* denotes a replay
January (10 Games Beaten)
February (12 Games Beaten)
March (6 Games Beaten)
April (9 Games Beaten)
May (14 Games Beaten)
June (10 Games Beaten)
July (20 Games Beaten)
August (9 Games Beaten)
September (14 Games Beaten)
October (7 Games Beaten)
November (4 Games Beaten)
115. Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper - Wii U - November 4
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper is an enhanced Wii U port of Warriors Orochi 3 that includes the extra characters that were feature in the PSP exclusive Warriors Orochi 3 Special. It's the third game in the Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors crossover series (fourth if you count the compilation with the first two games) and takes place after the events of Warriors Orochi 2.
The premise of the game is steeped in Shinto mythology. Orochi, a legendary eight headed dragon from Japanese folklore, was slain in his human form at the end of the previous game but has been reborn as an eight headed hydra to try to destroy the world again. Facing apocalyptic situation, the warriors of Japan's Sengoku period and China's Three Kingdoms era must put aside their differences and come together to combat Orochi and his army of demons. From there, the story gets pretty convoluted with the various characters all intersecting and their motivations and relationships with one another. In that regard, given the size of the roster, it's definitely a game that would be best enjoyed by those familiar with the characters of both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors.
The gameplay is your standard musou affair - pick a team of three characters and use them to massacre hundreds or thousands of enemies in each battle. Most of the missions are core missions central to the game's story, but there are a handful of optional side missions that you can unlock by getting certain characters' affinity with one another high enough. I'm lazy, so I never bothered with those. The missions can get a bit monotonous, so you might want to play the game in a couple of sittings instead of marathoning it. I think I played it in two bursts. Your characters gain experience and level up and get their stats increased based on level, and you also get some points at the end of each level that you can use to level up any of your characters. You can also do basic weapon fusions to improve the traits and attributes of your weapons.
The game's visuals are fairly good. The wall and floor textures aren't amazing, but considering that it's a port of an Xbox 360/PS3 game, it looks pretty good overall. The character models looks nice, and the facial animations are well done. The music is fairly standard but very fitting for the action going on. It's appropriately upbeat and exciting to keep the blood pumping during the heavy action.
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper is a good musou game and a welcome part of the depressingly slim Wii U library. I, personally, found it less engaging than Dynasty Warriors 7 or either of the two Nintendo crossover musou games, but it's still a fun game that's worth playing especially if you've got a friend to play co-op. It's pretty cheap these days - around $10 or $15 complete at the time of writing - and while it's not an "amazing" game, it's definitely worth adding to a Wii U collection and playing through.
