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Samurai Warriors 2 (PS2) | 
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| From: Koei
Category: Video Games
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £6.89
You Save: £8.10 (54%)
New (14) Used (11) from £6.00
Rating:  6 reviews
Platform: Playstation2
Genre: fighting-action-games
Rating: To Be Announced
Media: Video Game
Number Of Items: 1
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Playstation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060073302345
Release Date: February 15, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A cheap way to cash in on fans January 20, 2008
Stew Carr
Samurai Warriors 2 is just another in Koei's series of hack'n'slash warriors' games. The basic premise of the gameplay is just to whack your way through the 5 or 6 battles (one hit and your enemy is dead) that make up each character's story mode. The RPG elements that made the first Samurai Warriors game so cool and evolutionary are completely absent here, and much of the story has been diluted and drawn away from the warring states history. Most of the characters from the previous games have had their stories drastically downsized to accomodate the 10 new characters (who, with a few exeptions, are nothing special). A couple of characters like Kunoichi and Goemon are missing altogether, while some others (Lady Noh) have been completely ruined. The voice acting is much worse than last time, and is either annoyingly camp or insipid, while the background music is made up of the same mind-numbing rock anthems that Koei refuses to dispense with, despite the fact that it is criticised with each new game.
If you want to play a good Samurai Warriors game, it's best to stick with the original. Samurai Warriors 2 has nothing further to add than a couple of decent characters (Ginchiyo and Fuma Kotaro). The gameplay is completely untouched, and the story and visual elements of the game are inferior to the original. Koei's blatant non-effort to improve their warriors' games is an insult to their fans, and complete proof of their insincerity.
 An awesome game in the PS2's last days December 23, 2006
Randomer (UK)
If you have played samurai warriors 1 then you kinda know what it is like, except that there are lots of niggly little things taken out and altered to make it flow better and this is the reason why it is one of the best of Koei's warriors series. I would like you to understand that this review does not apply to the 360 version, if i was reviewing that then this game really does lose a lot of value. Same old story, medieval Japan, warlords competing for power, in tales of love, war, treachery and brutality, quite interesting and worth reading into.
The playstation 2 is old now, and we really can't expect much more out of it than what we are getting. The graphics in this game are on a par with Dynasty Warriors 5 (A series that is probably the indentical elder brother of this series). The great news it that the draw distance is increased, so now you can see into the distance, and while there is still fog and popup, it is much less noticable and much further away. For once, the feeling of being in a battle is really satisfied.
Hack and slash, that does kinda sum it up really. The system of combos and specials has really reached a decent peak, there is just enough for a lot of variety without it becoming overwhelming. The game has one main mode which is the story mode that follows the trials and tests of this game's 20-something
characters.
There is a new multiplayer mode which kinda playes out like a mini board game where players compete against each other to control the land. Sadly however this and the challenge mode offer little addition to the bulk of the game. This is its one major flaw, there is not enough, if this game had the features of extreme legends and empires (regular spin offs of the warriors series ) included in it then it would really be a brilliant game.
Another noticable change is the removal of the insane random castle levels, now they are smaller, non-randomized caslte levels in the main levels, these are actually fun now and don't ruin the game unlike the old ones did. The new levelling up in the middle of battle is really cool, as it often happens after you defeat a major officer, this makes that kill look even more spectacular, and i have to admit that the AI is sligltly improved, the enemies dont seem to just attack you, they actually fight with your allies as well, they fire volleys of arrows and create spear walls, taking the poor group attacks of DW 5 to a higher level.
Brilliant, some new tracks, some old ones, but they are all fresh sounding, the good old electric guitar music that has gone so well with many of the games, but there are also some more traditional Japanese songs creeping in, giving the soundtrack variety. On a final note for this section, the voice overs are good, and listening to officers communicating in the field is a lot more interesting than before.
If you know you get addicted by these games then go out there and buy it now, if you are unsure about weather or not you will want to stick with it the rent it, if you still burn for samurai warriors 2 after the rental then buy it. I would also reccomend picking up any of Koei's other Warriors games.
I give this game 5 stars, in my opinion it is the peak of hack and slash for this generation, its only flaw is being too thin and not really having enough features to make it last long enough for the average gamer. Still it is very much worth it, especially on playstation 2. Go and get it,. Now!
 Koei's best yet? October 27, 2006
A. P. Haigh (Leeds,U.K)
Samurai Warriors 2 is not only an improvement on the first game but possibly the best game Koei have released in the UK. The first reason this game is a worthy investment is unlike a lot of other games out there you don't have to spend an hour desperately looking for a save point when you have to do something, since you can save it in the middle of any level as well as at the end. Another big reason why this is an improvement on Koei's other series Dynasty Warriors is it doesn't suffer from character overload with a respectable 26 characters compared to the 40+ on Dynaty Warriors, this means that pretty much all the characters are worth unlocking and all have their strengths and weaknesses from the slow but powerful Yoshihiro Shimazu who carries a huge warhammer to the speedy ninja Hanzo Hattori. The main thing that will make people decide whether to get this game or not is the "pick up 'n' play" game style if you find the idea of battling your way through large armies of enemies boring and repetitive then you won't like this if on the other hand like me you used spend your time playing classic side scrolling beat 'em up games like Final Fight you'll realise Koei has updated the formula and found a niche that they do really well. Unlike a lot of other games you won't get to a point where you get stuck and can't do anything about it and suddenly feel that urge to smash your controller into little bits in sheer frustration.
 Fun to start with, but can become tiresome October 21, 2006
Mr. R. A. Marshall
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you've ever played a Dynasty Warriors game or the previous Samurai Warriors game you'll know what to expect. Like the previous Samurai Warriors game this based on Japanese history, the Warring States period to be more precise, featuring many of the battles that took place although some liberties are taken in regards to historical accuracy much like in Dynasty Warriors.
At it's core Samurai Warriors 2 is the same roaming beat em' up as Dynasty Warriors 2 of six years previous, but with extra things bolted on. Although this isn't necessarily a bad thing, having owned Dynasty Warriors 2-5 and Samurai Warriors though, it seems like the developer Koei has pretty much ran out of ideas now.
The new features added to this game comprises of a new skills system that replaces the item and skills system of SW1 and a shop to buy these skills, bodyguards, weapon upgrades and horses. The new skills system allows skills to be bought or sometimes earnt when defeating an enemy officer. Defeating enemy officers can also earn you gold to use in the shop or experience which is required for character growth. The missions in SW2 are a far looser affair than in SW1, the battles don't seem to hinge on fullfilling successive missions like they used (in SW1 it was often the case if a mission was failed the entire battle would turn against you almost immediately).
Ambushes. Possibly the most annoying part of SW2 are ambushes, you fight across the length of the map, you often find (almost always in fact,) that your main camp or a character you need to protect has been ambushed, so you have race back to thwart the ambush. There are often ambushes in multiple locations so you have to make choices which ambush to go to first. Enemy troops just appear out of thin air, and sometimes enemy officers teleport themselves across the map?!
Doubles. You fight your way to the enemy commander and then you defeat him, but it's not really him it's a double. The real enemy commander has ambushed your main camp so you have race back, this is annoying as it happens very often. Occasionally there are multiple doubles and you have to guess which is the real enemy commander. This gets quite annoying also.
Graphically SW2 isn't that bad, but it hasn't really evolved that far from DW4 although there is very little slow down. However the maps can be very large, larger than anything in DW2-5 or SW1 that I'm almost certain. The maps with castles on are perhaps the most impressive as they dominate the map, and you can wander in out of the buildings seemlessly (unlike in SW1) and go up on to higher floors. Unfortunately some maps are reused for more than one battle which increases the sense of repetition that is inherent with this kind of game.
Character-wise three characters have been omitted, Kunoichi and Goemon Ishikawa from SW1, and Yoshimoto Imagawa from SW1 Xtreme Legends (he doesn't even feature as a non-playable character or even appear in a battle anymore), although the number of characters has been increased to twenty-four with two bonus characters. Also missing is the Create-A-Warrior mode. Three of the four characters from Xtreme Legends make it into this game, as do thirteen of the fifteen characters SW1. Many of the characters have had a new costume, some have had a redesign specfically Nohime, Oichi and Masamune Date. Former non-playable characters Nagamasa Azai and Ieyasu Tokugawa are now also playable.
Like before all characters (other than the bonus characters in this case) have a story mode, which consists usually of five levels and a special level. The opportunity to play many of the maps as any character is once again available in free mode. Since many characters use the same maps in their story mode it can get repetitive, as mentioned before.
All characters also have four levels of weapon, three levels are available randomly on levels from defeated officers and yellow boxes, the fourth level of weapon (a unique weapon) can only be collected when a number of conditions are met on a specific map.
The voice acting isn't terrible (it's probably not the actors at fault), better than some previous 'Warriors games in fact, but the script is dreadful, and maybe the voice direction is not that good either. The generic officers that share the same character model share the same voice so if you run into two more of these generic officers so the same shared introduction line is repeated which is humourous to start with then becomes irritating.
There is plenty of play here, if you're pesistant and don't mind the constant repetition that is. Some characters are tiresome to play as having low reach and slow hit speed, whilst some are a lot of fun. The game can also quite hard to start with, and fullfilling the special criteria for getting the special weapons, bodyguards and horses can be very hard (getting the special bodyguards is beyond this reviewer's patience and perhaps capability). However this game hasn't really evolved that much from SW1, or Dynasty Warriors for that matter.
great fun... but more of the same October 2, 2006
chelsea_lad06 (England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Both myself and a friend own a copy of this game. All i will say about this game is fantastic. If you liked the first Samurai warriors or Dynasty warriors then you will like this. Great fun hacking and slashing.
Quick briefing on the game
The game itself is set in fudal Japan and you get to play as several different characters and follow different stories about what happened. Once you start playing this you wont be able to put it down.
This game is fun but why does it only get 4 stars???
The only thig that lets it down is the naff voice overs. I am lucky enough to own the japanese version and it doesnt compare in any other language. everything else is fantastic
All in all if you dont have it why not???
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