Samurai Warriors

Samurai Warriors contains a number of changes to Dynasty Warriors' combat system, most notably the ability to perform free-style combo attacks during Musou attack mode, during which the game enters bullet-time; common soldiers move very slowly, however officers are unaffected. Other changes include the ability to perform a roll to dodge attacks, and deflect incoming arrows with their weapon. Additionally, the series has hyper attacks, or the ability to dash while attacking enemy soldiers.[5]

The character development system has been overhauled. There is a new ranking system after battles which depends on five categories:

• Time in which the battle is won
• Amount of experience earned
• Missions successfully completed in battle
• Number of enemies defeated while using a Musou attack.
• Number of enemies killed in total.

Each of these categories is given a rank (from lowest to highest: E, D, C, B, A, S) depending on the player's performance, and then the player is given an overall rank. The higher the rank and the harder the difficulty setting of the game, the more the player's character attributes will increase. In addition to the growth of the character's stats, Skill Points are also awarded. Skill Points are used to buy skills through a skill tree that enhance the character's abilities.

Samurai Warriors introduces an in-battle mission system. Each stage has a number of missions which become available depending on which character the player is controlling and the success or failure of previous missions. Missions include eliminating specific enemy officers, launching sneak attacks on enemy bases or thwarting the plans of the enemy. Success in these missions can be crucial to the outcome of many battles as failure often results in a massive loss of morale to the player's forces. It will also determine the path that will be carved out for the next stage if there is a split route. However one can choose which path to take if both routes had been opened.

Samurai Warriors gives players the opportunity to create new characters via the officer training mode. In this mode the player creates a new character who trains under a mentor, completing twelve training sessions and a final exam. The player has a variety of tasks available for each training session based on gameplay modes and combat techniques. Each of the different tasks affects different attributes of the character. After the completion of the task the player will be ranked out of a score of 100 points, by getting more points the character's attributes will increase by a greater amount. If the character is defeated during the course of a training session, they will automatically fail and will have to spend one training session resting.

After 12 test sessions have passed, the character must take a final exam. This exam consists of two training sessions back to back. The player has to score a total of 100 points between these two tests in order to pass the exam. If the player completes the final exam successfully then they will become available to use in other gameplay modes.

• Yukimura Sanada
• Mitsuhide Akechi
• Kenshin Uesugi
• Oichi
• Hanzo Hattori

• Keiji Maeda
• Nobunaga Oda
• Goemon Ishikawa
• Okuni
• Kunoichi
• Magoichi Saika
• Shingen Takeda
• Masamune Date
• Noh
• Ranmaru Mori

• Ieyasu Tokugawa
• Kennyo Honganji
• Lu Bu
• Nagamasa Azai

• Hideyoshi Hashiba
• Yoshimoto Imagawa
• Tadakatsu Honda
• Ina

Note: Hideyoshi Hashiba and Yoshimoto Imagawa were unique NPCs in the title game, and were made playable in Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends. Tadakatsu Honda and his daughter, Ina were added as playable characters in the same expansion and were not unique NPCs in the game. In fact, Tadakatsu Honda appeared as a generic officer and Ina wasn't in the game at all.

Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors fame, also appears as an unplayable boss of Survival Mode. Officers created from New Officer Mode are also placed together in the character select screen.

Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends
Developer(s)	Omega Force
Publisher(s)	Koei
Series	Samurai Warriors
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Release	JP: September 16, 2004[6] NA: November 9, 2004[6] PAL: February 25, 2005[6]
Genre(s)	Hack and Slash
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends (or Samurai Warriors XL for short) is a PlayStation 2 expansion disc for Samurai Warriors. Just like the Dynasty Warriors series, the aim of these expansions is solely to add more content to the game. Players can use the "Import" feature (through switching discs with the original game) to use all features of the original game. Without the original game disc, the player will only have access to the Xtreme Legends content.

This offers two new characters (Tadakatsu Honda and Ina), two unplayable characters (Hideyoshi Hashiba and Yoshimoto Imagawa) were made playable rather than cutscenes and a brand new mission and map. This also offers new weapons, items, skills, three new versus modes, a new survival mode, and fixes several problems. A new difficulty level, Novice is also added which is easier than Easy and targeted for beginners.

Even after they reached rank 20 characters could still gain skill points and increase their attributes without having to the reset the character to default. Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends extended this further, by adding even more powerful sixth weapons to earn. These can only be discovered by playing on Chaos mode (or Hard mode, if the correct bonus is purchased).

Exclusive to Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends, through the completion of special tasks, the player can earn Bonus Points in order to purchase special features. These features include additional costumes for characters, voice sound tests, lowering the difficulty required to unlock the fifth and sixth weapons and the ability to break the default limits for character's stats. Methods of earning bonus points include the following: earning all of a character's endings, unlocking rare items and weapons and successfully creating new characters.

Samurai Warriors: State of War
Developer(s)	Omega Force
Publisher(s)	Koei
Series	Samurai Warriors
Platform(s)	PlayStation Portable
Release	JP: December 8, 2005 NA: March 7, 2006 EU: March 24, 2006 AU: March 30, 2006
Genre(s)	Hack and Slash
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

A port to the PlayStation Portable, called Samurai Warriors: State of War, was released in Japan on December 8, 2005 and March 7, 2006 in North America. It has a number of additional multiplayer features.[7][8]

The PS2 release of Samurai Warriors sold a million copies within a month in Japan[32] and reached the Japanese platinum chart with a total of 1.06 million.[33] It was awarded an award of excellence in CESA's 2004 Game Awards[34] and a 34 out of 40 rating from Famitsu.[16]

The game was met with mixed reviews from Western critics. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 73% and 73 out of 100 for the PS2 version,[9][11] and 71% and 71 out of 100 for the Xbox version.[10][12]

Most reviewers criticized the game's visual and technical similarities to the Dynasty Warriors series as the cause. What earned the most praise was the RPG element added into the game as it deviates from its spiritual predecessor by adding a higher replay value for gamers.[26] The Create a Character mode was received with mixed results. Gameplanet commented that it is "well implemented", allowing players to accurately play a character made for them[35] while GameSpot regarded the option as "a nice touch" but "rather tiresome" in the end.[21] The innovations made were still met with criticism for the genre as a whole, with Eurogamer stating, "we’re seriously on the verge of being all warriored out."[15]

Xtreme Legends was met with average reception; GameRankings gave it a score of 72%,[36] while Metacritic gave it 72 out of 100.[37]

State of War was met with mixed reception, as GameRankings gave it a score of 65%,[45] while Metacritic gave it 64 out of 100.[46]