I’m glad that this game went free. I would otherwise never have played it. I don’t exactly like “Musou” games. I never really have. Every few years I will pick up the latest one for an afternoon to see if I have been missing something, and every time I quickly find myself sated. I don’t know why. Maybe I came to them too late in my life, I missed something by not playing them as a child. Maybe they simply aren’t the games for me. That being said, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is easily the most fun I’ve had while playing one of these games, even if it couldn’t grab hold of me for very long.

There is so much stuff to be found here. So much content packed into this game. You enter the game fighting a losing war against a demon army before being given a chance to literally turn back time and fix everything. And to do so you are given a plethora of maps, modes, weapons, missions, and characters to explore and experiment with. The actual breadth of content here is huge. If one wanted to, they could easily sit down with this game for countless hours, leveling characters and weapons up to their max. It sounds like a middle school summer fantasy, at a time where I could only get a new game on a special occasion, and wringing every last drop out of what I had.

You can just keep grinding for as long as you please. But that appeals to me less and less the older I get. I don’t have as much time as I used to, and as you are always getting new items and pickups, they quickly lose their draw to gather. The feedback loop of new character levels and records quickly felt stale to me for the simple reason that it was looping too quickly, and it became meaningless.

Even with all of the content present, I found that the game quickly devolved into me hammering the x button with my most highly leveled character (as they did the most damage) as waves of meaningless pawns fell before me like grass before a scythe. Maybe I’d toss in a combo if I got bored, as they seemed to do nothing more than change the animations that were killing my enemies, any practical benefit lost.

Once I found a character that could attack with a horizontal swipe, I never really wanted to change. It was the most efficient way to play the game, as they could hit the most enemies with each attack. Fighting became more of a chore as I leveled up, with normal enemies quickly ceasing to even affect me. The mini bosses didn’t present much of a challenge either. I was killing my enemies faster than the system could render them on screen, leading to situations where I would all of a sudden be surrounded by enemies, my computer controlled allies having run by the spot moments before without any trouble, because the game hadn’t placed anyone there yet.

The only real challenge that I found in the game came from the level bosses. They weren’t exactly tough at all, and could usually be killed in a handful of seconds, with the right timing. The only difficulty was that each had attacks that would make them impervious to damage and would stagger you so severely that you could go from full health to nothing without being able to escape. It was more annoying than challenging, as a death would mean the loss of all progress in that level, leading to you having to replay 15-20 minutes of tedious combat before reaching the same point again.

I found that I didn’t even have to fight most of the enemies, and that as long as I killed the mini-bosses and the bosses I would complete each level. I would run past groups of small enemies as they tried to hurt me, to no avail. I found myself quickly growing bored with the game, and when I would die, I wouldn’t want to come back to it. Why should I spend my time killing everyone, where a small mistake could mean the loss of a half an hour of play?

This was only compounded by sluggish controls that felt like I was actively fighting against my character to get them to do what I wanted, and left me relying on my one character that I knew I could handle well.

The question I have to ask myself is whether I see these flaws as an intentional part of the design, or are they actively flaws within the game that deserve criticism. I admit my biases up front against the genre and for it being a “Musou” game, it can be a lot of fun to turn your brain off and kill thousands of enemies like ants. But I was done with the game way before the conclusion of the story. I wrung my value out of it, and who knows, it might pick it up again in a year or two. But for now

This title was reviewed before the inception of our current review system and as such is not scored. We still stand by the content of our old reviews.

Review written for the Xbox One version of the game. Your experience may vary on different platforms.

Our review code can be found here for information on how we write and score our reviews. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or concerns, please contact us at contact@deathofthecritic.com

_____________________________________________

You Might Also Like:

Tags: Dynasty Warriors, Musou, Xbox Live Games of the Month