Review for Warriors All-Stars. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 30/03/2017 The version for PC came out on 29/08/2017
We should all be too accustomed, by now, to the release of Musou video games on the market. Most of them are developed by Koei Tecmo, the undisputed mother of the genre, who accompanied us with dozens of titles from the Dynasty Warriorse Samurai Warriors series, as well as with many other spin-offs dedicated to various manga and video games such as Gundam, Berserk, o The Legend of Zelda.
It is useless to deny that with their efforts they have created a real trend that was then followed by many others, as happened for example with Naruto or Hyperdimension Neptunia, but the quality of Tecmo Koei's experience is complicated to achieve.
However, we had yet to see a full-fledged mash-up of characters taken from various series and forcibly tucked into a Musou. An attempt had been made with Warriors Orochi, but in this case it was more of a normal Musou with a few guest stars in it, in a game where each character seemed quite similar in gameplay to all the others.
This time it is proposed to us Warriors All-Stars, a real game dedicated to fans of all the Tecmo Koei series that brings together 30 characters taken in the round from series on which we have lost hundreds of hours, or even from series famous only in Japan and of which we have not heard never even speak.
The story is a lie
As happens in the vast majority of these cases, also in Warriors All-Stars the story is a simple nonsense sop brought to give only context to the reunion of all these characters who, apparently, have nothing to do with each other. And in fact, all these warriors have been summoned from their worlds, divided into three factions to help three princes and princesses with fox features who wish to defeat their brothers to claim the right to the throne.
Thus begins a Game of Thrones battle in which we will be able to choose which character to move and experience the story from his point of view, meeting allies and enemies in battles in which we can bring up to four companions with us. If the story, however, is very bland and forgettable, most of the work has been done on the characterization of the characters, in a riot of fanservice in reviewing each hero completely in-character with his original production, and above all discovering much more. for the first time on some characters who, in their base game, had not received due space (such as Marie Rose and Honoka from Dead or Alive 5, who until now had been relegated to simple "beach volleyball beauties").
Few but good
The gameplay of Warriors All-Stars it is completely identical to the usual Musou, without any variation. Each character has weak attacks to attach a powerful attack to, and a Super to use once the corresponding gauge is loaded. We also lose many mechanics present on other productions, such as horses or the attack in Dash with which Tecmo Koei had tried to vary his works, so we are completely returning to an ancient and probably quite stale build. Besides the characters of Warriors All-Stars they are very few, a total of 30 against the powerful numbers we were used to, which even reached about a hundred. So what is it that makes this title worth playing and high quality?
First of all it must be said that, unlike titles like Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors in which the characters are all a little alike, in Warriors All-Stars each character is perfectly characterized in its gameplay and consistent with its own game world. . If Zhao Yun and Yukimura Sanada from the aforementioned titles rely on swords and their already known moveset, Laegrinna from Deception tends to place lethal traps on the ground, Kasumi from Dead or Alive uses martial arts, while Nobunyaga Oda from Samurai Cats has an approach more at a distance with guns and summons of subordinates.
The variety is therefore very high between each fighter and this helps to prevent boredom from quickly taking over production.
In addition to this, it is priceless to observe how much the fanservice dedicated to lovers of the series present here has been taken care of, with an almost maniacal attention to detail that denotes a certain fun and a pinch of madness on the part of the developers themselves, who did not hesitate to make play beach volleyball the girls of the title together with those of Dead or Alive, or make everyone say "Taru!" as soon as they see a barrel in the gaming hub, meeting an inexplicable and now established recurrence of the characters of the Atelier series who exclaim that word every time they see a barrel.
Unfortunately, there is no character customization, apart from the usual cards to equip and that will boost their statistics, and here we return to the disappointing return to the very bases of the Musou, without the attempt to create something new. Graphically, however, Warriors All-Stars is incredibly more beautiful and refined than the usual Musou, with polygonal models and animations of excellent workmanship and above all arenas much more inspired and full of details, each of them directly taken from the Tecmo Koei series such as the NiOh castle (whose protagonist , on top of that, speaks English compared to the rest of the Japanese-speaking cast) or Zack's beach.
Like all Musou, however, longevity is extremely high and can take virtually hundreds of hours of gameplay away unless you get bored much earlier.
Warriors All-Stars is an ode to all Koei Tecmo lovers, who will find here characters and endless quotes from all over the worlds that these developers have helped to bring to our gamepads over the years. It is not a title for everyone, as much of the experience comes from the love one feels towards such characters, so knowing only a couple or none of them will not find any appeal in a game that is already old as mechanics and, like all other Musou, very repetitive. Aimed at fans then, who can only acclaim this poem dedicated to them.
► Warriors All-Stars is an Action-Hack and Slash type game developed by Omega Force and published by Koei Tecmo for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 30/03/2017 The version for PC came out on 29/08/2017
