Those who know me, know that I am not a fan of musou games, they are fun, but there is always something about them that turns me off, quickly. Koei Tecmo recently invited me to go hands on with the upcoming title Samurai Warriors 5 and having seen countless videos and screens, I was really intrigued with the game, so hands on I went.

Samurai Warriors 5 is actually the 53rd Warriors based game that the studio has created, which is a lot and while their own internal series have been long running, like Dynasty Warriors, a lot of those games have been bolstered by brands from other companies. Lately those games included titles like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Persona 5 Strikers, each bringing their own touches to the formula, which is where Samurai Warriors 5 comes in, the team decided with this entry, to refresh almost every aspect of the series. This is a top-down approach, from the character designs, which have been redone, the art style is all new and it is telling a story that is more focused than other games in the Samurai series before it, but what does that mean for playing the game.

The build of the game that I got access to, provided me the first two chapters which provided a good sample of some of the changes, now it's been a number of years since I've played through a move to game, so some of this may not be new to players of recent titles. Players take on the role of Oda Nobunaga, at least for the first few mission, as he's beginning his quest to unify Japan under his rule, but he is not alone alongside him is he's friend Mitsuhide Akechi someone whose fate is linked with that of Oda’s. Despite not knowing much about either of these real-life people, the game was able to provide enough information to me, that I wasn't overwhelmed with the vast array of information but at the same time was given enough to keep me wanting to learn more it was a delicate balance, but the game seems to have managed it. The first mission for example has Oda attempting to capture another Lord in order to bring their army into his fold and while the mechanics feel remarkably familiar the story has more weight behind it, rather than it just being some guy laying waste to hundreds of enemies.

After playing a few missions as Oda, I was able to start playing as other characters and while the base elements are the same, with the variety of weapons available to each of the combatants, it did feel different. That's not to say that if you only play as one character, you will be at a loss when it comes to playing as others later on, because while the character you play as levels up, the more you use them, the game actually offers a XP share system, that provides XP to the folks you don't use. Running alongside that, is that every character you have access to can use all the same weapons, so if you find a long sword you think is cool, everyone can use that, the catch is that everyone also has a weapon type that they themselves excel with and if you make use of that configuration, you can get better results. This is where I started having more fun with the technicality of the combat, you can just rush in and mash attack an chop down dozens upon dozens of enemies in a row, but understanding how the different weapons work and how each character can benefit from a weapon type can make combat more entertaining. The fact that every weapon has a light attack and a heavy attack, along with each character having special attacks that charge up overtime, you can really lean into a playstyle that suits you and the character you've selected.

While it was only the first two chapters that I got to play, it feels like the developers have added more to the system to make it feel less like you're just spamming buttons, but that's not to say that you don't, the game still very much run into hordes of enemies and lay waste to them, only now it feels like you can make more of an impact into how. The addition of cut scenes into the middle of missions, that introduce new characters was fun and was a nice addition, I was expecting to see here, though as it has been a while, this might not be new to the series with this game. With the story being based around a character that Japanese anime and manga have easily milked to death what with the telling of the story or reincarnating the character, it could have easily been a bit of a wash, but the characters are interesting enough that I wanted to play more how all this shakes out over a dozen hours and beyond. Only time will tell but so far it seems that the refresh for the series is actually refreshing, and I can’t wait to see how the story of Oda plays out in the end.

The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch on July 27