The History of Warfare (Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate Review)

Quick Facts:

Developer: Omega Force
Initial Release Date: September 2, 2014

Platforms: PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox ONE

Rating: T (Mild language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence)

Ancient warfare was brutal. Soldiers did not have the convenience of long range weaponry, and had to rely on quick footwork, strong arms, and brilliant hand eye coordination to take down their foes. Thousands of people would battle for supremacy across wide battlefields, but only certain ones had special abilities. Their talents extended far beyond the connection with their swords and spears and into the depths of their souls. 

Some might think that these gifts dealt in the realm of strategy or sophistication in warfare, but I am here to report from first hand experience that these men and women were far more powerful. They did not spend time in war rooms concocting brilliant battlefield strategies. Instead, they spent their time and energy training diligently. After months of physical labor they emerged onto the battlefield with a new authority.

They tore through hundreds of soldiers, slashing through waves of trained combatants and standing among their disappearing bodies in victory. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate captures this feeling perfectly. As I sat there pressing a single button, I wiped away hundreds of fighters and chuckled at their weakness. The more I fought, the more powerful my soldiers became. Each one has their own leveling system, which dictates the length and complexity of their combos, as well as other stats such as health and magical abilities.

It is easy to pick up and play for anyone willing to hold a controller, but is not difficult enough for those who want to keep the controller firmly in their grasp. Once you get the main controls down, the repetition begins to sink in a sort of relaxing, satisfying rhythm. It's oddly cathartic when you witness hundreds of people falling beneath your mighty sword. Even the bosses are defeated with relative ease, which may be a turnoff for anyone looking for a relatively challenging experience.

When you are not fighting, you are probably wondering where to go next. Usually a map is supposed to be helpful in directing someone get from point A to point B, but this game would rather show you how point A goes to point X, what point D is doing to point F, how point E is reacting to point S, and how Point T is tired of the way Points U and W are treating it when suddenly Point B disappears entirely. In short, the map is in a battle of it's own. The map consists of lots of blue dots for friends, and red dots for enemies, which is simple enough, but if you are looking for directions, I have one piece of advice. Go as far to the opposite corner from where you started from as possible. If you run into a wall or a gate, or if someone starts randomly yelling at you in Japanese for going in that direction, then you are closer to beating the mission.

While you travel from one point to another, you begin to realize that nothing in the world has texture. There might be some tiny blades of grass here and there, but nothing feels like the battles are taking place in a realistic environment. This is definitely not a deal breaker, and I actually enjoyed the simplistic style of the game. It made it easier for me to focus on all of the crazy events going on without being distracted by unnecessary detail.

Once the battles are over, you return to a base camp and upgrade characters, which is a pretty straightforward process, though it is never fully explained. I won't ruin the surprise in this review, but let's just say that once you figure out weapon upgrading you will enjoy it. It seems like an unnecessary addition to the game, since almost every enemy you'll come across falls in one hit, but it is still a nice touch to see the progression of your characters and their mastery of the weapons that they wield.

Now you may have noticed that I have spent the whole review discussing the mechanics and haven't mentioned the story once. Well, to be honest, I didn't pay much attention to it. When a game starts off with a normal battle, then throws in a hydra, and then says that you can randomly time travel back and forth to save people that you didn't save previously because the hydra was about to kill you and some spirit lady shows up out of the blue to tell you all of this without any backstory...you get lost. It's also in Japanese, with English subtitles, which is not a bad thing, but it gets tedious to read paragraphs worth of material as the characters stand there and converse with each other in a language I do not understand. This is a personal view, since a lot of people prefer a Japanese recording to their English dubbed counterparts, but I would like it if I didn't have to read as much to get the story. If I wanted to read that much, I'd turn off my Xbox and open a book.

Even though it sounds as though I am giving this game a lot of negative criticism, I really enjoyed the experience. The simplicity of it is cathartic, especially after a long, hard day. With Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, I can just sit back, relax, and fight epic battles without worrying about skill or practice. It's like a sweet dessert to my steady diet of virtual challenge that I get from other games. I highly recommend this game for those who are in the mood for mindless fun, whether that is through fighting hundreds of enemies in battles, or fighting your friends one on one in duel mode. Just don't use it as a source for a history paper on ancient warfare, or else you'll fail it.