This game is really trying my patience.

[Mother Heffer]

Too many bad genero anime tropes.


I'm behind on my games. Trying to catch up in preparation for some new titles I want to focus on soon. I had to blitz through Samurai Warriors 4-II which was... a very obnoxious game. Skipped SW4 Empires which I haven't had a chance to play either and went straight to this title. My plan is to get through this one and then fart around on Empires (even though I normally try to play everything in order and SW4E will have less characters) until other things come out.

But this game... and 4-II as well... Samurai Warriors 1 and 2 they are not. They aren't even Samurai Warriors 3 which played terrible but at least had good characterization.

Samurai Warriors seems to have adopted an identity crisis lately. It wasn't to be Sengoku Basara yet somehow simultaneously fails to be as good at anime as SB but still emits far more of the more banal, obnoxious anime tropes than SB. World building is garbage now with everything being shrunken down via bad, fanfic tier writing., Personalities have taken a dive in quality, stakes are often shaken off completely, relatability is often non0existent, basic story telling gets the finger constantly.

It feels like they have the Warriors Orochi 3 B team writing this franchise now while everyone who had any talent in writing good characters has (hopefully) been assigned to Dynasty Warriors (please let that franchise still have good writing).

Characters like Masayuki in this game or Takatora Todo in SW4-II are fanfic tier. They have no personality outside of "super omniscient and capable." They kill a lot of the world building because of how much they can see and predict about everything, even about characters they've barely met (because it's just so cool that they can spout potent premonitions about everything! That means they're the best!), they are borderline infallible, everyone either gushes over them or is portrayed as dramatically unreasonable and stupid. Masayuki talks to Katsuyori like he's his baby son Yukimura.

And don't even get me started on that. This game is filled with kids talking like they're 47 years old. I just saw some giant headed, blonde baby girl stoically stand in front of a giant fire watching her dad burn to death before she swats away the hand of a man three times her size and age with ease. What the F? Masayuki's daughter who appears no older than 6 gives insights and observations like she's 60. Same goes for these blasted kids they keep making me play.

I just saw a kid hire a ninja and paint his breech of authority with "I'll let my father know." The ninja then thanked the two babies she was talking to like they had "Kid Shogun" written on their giant foreheads

I saw a scene in which Masayuki discovers the LEADER OF HIS CLAN is dead and the clan he serves is no more. His whole world is about to change. This is serious business. Is this a scene that plays out in front of a number of key retainers? Maybe people over the age of 18? Nope. A random nameless ninja girl in hot pants and two giant headed kids philosophy their way through the scene making it look extremely absurd to anyone not super indoctrinated in the most obnoxious anime tropes.

This visual novel style dialogue is super obnoxious, is super unnatural looking and grows tiresome REAL fast. If you can't do full cutscenes then it's time to cut out a ton of dialogue. A lot of the dialogue suffers from having really bad genero anime style transitions between points which makes things come off really unnaturally. Ugh, Naomasa Ii and that stupid catchphrase gimmick in Samurai Warriors 4-II... Masayuki is an all knowing jerk which SHOULD be cool except barely anyone seems to notice and it doesn't seem like there's any kind of growth story in place about that. Zhuge Liang is super smart but it works because he isn't also fawned over as a master combatant. Additionally, he misses things. That scene in DW7 where he realizes all too late about the plot to kill Guan Yu at Fan Castle was cool because he realized it too late. He also erred in allowing Guan Yu to stand in Cao Cao's way at Chi Bi. Those are the kinds of things that add life to a character.

As said before the kids talk like they're in their 40's. It's made worse because they are still kids and occupy the role of kids and have these jarring kid-isms thrown in which runs afoul of their normally extremely mature nature. They also look stupid wearing pretty much their current Samurai Warriors 4 adult outfits... but they are kids. I still can't get over how bad Nobuyuki's grey hair looks. Somehow Masayuki's grey hair looks fine. Maybe because there's brown hair actually mixed in with it. in true fanfic fashion, though, they just straight gave a unique trait from one character (Kanbei Kuroda with the dual hair color gimmick) to another.

They need to give Nobuyuki a regular hair color and drop that stupid anime crap hair style. There are already too many blondes. They don't need silver hair characters unless they want to give him actual old man grey hair and make him one of those people who go grey real young. Or make him an albino straight up. That would be more interesting.

Masayuki confides with his kids like they are his brothers and older family members. I still haven't seen his wife. I've been waiting for these kids to effing get older so that they can at least look like they should be involved in, you know, anything. But I suspect that, in true genero anime fashion, they will just skip the fruitful teenage years because giant headed kids running around doing scouting missions is cool or something.

Sometimes you just aren't in a position to try to flesh something out. It's so strange that we got a Sanada story game that lets you play big headed kid Yukimura from two different companies in the same exact year. This game is not making me feel more connected to these characters. They aren't endearing me to them at all. I'm not seeing any maturation or growth process in the kids. They're already fully developed mentally. They're just taking up space that should be reserved for adults during these times of war and it makes the game look like a joke. The visual novel style delivery of conversations is NOT GOOD for heavy scenes.

The core issue seems to be a lack of ability to write good characters anymore. Just about every new character who got a story in Samurai Warriors 4-II was written in such a world shrinking way. They knew everything, everything happened because of them and nothing happened without them having some deciding hand in the event. The characters motivations lack humanity lately, no one loses their cool or is selfish like you would expect from warlords and the like. Some are too on the nose (Matsunaga could do without actually calling himself a villain) or have base level, shallow anime gimmick ("Lii family precept #16! Love wins in the end!") Characters like Naotora have personalities that are so far detached from their combat abilities and positions of authority that it makes the game seem like a bunch of cosplayers running around rather than Samurai.

I know I spouted a lot of crap about anime. Before you get your shields out to defend it I want to direct your attention to the qualifiers. I'm talking about BAD anime tropes which these latest games are full of. I just saw every girl in Samurai Warriors put on a dancing show. That Gracia character is one of the worst things to happen to this franchise.

I have mixed feelings on the gameplay. I'll just say that some of the ideas are good in spirit (pun intended) but need to be tuned or fleshed out. I definitely have more patience for the gameplay (save for stupid "dont get seen or game over!" missions that talentless hacks love to run to because they suck at coming up with ideas) then I do for how the story is playing out so far. Hopefully it gets better because right now it's a mess.

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

Thank you for your feedback.

[green_abobo]

honestly i just send character a here, character b there. rage + mosou. repeat.

its kindof a shame because the counter system is more intresting then dynasty warriors paper rock scissors.

maybe i farm fish shop in between

mostly explore

still waitin for a ninja so i can double jump that part & get to the last area im missing

dont watch alot of anime but cant think of too many that arent inclusively stereotypical

part of their culture is repeating themselves. only the names / faces change

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

Does the framerate try your patience?

[Mother Heffer]

Originally posted by Legendary Mr. Tiddles:

Thank you for your feedback.

Do you work for Koei?

[Mother Heffer]

Originally posted by green_abobo:

honestly i just send character a here, character b there. rage + mosou. repeat.

its kindof a shame because the counter system is more intresting then dynasty warriors paper rock scissors.

maybe i farm fish shop in between

mostly explore

still waitin for a ninja so i can double jump that part & get to the last area im missing

dont watch alot of anime but cant think of too many that arent inclusively stereotypical

part of their culture is repeating themselves. only the names / faces change

The reason I don't fully accept this is because the Samurai Warriors games had amazing writing up through 3. 4 didn't even get too terrible until 4-II fell off a cliff. It definitely feels like Warriors Orochi B team writing in this one.

And yes, the combat seems to have taken a dive. It's fraught with all sorts of selfish, inconsiderate developer gimmicks like constantly pausing the battle for cinematics. Going back and playing an older title feels completely different. Far more open and free. I keep hoping they'll turn off the cinematic pauses or at least give us an option to. On the occasion I do a musou next to a wall that disables the camera angle change I marvel at how much better it looks (while cursing the fact that the game paused AGAIN).

[SonicsLV]

I think your rant is unjustified for this game. While the game is not perfect in any way but I'd say it's exceed expectations for a musou series, assuming you buying and playing this game with the mindset of KT want to focus on Sanada story and not thinking it as just another musou game.

As for doing anime tropes? What do you expect from a game that the basic premise is someone hacking through the battlefield killing hundreds and thousands alone and some of them using with comically unrealistic weapons? True that Capcom actually up the ante of ridiculousness with Sengoku Basara, but SW in already ridiculous since the first game.

I think you just can't suspend your disbelief enough to try to understand the story that the writers trying to told, which I think mainly because the limitation (or laziness to improve) the engine. It's obvious they (the writers) can't use lot of different settings, character poses only limited to whats more like mp short poses, and the worst is they can only work with characters which models had already exist, which is why we don't get to see Masayuki wife and actually a lot of people that should be important for Sanada story. Just because the character model is a kid, doesn't mean they're always 10 years old on the story then magically jumps into adult when the model change.

Just like DW story is based on romantization of 3 Kingdoms era, SW (and this game) is also romantization of Sengoku era. They never intended the story to be accurate history although it borrows a lot of characters and battles from the actual history. Overall I think the game story is pretty good depicting the Sengoku era from first Masayuki point of view and later from Yukimura's.

And to adress some issue you specifically said:

- I assume you talk about Chacha watching Nagamasa castle burn scene, when she dismiss Hideyori hand. It's pretty obvious the scene was meant to show that Chacha is resolved to watch her father death until the end and is not that Hideyori can't overpower her. Chacha also Nobunaga niece, you won't grab your boss's niece roughly and if she resist you prolly also going to let her alone for a bit. Keep in mind that their lives are not in any danger and they don't need to escape or something like that.

- The scene where Masayuki heard of Katsuyori death is that: he just read the news and reacting like when someone just hear an awful news for the first time. It's just happen that the news delivered when there's only his kids around and the news messenger. Aside from engine limitations, I also don't see why that scene must be in front of adults. It's obvious Masayuki need to break the news formally to his retainers but it's important enough for us to see it. Afterall that news didn't change the Sanada clan relationships with their retainers.

- For "kid hiring a ninja" scene, no, it's not breach of authority. In feudal caste based society, a child from higher caste is worth more than adult from lower caste, and many actually think someone from lower caste as them as "property". So yeah, that kid practically is the 3rd most powerful person there and can hire a ninja if he wish to. The 2 other person that can override it is his older brother which present and doesnt mind and his father which is why he said he "let father know" which of course including getting his permission. From the "ninja" point of view, that kid is indeed some kind of kid shogun.

Look, you have some valid points in your rant, but they're actually applicable to all musou games. Idk why you can tolerate DW but not SW. Storywise, yeah it's declining but Spirit of Sanada has the best story compared to other musou games, just remember it's story of Sanada so don't expect lot of details of battles or characters not involving a Sanada.

Combat wise, you can turn off the pauses on stratagems and objectives from the option. Granted there's still the "eye-highlight" slight pause but I don't think that's so interrupting, more like reminder that you may want to check if you going to activate this stratagem. Activating musou pause is present since the very early of musou games, I don't see why you want to complain about it now.

[Mother Heffer]

I'm reading your post and taking it seriously. My responses are not an attempt to dismiss it but rather address it as you've done with mine.

Originally posted by SonicsLV:

I think your rant is unjustified for this game. While the game is not perfect in any way but I'd say it's exceed expectations for a musou series, assuming you buying and playing this game with the mindset of KT want to focus on Sanada story and not thinking it as just another musou game.

This issue with this position is that you are requiring me to play it with a certain mindset. That's a card often pulled by devout fans. They believe the player has some sort of responsibility. I have no responsibility. I don't work for Koei therefore I don't need to worry about what THEIR goals are because I don't play games to help people with their goals nor are games sold to me under the notion that I'm supporting a goal. The transaction is that they sell a game which they purport will be fun to play and then I play the game. If I have fun and I like it it's great. If not then I'm unhappy. That's all there is to it.

As for doing anime tropes? What do you expect from a game that the basic premise is someone hacking through the battlefield killing hundreds and thousands alone and some of them using with comically unrealistic weapons?

That's just more excuses of the kind you'd expect from devout fans making excuses. You're also intentionally being dishonest or missing the major point I made about anime (I suspect the first). Anime tropes aren't bad. BAD anime tropes are bad.

Additionally, the idea of fighting thousands of soldiers alone with unrealistic weapons isn't unique to anime. Heck, I can't even think of an anime off the top of my head that involves any kind of setting similar to a Warriors game where it's one person killing thousands.

These games aren't simulating anime situations. They simulate wars. Things that actually happened. Facing down thousands of people is something that happened in real life. The fantasy kicks in when one character is able to take down a thousand on his own. Running through a battlefield filled with enemies is not an anime trope it's a real life trope.

True that Capcom actually up the ante of ridiculousness with Sengoku Basara, but SW in already ridiculous since the first game.

The first thing that goes in these discussions from people in your position is nuance. Which, incidentally, is one of the major problems with the story and writing in this title. "Ridiculousness" isn't something you just apply to a title. If I take the ridiculousness found in, say, Spaceballs and put it in a Batman movie you have a problem. Just sayind "Well Batman is always ridiculolus! He dresses like a bat so anything goes!" is not a counter position. It's just you being willingly obtuse.

I think you just can't suspend your disbelief enough to try to understand the story that the writers trying to told, which I think mainly because the limitation (or laziness to improve) the engine.

I am honestly beginning to think you haven't fully read my post. Perhaps you skimmed it and were put off by the fact that it was negative which led you to not really want to read it closely. I don't blame you. It's hard to read negative opinions on things you like. But you still have to read and digest the post if you want to respond.

This isn't an issue of understanding the very simplistic (overly simplistic, actually) story that was written. My problem is the story telling is bad and a lot of the story is bad. The quality is way lower than previous SW and DW games. Koei always seems to struggle when it comes time to take major story liberties, as the Warriors Orochi franchise (especially the third one... mainly the third one) demonstrates.

It's obvious they (the writers) can't use lot of different settings, character poses only limited to whats more like mp short poses, and the worst is they can only work with characters which models had already exist, which is why we don't get to see Masayuki wife and actually a lot of people that should be important for Sanada story. Just because the character model is a kid, doesn't mean they're always 10 years old on the story then magically jumps into adult when the model change.

Yes. This is called being bad at your job. This isn't the first game they've created with limitations. Good designers can work around those limitations. Another issue with your position is that they take tons of liberties with certain things that happened.(like having kids involved with anything major in the first place). Perhaps they should have applied some liberties to the areas where they couldn't represent things appropriately without the game looking extremely stupid. If you don't want the audience to think there are big headed babies having adult conversations and making critical clan decisions then you simply cannot have big headed babies being used as character models. It kills the effect of, well, everything.

Not having the wife around is just inexcusable. Giving here a genero model would have been bad but better. I see more reason to have her around than Muramatsu.

Just like DW story is based on romantization of 3 Kingdoms era, SW (and this game) is also romantization of Sengoku era. They never intended the story to be accurate history although it borrows a lot of characters and battles from the actual history. Overall I think the game story is pretty good depicting the Sengoku era from first Masayuki point of view and later from Yukimura's.

Accuracy isn't the issue. Since SW3 Ujiyasu has stood in for, what, three generations of Hojo rulers despite being long gone before Odawara. That's not accurate but it's the kind of liberty I can deal with because it adds to the game. Use a character that looks unique and has built up some presence with the player to represent a clan rather than a genero officer because you only have so many characters.

Big headed kids talking like 50 year olds and being involved in major developement in Japan and making clan decisions and being talked to like they are Shoguns is NOT an inaccuracy I can look past. Again, you're playing the "No Nuance" card, indicating that because the games were never meant to be accurate ANY inaccuracy is fine.

If George Washington showed up in the Battle Of Nagashino I would definitely take issue with it even if I'm willing to forgive and enjoy when prior games placed Shingen at Nagashino. There's a difference.

- I assume you talk about Chacha watching Nagamasa castle burn scene, when she dismiss Hideyori hand. It's pretty obvious the scene was meant to show that Chacha is resolved to watch her father death until the end and is not that Hideyori can't overpower her.

Unfortunately they showed that she, the weak baby, can swat a grown man's hand away. Art is good because you work within limitations to tell a good story. When you just do whatever you want to get where you want to go you aren't writing a good story or depicting good art. You're just bad. There are a million other ways to demonstrate that she wanted to watch her father die. For example, since she's a baby, how about crying? How about running irrationally toward the flames and having to be dragged away? How about not taking her eyes off her dad as she's being carried away?

Sadness. Confusion. Aloofness. All very relatable, REASONABLE responses to expect from a child. Standing their stoically and swatting grown mens hands away isn't relatable behavior that builds character. It's anime BS nonsense that ONLY someone heavily invested in genero anime tropes would ever accept and not be confused by.

It's really bad. Signs of the worst kind of writing where you decide a character's actions and personality without consideration for any of the circumstances they are in. Including their age and frame.

Chacha also Nobunaga niece, you won't grab your boss's niece roughly

This just sounds like really bad excuses. This is feudal Japan. These are kids. No one is going to fault someone for grabbing a kid to take them away from A BURNING BUILDING.

I don't even know what kind of point you're making there. Are you saying Cha-Cha, the baby, was trying to save the life of Hideyoshi, her future husband?

What, she was going to tell on him and he'd get in trouble?

and if she resist you prolly also going to let her alone for a bit.

No. She's a baby. Babies don't make decisions. Especially whether or not to stall an entire army's retreat away from a dangerous structure. Clearly her mother had no interest in sitting there watching her husband burn. But baby gets to decide to? Yeah right. There are better ways to do that scene. It just takes thought and not a reliance on lazy anime tropes.

[Mother Heffer]

Keep in mind that their lives are not in any danger and they don't need to escape or something like that.

Who cares. though? She's a kid being told by a grown man to leave. Her swatting away some dudes hand is NOT relatable, well-written behavior for the man OR the child.

Anime fans have a hard time remembering that behavior like that is not common or even possible by little kids. It's a baby girl. Not Brock Lesnar.

- The scene where Masayuki heard of Katsuyori death is that: he just read the news and reacting like when someone just hear an awful news for the first time. It's just happen that the news delivered when there's only his kids around and the news messenger.

Yes. And it was written poorly. Ask yourself this: Should such a scene play out the same in the presence of children as it does in front of adults? The answer should be "no." If there seems to be no difference then it's not written well. It would have been nice to see Masayuki actually have to act like a father rather than cosplay as one. To see him make some real behavioral transitions when dealing with his kids compared to when dealing with adults. He checks a few boxes but other than that the character's ages, appearances and behaviors don't mesh and look ridiculous to anyone not indoctrinated with the most banal of anime tropes.

Aside from engine limitations,

Stop saying that. That's a bush league position. The answer to being stuck having to depict someone as an elementary school aged kid is to not write them like they aren't one. You write the script based on what you are showing the audience, not ask the audience to understand your limitations.

If they showed a scene where Tadakatsu was a baby but they used his SW4 model would you believe that's perfectly fine? Engine limitations, after all.

You should also know that you're misusing the term "engine limitations." There's nothing in the engine stopping them from showing those characters at 60 different ages. the only thing stopping them is the time and resources they devote to creating the models.

It's disingenuous for you to constantly insinuate that they are victims of technology. They aren't. They can make the models or, if it's not feasible (which I can understand), WRITE THE CHARACTERS TO MATCH THE AGES THEY APPEAR.

I also don't see why that scene must be in front of adults.

It doesn't have to be. I think it would be more fruitful unless the point was to demonstrate how Masayuki addresses tough subjects with his children. That actually could make for a ery touching moment.

Too bad it's all ruined by him, instead, responding like he's surrounded by a bunch of old veteran generals. Watching these big headed children speak to him on equal grounds made the game look stupid and made him look real goofy. I wanted to see him interact with his little kids. Not interact with things that look like little kids but speak like politicians.

It's obvious Masayuki need to break the news formally to his retainers but it's important enough for us to see it. Afterall that news didn't change the Sanada clan relationships with their retainers.

I'd like to see him break the news formally to his retainers since that's more significant than what some punk kids think at the time.

Again, unless they want to show me his fatherly side.

Which they didn't.

- For "kid hiring a ninja" scene, no, it's not breach of authority. In feudal caste based society, a child from higher caste is worth more than adult from lower caste, and many actually think someone from lower caste as them as "property". So yeah, that kid practically is the 3rd most powerful person there and can hire a ninja if he wish to.

You're forgetting one major issue: Being from a higher caste than a lowly person does not give you authority over your parents. Kids shouldn't be hiring soldiers. It looks stupid and lowers the impact of that tumultuous era. And that's a big problem the game has. It lacks the impact, scope and stakes of prior games because too many critical things were focused around kids. Things such as who is hiring soldiers. When you have kids doing it maybe it's cute. Maybe it's convenient to drive the plot. However, it doesn't give the impression that there are seasoned veteran decision-makers making key decisions. It makes it seem like people are cosplaying as soldiers.

The 2 other person that can override it is his older brother which present and doesnt mind and his father which is why he said he "let father know" which of course including getting his permission. From the "ninja" point of view, that kid is indeed some kind of kid shogun.

He's a kid. Not an adult. Both of them are. Neither of them should be hiring soldiers as their parents are figuring out what to do since their ruler just died. It kills any semblance of structure and order, two things which are very important in a setting like this.

Look, you have some valid points in your rant, but they're actually applicable to all musou games. Idk why you can tolerate DW but not SW.

Samurai Warriors was my preferred franchise for story up until Dynasty Warriors 7. That's not to say the DW games had bad stories just that SW 1 and 2 had amazing stories. 3 did too but I was mad it was on the Wii (still played it. Only Wii game I own to this day). 4 wasn't even that bad (I think I'm just tired of looking at the SW4 motif by now). 4-II is where things got really bad. Masayuki. Cha Cha. Sasuke. Naomasa. Can they write characters who aren't just jerks anymore? Everyone's just know-it-all jerks. The world has shrunken significantly because they have to have just about every new SW4 character be some omniscient prodigy that sees EVERYTHING coming.

I'm very curious as to what the story quality of DW8 will be (no spoilers please). I'm hoping that's where all the talent was shifted to.

Storywise, yeah it's declining but Spirit of Sanada has the best story compared to other musou games, just remember it's story of Sanada so don't expect lot of details of battles or characters not involving a Sanada.

I don't think it has the best story. I expect people to think it does because it has a lot of story and a lot of talking (really should have much less talking if they can't do fully animated scenes). I don't let that confuse me for having a "good" story.

I definitely like the idea. I can even make do with the really bad idea of having the goofy conversation scenes with the poor, awkward visual novel set up. I just need better writing and an actual good story with relatable characters.

Sasuke's inclusion so far has been so fragmentedly anime that it's tough to sit through. An over-convoluted backdrop in which he wants to assassinate someone but fights in battles against the people he works for because "it might be fun since master's on the other side." THAT'S NOT A RELATABLE POSITION. That's the kind of anime-inspired crap that kills the sense of any stakes and impact. "I want to fight you, rival!" "Maybe it will be fun to fight my master on the opposite side of a battle in which people will be killed!" War sucks. Nobody should be talking about it that way. No one did in the older SW titles.

And I very much expect characters who aren't Sanadas to play huge roles as long as they played huge roles in the Sanada situations in history. I'm very open to the idea of this game. Just that both Capcom and Koei seem to have lost a step when they took up the idea of a story focused entirely on one clan.

Combat wise, you can turn off the pauses on stratagems and objectives from the option. Granted there's still the "eye-highlight" slight pause but I don't think that's so interrupting, more like reminder that you may want to check if you going to activate this stratagem.

I disabled those first thing. The eye highlight is still super disruptive and mapping activation to L3 is stupid since it's the most accidentally clicked button on any PS controller. I basically have to kind of run around waiting for the bar to drain so I don't accidentally hit it.

Pausing the game when you level up your spirit gauge is also very stupid.

They need to just stop pausing games. Technology has gotten so obnoxious. Like the devs are afraid you might lose yourself in the game and they have to remind you that they made it.

Activating musou pause is present since the very early of musou games, I don't see why you want to complain about it now.

Nope. It's a new thing that started with Samurai Warriors 4. Only True Musous had the paused and they required low health unless you had the right item or skill equipped. My crew actually stopped equipping true musou items because of how intrusive they were.

DW 1-6, All Warriors Orochi games and SW 1 and 2 had no pauses during regular musous and it was amazing. I really miss it. They felt so visceral and present in the fights. SW4 added the stupid mandatory pause after musous when they all adopted their SW3 spirit mode power up versions as regular versions.