SAMURAI WARRIORS: Spirit of Sanada Critic Reviews

By the end of Spirit of Sanada you’ll have learned something, enjoyed the prettiest Warriors game to date, and seen just how far Koei Tecmo’s been able to take this series, so that it’s no longer purely an action game. With Spirit of Sanada, we see a future for the Warriors franchise where every battle and event is given context and purpose, and it’s a far deeper and more rounded experience for that.

Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada… shouldn’t be seen as anything less than the best companion to Samurai Warriors 4.

Spirit of Sanada brings plenty of welcome elements to the formula and makes me excited for what Omega Force holds for us in the future once it fine tunes everything introduced in this game. While it brings plenty of shiny new features, it feels smaller in scale compared to the last mainline entry. But those new little things do add up to a lot. Spirit of Sanada offers a fresh take on the Warriors experience that can be very welcoming to newcomers and veterans alike.

Spirit of Sanada is more than just a Samurai Warriors side story, bringing the series to new heights with its largest roster and longest battles to date. The new multi-stage battles will have players take a more tactical approach if they want to reap the rewards.

It is obvious that the same engine from the last Samurai Warriors game is being used, but it really does feel like a fresh, focused take on the Musou series.

Despite some dated graphics and gameplay that is sometimes too simple for its own good, Spirit of Sanada ends up rejuvenating a franchise that had been treading water.

While Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada doesn’t diverge wildly from what I’ve come to expect, its presentation and impact are unique enough, strong enough and successful enough that I can only hope it heralds a new direction for the franchise. Deeply personal stories about these monumental figures, given ample room to breathe, can bring an overtold legend back to life.

An interesting title which offers a different experience from the Sanada's clan point of view. With some new features and characters this game is a good option in the series.

For any Samurai Warriors veteran, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada will feel like a pair of comfy old slippers – easy to slide into, and once you’re in their warm embrace you won’t want to part company with them until they’ve become a little too sweaty and overbearing.

For those who might be tired of the traditional Musou hack and slash format, Spirit of Sanada offers up enough changes to make the series feel fresh while retaining the traditional 1 vs. 1000 hack and slash gameplay that the series is known and loved for.

Hack´n slash in all its glory with the new iteration of Samurai Warriors. Not the best in its genre, but a good one anyway.

The Warriors series has a special place in my heart, and is easily something you could judge by face value for being too much of the same thing, or just another musou. It’s not completely different from its predecessors, but there are definitely no two alike, especially with the emotional story locked up in each. Go get the game and give yourself a weekend with it, especially if you’re now the one wheezing.

It is a game that will appeal to lovers of the genre and offers a deeper look than usual on the protagonists of the epic of feudal Japan.

Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada works best as a companion piece to the main game that released a few years ago. The focus on one family of fighters is perfect, since it gives the team time to develop a real story instead of using a larger cast for broader tales. The core action remains just as good as before, but the new minigames and exploration sections fail to elicit the same type of excitement, especially with some of the caveats in play for the secondary characters you pick up along the way. For fans of the series looking for more story, Spirit of Sanada works, but only if you play it after an entry in the main series.

Spirit of Sanada is an enjoyable musou that improves its narrative, but that doesn't evolve the formula much.

This Samurai Warriors spin-off feels outdated in many aspects, but it is fun to play and offers deep strategic options for a "musou" game.

The extra weight added by the RPG side of things and the dungeon-style challenges means that Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada has more to recommend the franchise than before. Whether it’ll be enough to draw new players in, however, remains to be seen.

Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada caters to a specific audience that is looking for something different in terms of story and characters compared to other Musou games. A heartfelt, emotional tale of friendship, family, and politics provide an intimate counterpart to its mainline games. This difference carries over to its smaller pool of playable characters, each varied and employing the classic Musou hack and slash gameplay.

Quotation forthcoming.

Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada focuses on the fate of a single family rather than different characters, introducing some pleasing activities but also suffering from the same old problems the series is known for.