryEngine powered graphics holds its own against some of the next-gen optimised games that I’ve played. As expected from a game that requires you to take shots from multiple Kilometres away the render distance stretches for miles too, even without looking through the binoculars or scopes you can see figures as tiny as ants pacing back and forth where the target’s location is, all player and object movements are very fluid as well, thanks to Contracts 2 running at 60fps on PC and next-gen consoles. All of this culminates into an aesthetically marvellous world that really does a great job of adding to the realism and immersion of traversing the rocky and sandy terrain of Kuamar.

Overall, the experience of Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 boils down to a mixed bag. On the one side, there is the adrenaline pumping thrills of hitting a high-stakes shot from thousands of metres away to take out one of the big targets and hightailing it out of there whilst the chaos in the distance ensues, but this is marred from then having to wade through clunky stealth and fps mechanics that leave you trying to rush to the next sniper’s nest. The gunplay with the sniper and the wider process of executing the kill once you get into position doesn’t get old or boring and is probably the most fun I’ve had with a sniper in a video game But I’ve also found these big moments being too infrequent and far apart, it felt almost underutilised. The previous 5 editions to the series follow a trend of having solid sniper mechanics but never breaking into the FPS elite like Call of Duty or Battlefield, and unfortunately Contracts 2 doesn’t deviate from this trend. That’s not to say that this is a bad game or that it should be immediately disregarded, the experience of the sniper alone is enough for me to recommend giving this game a try, but be prepared to see some rough edges along with way.

GameRev was provided with a digital download of the game for the purpose of this review.

 The Olympics. Two words that represent thousands of years of epic competition; the best of the best competing for pride and eternal glory. It is every athlete’s dream to be in these hallowed games and let’s face it, while we may not all be Jesse Owens, video games have given us a chance to don our countries’ colours and attempt to win our own piece of gold. Sega’s 2019 Japanese release: Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game has come to western shores just in time for the rescheduled 2020 Olympics. Has it done enough to win gold, or is it going to fall at the final hurdle? 

On your marks…

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game is simple in its core concept. The game consists of 18 mini-games. All of which represent Olympic sports. You will find:

• 100m Sprint
• 110m Hurdle
• 4x100m Relay
• Long Jump
• Hammer Throw
• 100m Freestyle Swimming
• 200m Individual Medley Swimming
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Beach Volleyball
• Boxing
• BMX
• Football/Soccer
• Judo
• Rugby 7s
• Sport Climbing
• Table Tennis (singles and doubles)
• Tennis (singles and doubles)

As you can see, the games show an excellent amount of variety and there is enough choice in there to keep even the staunchest Olympic fan satisfied. The controls are also designed for variety and it is refreshing to see that Sega moved away from relying solely on button-bashing to win games. Yes, the 100m sprint is “press x rapidly to win” but other games rely on more timing-based inputs and quick reactions to counter opponents’ swings, serves, and grapples. 

I found myself getting to grips with each event with relative ease but there was something wrong. Once I won the qualifiers, I was struggling to even get in the top 3 of any event; my opponents were doing something that was putting them leagues ahead of me. After some digging, I found out that each event has got a hidden set of controls that greatly enhance your performance. These extra controls give you speed boosts, spin-shots, counter-grapples, drop goals, and base-steals (amongst many others). The game tries to spoon-feed you these extra controls through unlockable “tips” but it requires a game-quit in order to view them in a separate menu. You also need to play the event multiple times in order to unlock all of the tips. This is quite simply a terrible mechanic. You should not have to lose an event hopelessly multiple times in order for someone to say “Oh, by the way…this is how you actually win.” The extra controls are hidden behind an “advanced controls” section but it is not obvious to find early on. Keep all the tips easily accessible (and all unlocked) or scrap them altogether. Don’t hover in the middle like this. 

Get Set…

The true division in this game lies in the fun factor.  Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game boasts a single-player Olympic competition that can also be experienced online.There are no differences in the core gameplay between single-player and online but the overall experience is vastly different. In single-player, the opposing AI either has the skill level of a drunk chimp or the speed, strength, and reflexes of a member of the Justice League. This is made worse by some of the worst team AI that I have ever seen in a video game. If you make a line-break in Rugby, be prepared for the opposing team to run with your player without tackling them and if you play tennis doubles then expect to be regularly hitting the ball into the back of your teammates’ head (no matter how much you try to avoid it). The online element thankfully replaces most of the AI with real humans and it greatly strengthens the experience. You can even set up medleys where you can pick your strongest events to try and win the coveted gold medal for your team. Be wary though, your strongest event may also be your opponents’ top medal-earner. 

…GO!

With all of these stumbles, the game still has enough left in the tank to push through to the qualifiers. There are a number of customisations available for your avatar and I loved being able to compete in the 100m sprint wearing a full suit of armour and bunny-ears. You are able to play against real-life athletes in practice mode and the games have enough variety to keep you entertained until the real games start. 

The addition of couch-coop/competition makes Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game a solid Friday-night-time-spender that shines when played with friends/online but quickly becomes stale when played by yourself. The graphics are reminiscent of other games in the genre (think Wii Sports but with more polish and fewer bobbleheads) but the focus on gameplay leaves the wow factor of the graphics back on the starting blocks. If you are looking for a game that brings out the best of each event and will last you until the next Olympic games then sadly, you will not find it here. Events like the Long Jump, Hammer Throw, and Tennis have enough depth to keep you entertained but inconsistent AI makes other events painful to finish. This is not to say that Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game is not fun. Far from it. It is just more of a sprint than a marathon. Sega has ultimately aimed for bronze and achieved exactly that. I would have just liked to have seen more ambition to hit that gold standard.

I give this 6.5 Usain Bolts out of 10

GameRev was provided with a digital download of the game for the purpose of this review.

If you want to look for the first ever racing game, you’d have to travel back some 48 years to Atari’s space race. For those past 48 years gaming has brought racing fans an experience ever so closer to the real thing, and now in 2021, we might just have the closest one yet. F1 2021 is Codemaster’s latest addition to their long line of Formula 1 titles, only this time they’re flying under the banner of gaming giant EA, it has a similar feel to the previous versions but there are a few major changes to gameplay and some new modes in the mix which stands as a clear sign of internet from the title’s new owners. There’s now more ways than ever to sink your teeth into the action, that’ll keep you rushing back to the game almost as fast as the cars on the track.

Out of the many different modes on display in F1 2021, the one which has seen the most hype is Braking Point, a new story mode in which you follow rookie driver Aiden Jackson in his battle against rival Devon Butler, whilst also trying to compete against veteran Casper Akkerman. The story is played out through a mix of cutscenes and situational gameplay, this could be nursing home a punctured tyre into the pits, gaining back positions after falling back in the race or pushing for a podium after finding some last minute speed. The balance of gameplay and cutscene is just about right, never feeling too far from the action or wanting more cinematics, and there’s some clever plot twists thrown in too which overall make for a really gripping tale. The story does take a little while to get going and once the plot is at its peak it does end very quickly, but this does leave the door open to develop on the story in future editions. Braking Point plays out very similarly to FIFA’s the Journey, and is a clear nod to the expertise and depth that EA has brought to Codemasters’ franchise.

As well as Braking Point, there is a wide feature of single player modes to play from. My Team returns from its inception in the 2020 game, a mode in which you can design, develop and drive for your very own F1 team. Every choice from livery, engine supplier and second driver is yours to make, and each decision comes with sacrifice from another, do you go for a more experienced driver at the sacrifice of a less powerful or durable engine? Do you take on a sponsor with a lower weekly payment but a much more lucrative seasonal bonus? Each decision has weight behind it and allows you to experience just a glimpse of the headaches that f1 bosses have to deal with daily. There’s more decisions to be made, more freedom with research & development and greater customisation to expand on last year’s version and keep things different. Career mode makes the usual appearance, this time with even more options to drive, carve your own path with your customisable driver, or jump into the season with any driver on the grid, clinch the title with Max Verstappen or score those precious first points with George Russell. There’s now also the option of a 2 player career mode, you and a friend can lead each other to victory racing for the same team or compete for the title as rivals .Multiplayer makes a usual appearance with casual lobbies to hop into a quick game, or for a more competitive platform you can enter ranked and league races, and even enter E sports qualifying tournaments. Even though a lot of the single player options are the same as previous editions the additional features and options Codemasters have added makes for much more replayability and doesn’t make any feature feel stale or hastily carried over from the previous title. 

Gameplay on F1 2021 is much sharper and realistic. Racing on F1 2020 always felt on a knife edge, with very unforgiving braking and handling, but 2021 feels like a new game. The braking is surprisingly sharp and much more reactive than previous editions, allowing you to brake much later into turns and have a wider window of opportunity for overtakes. The steering feels lighter and more responsive, If you don’t catch the right line into a corner the game is much more forgiving with the adjustments you can make, gone are the days of binning it into the gravel if you don’t have an inch perfect entry. 

That doesn’t mean that gameplay has gotten any easier however, and Codemasters have made a few extra tweaks that bring this harsh dose of reality. F1 2021 has made a great effort to make the track and environments feel more alive, the kerbs are more raised and have a much greater effect on the balance and steering of the cars now, before you could breeze over a kerb with little effect, but now if you go too far over one it feels like you’re being shunted off course by a wrecking ball. Hitting the tarmac off of the limits or the gravel also has a much greater effect on driving, you’ll find yourself spinning much easier if you do veer too far over the limits. After a bit of getting used to it I much prefer the gameplay on this version, it feels more forgiving for correcting small mistakes, but it’ll punish you for trying to get a shortcut over a kerb or pushing the car past its limits, it feels much more realistic and less simulated than previous versions. Much like all the previous versions F1 2021 supports various racing wheels, and from using my one I can safely say that it feels brilliant, the movements are very responsive and the button layouts for car controls and messages are well thought out allowing for ease of use, another positive sign for those hard core racing fans.

F1 2021 is Codemasters’ first venture into a next gen game, and they’ve pulled out all the stops for it. The F1 games have always been some of the best games around graphically but this year they’ve really kicked it up a notch, the cars are captured in stunning detail, especially when they’re showing signs of scraping and slight damage, the tracks too look amazing and much more dynamic. If a driver in front of you hits some dirt or gravel you’ll soon be plunging through a cloud of dust, and when a crash does happen there’s more debris and more visual flair with flying dirt and carbon fibre; driving in the rain also looks stunning, the spray from the cars looks very realistic alongside the droplets that constantly trickle down the screen. They’ve also overhauled the sound, making it their closest attempt to the real thing that I’ve seen, the added whir of the turbocharger when accelerating makes for a much richer sound than just a screeching engine, and it brings everything altogether to give the game a very premium feel, all of these details are powered in 4k 60+fps on next gen consoles. The new console generation and new lines of PC graphics cards have sent the benchmark for how games look & perform skyrocketing, and F1 2021 carries the flag for how a next gen title should look and feel.

In their latest edition to the long-stretching series, Codemasters have set out with a clear goal of not reinventing the wheel but improving it, and in that regard they’ve knocked it out the park. Braking Point and improvements to Career mode & My Team add much more depth to the single player options available, and the gameplay tweaks they’ve made really help to improve the immersion and flow of the game, and these when combined with some stunning visual overhauls add a detailed and complete feel to the game. Some might say the F1 games have had a bit of a slump in recent years, but I’m confident that F1 2021 will be looked back on as one of the classic racing titles. 

GameRev was provided with a digital download of the game for the purpose of this review.

One versus a thousand

You might think that that phrase can be interpreted in multiple ways: a philosophical mindset, a mental state, or a frame of mind. You would be forgiven if you overlooked the literal meaning behind the phrase: One person versus a lot of other people. Samurai Warriors 5 is a game that pits you against entire armies and spoiler alert: the armies do not do well. This type of game has the moniker of “Musou” and if you have not experienced this before, now would be a perfect time. Koei Tecmo has rebooted the ‘Warriors’ series into a “fresh re-imagining”; complete with a more compact storyline, new gameplay additions, and a new visual style. Will newcomers to the series be drawn into this historical hack-and-slash? Will returning fans be happy with the roster of changes? Let’s find out. 

Samurai Warriors 5 focuses on the Sengoku period of Japan, a 150-year period of almost neverending civil war that saw clan leaders and warlords fighting for power until the 3 “Great Unifiers” restored a central government in the region. The main storyline in the game focuses on a condensed timeframe of the Sengoku period where the story is told through the viewpoint of two primary characters: Nobunaga Oda and Akechi Mitsuhide. Whilst the game boasts an impressive roster of 37 playable characters, you will mainly be playing through the story as Nobunaga Oda (with smatterings of Akechi Mitsuhide). This main-character-centered focus helps to bring a level of continuity to the story and also adds a refreshing change of pace when a side-character steps into the story and you can carve up the battlefield with a fresh pair of blades. I will say, this forms more of a double-edged sword as I found myself falling in love with the playstyle of a side character (the legendary Lady Nō) and subsequently thereafter, falling out of love with Nobunaga’s playstyle throughout the story. This creeping feeling of boredom started to become worryingly apparent when the real enemy of the game started rearing its ugly head: repetition. 

With such an ugly beast on the horizon, surely the game can now turn to its biggest champion: the gameplay. I will say that the core idea behind the Muso playstyle is incredible. You stand alone in front of hundreds of (apparently brainless) soldiers who all fall victim to your blade. You can string together simple combos that play off variants of Square and Triangle and you have a “Hyper” attack that propels you forward whilst still attacking enemies (and knocking them along with you). Combine this with customisable ultimate attacks and a devastating Muso finisher and you have the ability to chain combos that reach into the thousands. To me, there is nothing better than carving through the battlefield whilst sending hundreds of enemies flying away with each arcing slash. It really helps to de-stress after a long day at work. The visual style complements this beautifully and the revamped musical score adds a layer of speed and aggression to the game. 

Are all of these positives enough to ward off the beast of boredom? Sadly, no.

The story and gameplay are the two worst casualties of this beast. The game does well to inform you of the story through in-game cutscenes and beautifully rendered artistic showcases and the voice acting on the characters is stellar but the game really can be boiled down to a simple “Move from A to B and kill everything along the way.” The historical elements add a level of intrigue and awe as you find yourself immersed in famous battles but the repetitive nature of the level structure and gameplay makes the game hard to stay passionate about. The “One versus a thousand” element is exhilarating and it is hard to complete a level without a smile on your face but once you have completed a few levels, you find that the details start to get lost in the wind. I love intense gaming experiences but there needs to be more respite and variance to break up the repetition. There is an impressive amount of weapon customisation available but this almost seems redundant when you are sending whole armies back to the stone age with each sword-swing. The AI also seems inconsistent to the point where the difficulty between the filler soldiers and the end of level bosses is too great. I found myself blindly massacring hordes of soldiers who seemed to struggle to even tie their laces, only to run head-first into a boss who made me feel like a 5 year-old armed with a butterknife. There is also a citadel mode which acts as a pseudo-tower defence mode where you can train characters for EXP and additional weapons but the appeal wears thin after a few hours of slaughter. 

Overall, Samurai Warriors 5 is an impressive reboot of an already well-loved series. The repetition was a huge issue for me but I must confess that I am relatively new to the Musou style of gameplay. I was immediately hooked with the beautiful visuals and the voice acting (and of course, the gameplay) but I did not find myself wanting to play longer than a level or two at a time. The game is also relatively smooth-running (except for the PS1-grade camera AI which threatens to get stuck behind anything and everything on the battlefield).

 If you are happy with a solid story, an absurdly destructive combat system, and an artistic rendition of a bloody time in Japan’s history then you will love Samurai Warriors 5. If you are like me and new to the series then you might want to take it slowly to avoid the danger of burnout but don’t worry, there is enough meat there to satisfy your bloodlust until the end credits roll. 

I give this 7.5 Demon Kings out of 10 

GameRev was provided with a digital download of the game for the purpose of this review.