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Warriors Orochi ships over 1.5 million, sequel announced
Despite flirting with futuristic racing, it's no secret that Koei's heart has always belonged to cutting swaths through bad guys, keeping their population under control with the mashing of buttons in such series as Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, or in the case of Warriors Orochi, both at the same time. Warriors Orochi, which fused both franchises for a crossover fiesta, was released last year for multiple platforms, and according to a statement from Koei this afternoon has shipped more than 1.5 million units worldwide. Granted this simply represents the number of copies the company has thrown on the back of a truck, and not how many that players have actually been taken home and played. Even so, this hasn't stopped Koei from confirming that it also plans to bring Warriors Orochi 2 to North America, giving PS2 and Xbox 360 players another means to sacrifice thumbs and delete evil doers en masse this September.
Where did you go, Samurai Warriors?
Koei's Samurai Warriors Katana released earlier this month in the U.S. to a distinct lack of fanfare, and next month, European gamers will get their shot at the action title. Last August, the game sure sounded like it had potential, so what happened between then and now that resulted in an average score of 53 on Metacritic? Apparently "fun" is as far as the concept went, and many other elements were left unpolished. Still, the reviews are not all bad, and the screens didn't make any of the staff at Wii Fanboy vomit on their shoes, so it might be worth keeping an eye out for the inevitable markdowns that are sure to come in a few weeks.%Gallery-14913%
Samurai Warriors: Katana cuts into Wii in January
Koei, the name behind such diverse titles as Dynasty Warriors, Warriors Orochi, and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, has confirmed plans to bring Samurai Warriors: Katana, a first-person Samurai Warriors spin-off title for the Wii, to North America on January 15, 2008. While we have to admit the name carries more appeal than the previous title, Samurai Slash, the announcement of yet another arcade-style title set in Feudal Japan does little to stir our interest, and given the frantic nature of these games our arms are tired just thinking of having to flail madly at never ending waves of on-screen bad guys. Call us lazy, but sometimes, just sometimes, we'd rather just press a button. Even so, with "nearly" 30 hours of gameplay promised on top of an included two player versus mode, Wii owners looking to tap into their inner samurai finally have something to look forward to playing. If you need us, we'll be taking a nap.
Samurai Warriors benefits from Samurai Waggle
Koei held a surprise media event yesterday, during which journalists got to try out some of their upcoming games, including Dynasty Whatever and Other Dynasty Game. Game|Life's Chris Kohler tried out the Wii permutation of their Japan-based Samurai Warriors, called Samurai Warriors Katana, which replaces the usual Musou-series gameplay with an on-rails swordfighting experience like Dragon Quest Swords.What's most surprising to us (and probably to Kohler as well) is that it sounds pretty great! It's still based on the idea of mowing down thousands of identical soldiers, but in first-person and with some unusual controls. Rather than using a direct-motion-based system, you select enemies with the pointer and then click on them, then finish the combo with a swing. We're skeptical about non-representative waggle, but we're very enthused about the idea of inventing a new paradigm for button combos. If that makes any sense.
Another Wii sword fighter inbound
With the confirmation that Koei's Samurai Warriors spin-off is heading to the North American Wii, we have to wonder how many sword-fighting games we'll be able to handle in the long run before seppuku becomes an attractive alternative. Sengoku Musou Wave will be redubbed Samurai Slash in the West, a title that's impressively accurate in describing the actual gameplay. If slashing things from a first-person perspective sounds familiar, it's because Red Steel attempted the very same thing. The upcoming Dragon Quest: Swords boasts a similar concept as its primary gameplay mechanic and eventually, LucasArts will get around to making that Star Wars lightsaber game. The fun parallels between swinging the Wii controller and swinging a sword essentially demand that such games be made, but just like with any other console, we could eventually face a flood of me-too titles built around the same, unchanging concept. Even on a system that encourages innovation, game developers face the danger of lapsing into a lazy genre trap. Is the "guy with two guns" game any better than the "guy with a sword" game?(And where's the "guy with two sticks" game?)
