The Warriors franchise and its various spinoffs from Koei Tecmo have been around since the late 90s. Needless to say, there have been many ups and downs. For each Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors game that had a strong showing, another title followed suit that tarnished the reputation. The Warriors Orochi series, which originally released a decade ago, initially received a lukewarm reception and, outside of the first game, never saw a PC release until now. Warriors Orochi 4, with its introduction of the Magic system, is Koei Tecmo’s attempt to reinvigorate and freshen up decades-old mechanics and gameplay. Will this, and the whopping 170 characters, be enough to hook PC gamers? Let’s find out in our review of the PC version, shall we?
Warriors Orochi 4 – The Story So Far
First, let’s talk about the story. The Warriors Orochi narrative has never been its strongest suit. Given that it’s a mishmash of various Koei Tecmo hack-and-slash games with some guest characters thrown in, it’s as if the company was just trying to cram in as much detail as possible leading to a tacked on storyline. That’s essentially what we’re getting in Warriors Orochi 4.
You start off with Samurai Warriors characters Tadakatsu Honda, Naomasa Ii, and his mom Naotora Ii (more on her later). The first level with the trio teaches you about the game’s basics while giving you an idea that the characters completely forgot about the events of the previous games. From here, you follow a very linear storyline where you’ll need to complete one mission after another, many of which are reminiscent of locations in other Warriors titles.
Along the way, you’ll meet up with other heroes of the age who’ve been dragged into this timeline through the machinations of the gods themselves. Instead of Orochi, you’ll now have to contend with the deities of Olympus themselves — Zeus, Athena, and Ares — as well as Mystic forces led by Nuwa and Nezha. There are a few plot twists that might catch you off-guard, as well as over-the-top new character introductions that are the trademark of a Warriors game. Thankfully, everything is voice-acted in Japanese so you won’t have to worry about the bane of Koei Tecmo games: unbearable English VA.
Three’s A Crowd
Officers will join you after each mission and become playable characters. Initially, you might just encounter one or two joining your troupe. Later, you might find yourself meeting a dozen new faces. To long-time fans, this could be a treat. After all, seeing half the Sun family followed by Sima Yi and kids and then Nobunaga Oda and his retainers all joining in consecutive missions might be akin to a reunion of sorts. Then again, it leaves you feeling that it’s suddenly getting a bit crowded.
In fact, you’ll realize that the longer you play Warriors Orochi 4 — everything feels just a bit too bloated. There’s never enough time to shine a spotlight on characters you’ve grown accustomed to over the years. Only a few will play a prominent role throughout the campaign. At best, you’ll have short dialogue scenes depending on the relationships formed among characters called “Bonds.” This is more superficial than anything. While Bonds do boost your abilities slightly, you’re never in too much trouble anyway. At most, you’ll probably enjoy them for what they are — just humorous, lighthearted conversations among characters.
These can range from generic banter to something that’s borderline homoerotic. Who knows, maybe it’s to please the fan fiction-loving crowd out there?
Tacky Mechanics Or Tacked-On Mechanics?
With 170 characters to manage, there’s a lot to do. You’ll need to form a three-person team that will go into battle. You’ll also need to choose the four support characters whose stats provide additional bonuses. And other characters can be sent out on training missions and come back with stat increases or new items.
Each character will have their own weapon type with various elemental damage that can be applied. The Power, Speed, and Technique character archetypes are also in place. Characters have their own progression trees that can be leveled up using growth points obtained from missions — it’s like a catch-up mechanic for unused characters. Finally, you can upgrade your camp menu to provide additional perks and bonuses.
All of these should make for a highly engaging experience. Sadly, most of these mechanics feel too tacked on. For instance, I completed the game without even upgrading a single point in my camp. As for the myriad characters, you’ll find that only a handful will ever become useful. The game does try to nudge you into giving everyone a try with the Elite Members mechanic. These are three pre-selected officers who would gain more exp in a specific mission. I tried that out for a bit until I realized that it was better to stick to my bread-and-butter selections.
Deified Damsels
Of course, there’s something that needs to be said about certain characters. Quite a number of them have become eye-candy in recent years. Previously, Dynasty Warriors only had Diao Chan and Zhenji as your alluring sirens. With Koei becoming Koei Tecmo, you know that they’re going to provide a lot more fan service than usual. We ended up with the likes of Wang Yuanji and Naotora Ii in recent games. The latter is also heavily featured in Warriors Orochi 4.
Central to the storyline are magical bracelets imbued with the power of the gods. Naotora is one of the wielders of these bracelets, along with Yukimura, Lu Bu, and more. Harnessing the power of the gods themselves, they can turn into celestial beings via the Deify command allowing for limitless magic use and unique attacks. Of course, with fan service coming into play, you know they’re going to turn Naotora Ii into this:
Then again, the anime-levels of humor and awkwardness can be appreciated. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything better than seeing the mighty Lu Bu get knocked out by expanding flower fields cast by a scantily-dressed woman.
Magic And Anime
Warriors Orochi 4 gives you that general feeling that the series has finally entered full anime territory. Yes, we know that past Koei offerings have had over-the-top action like Musous and cringe-worthy dialogue, but the addition of the magic system and deification seals the deal.
For reference, these were the types of discussions concerning past games:
- “Okay, I really like Sun Shangxiang and her C3 attack.”
- “I think Nobunaga Oda’s S4 might be one of the best for crowd-clearing.”
- “Cao Cao’s Musou with the void element is an officer killer.”
In Warriors Orochi 4, the old “S1, S2, C2, C3, combos, Musou, Rage Attack” systems are still in place. However, the new magic system provides a fresh and entertaining concept. Each character has a magic treasure (there are around a dozen of these at the moment, with more to come in the DLC) allowing them to use brand new attacks. These magic attacks drain your magic gauge which, thankfully, refills at a ridiculously fast rate.
A normal magic attack does low damage but can be spammed repeatedly, whereas a charged magic attack drains your entire gauge but can clear entire enemy squads. There’s also a unique magic attack that uses up your entire magic gauge and half your Musou bar.
It’s also worth mentioning that enemy officers can use magic attacks. In order to counter them, you’ll just need to perform a magic attack of your own, which causes a short freeze (don’t worry, it’s not a technical issue) followed by a flashing red explosion.
Fast, Flashy, And Fluid Action
I can honestly say that the introduction of the magic system freshens up the series given its tired, old mechanics. The button mashing is still there, but the animations are so fluid that it genuinely feels like a fighting game akin to Naruto or Dragon Ball Z.
Like past Warriors games, you can switch between your active teammates at the press of a button. This tag switch is followed by a shockwave that stuns enemies and adds more to your combo tally. If you use a magic attack or a combination magic attack when you’ve got 300 or 1,000 hits, these attacks become deadlier. What’s a combination magic you ask? Well, remember those support characters we mentioned? A combination magic attack is when all seven characters create a gigantic, screen-wide explosion, complete with an anime or fighting game-esque cutscene. Think Marvel vs. Capcom style in a Warriors Orochi game.
It’s wonderful and hilarious to behold. Given fluid transitions from one action to another, you can easily do the following:
- Your first character does four regular attacks then a charge attack;
- Switch/tag your second character who stuns surrounding enemies, then do a normal magic attack that pulls enemies like a vacuum;
- Tag your third character who casts another magic spell to freeze surrounding enemies;
- Tag back your first character who unleashes a flaming boar that throws fireballs;
- Switch to another character to activate the combination magic and blow up everything surrounding you.
Cooperative Clause
As with any Warriors game, you’ll probably enjoy it as a single-player romp. But having a buddy join you along for some co-op fun would be a treat, right? The good news is that local or couch co-op is possible.
The bad news is that, at least for us, we weren’t able to make the most out of the online co-op or Battle Arena. As we mentioned in our technical review, we couldn’t connect to any lobbies at all even during peak hours (in the US and Asia). Either there’s something wrong with matchmaking or there just aren’t enough players who enabled their online settings. It still is possible to get in lobbies, but you’ll have to make your own and then provide your friends your room’s code so they could hop in. You might also be better off looking for a Discord group that has players actively playing co-op.
Repetition: Good Or Bad?
In our PC benchmark and technical review, we mentioned having a consistent 60 FPS at high settings. This is how Warriors Orochi 4 is meant to be played, since the visual effects will dazzle you as you chain attacks endlessly. However, the question here is: Does it get old eventually?
Well yes, it does and it should. No Warriors game was ever immune to that concept. Mindlessly hacking and slashing your opponents will eventually become tiresome. Even the combination magic attack gets old. We’re wondering why Koei Tecmo didn’t decide to put more variations of the skill itself just to liven things up.
Will you enjoy it for hours on end? Possibly. Will you eventually get bored of the repetitive gameplay? Definitely. It took me a little over 15 hours to finish the game, and I’ve yet to obtain all the weapons and highest bond levels for several characters. Likewise, I haven’t given the Chaos or Pandemonium difficulties a try. So yes, it will depend on how much you’ve become accustomed to the series — or your disposition as an absolute completionist — that you’re willing to spend hours doing the same things over and over again.
Sometimes Bigger Isn’t Always Better
The sheer number of characters in Warriors Orochi 4 can be a boon or a bane to your enjoyment. For instance, at no point in time did I ever feel like using Guan Yu or Uesugi Kenshin. That’s because the combination of Kai, Kunoichi, and Naotora Ii was more than enough to cheese through entire hordes. I might throw Yukimura Sanada, Zhao Yun, or Magoichi Saika in there for good measure though. I barely bothered with the Power, Speed, or Technique archetypes since my focus was on the magic treasures they used. Some, like the Trident and Harpe, were extremely useful for traversing the battlefield or crowd control; others, not so much.
Another downside worth noting is the enemy officer AI when, oftentimes, you’d try push them to one corner of the map so you can unleash a devastating attack. Turns out they’d rather walk back to their initial area even though there’s no one there. The AI pathing is really odd in this game given that past titles would see them hound you to the ends of the earth.
In Warriors Orochi 4, Koei Tecmo really tried to craft a story. Sadly, you probably won’t pay attention to any exposition in the middle of a battle. In fact, I generally did not have time to look at the subtitled dialogues. I was just too busy keeping my combo count up. This means that the characters you remembered fondly might end up getting ignored whenever they play a role in some missions.
Final Thoughts
Warriors Orochi 4 performed admirably well in our benchmark test, and it seems Koei Tecmo have learned from lessons past. The magic system and seamless transitions between attacks make for a freshly dynamic gameplay experience. However, as with all Warriors games, it can get repetitive after a while. The visuals and effects are beautiful, but a gigantic cast, lousy officer AI pathing, and tacked on mechanics make it bloated at the same time.
Still, it’s a step up compared to previous outings and something that Koei Tecmo can build on moving forward. Then again, they’ll probably just end up doing that for a “Remastered,” “XL,” or “Ultimate” version.
Dynasty Warriors 9
Please note that we’ve also reported that Warriors Orochi 4 has questionable regional pricing for Southeast Asia, and so it might turn off potential buyers.
Warriors Orochi 4 Review Ign
I’m a small business owner who’s also writing on the side, contributing in various websites under the Enthusiast Gaming umbrella — Destructoid, Flixist, Daily Esports, PlayStation Enthusiast, and PC Invasion.
My Steam library has 1,131 games at the moment so we definitely have a lot of things to talk about.
Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
- Game: Warriors Orochi 4
- Consoles: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
- Publisher: Koei Tecmo
- Developer: Omega Force
A Warriors Orochi 4 review code was provided by the publisher.
If you’ve been racking up kills in the thousands range in Musou games for years, then you’ve probably been disappointed lately. Dynasty Warriors 9 took the franchise to an open-world format and failed miserably. Samurai Warriors’ last effort delivered a more focused narrative, but it did little to add any more new and interesting elements. Warriors All-Stars managed to be a decent release from Koei Tecmo, but it’s clear that the company’s biggest fans were looking forward to another Musou crossover series. The fantastical, historical icons of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors have come together once again in order to overcome a new struggle. Warriors Orochi 4 throws them into a new world full of button mashing tactics. And to be honest, that’s not a half bad deal.
This sequel’s fan service worthy plotline is easy to follow – the heroes of the Three Kingdoms and Warring States have been transported back to the world of Orochi. This event transpires due to the involvement of Zeus and his fellow Greek Gods. In order to get sent back to their respective time periods, the heroes of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors must recover a set of powerful bangles. And in order to complete such a lofty task, a lot of hacking n’ slashing must be done. The story premise isn’t anything to get super enthralled about – it’s simply a device that’s used to showcase some pretty nifty cutscenes.
Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
Warriors Orochi 4’s approach to combat definitely relies on the traditional mechanics utilized by past Musou games. But it also introduces a few new abilities to keeps things interesting. The three characters you choose to bring into battle come equipped with their own separate “Sacred Treasures,” which are divine tools that are used to activate different types of magic spells. Along with those battlefield clearing attacks, your party of warriors can also send out a vicious shockwave attack that’s always a joy to activate and watch in action.
When it comes to super formations, the characters that are integral to the story can now tap into the new “Deification” ability. Getting the chance to whip out a fave character’s overpowered form and wipe out hundreds of enemies in one fell swoop looks and feels incredible. In between mashing the light and heavy attack buttons are instances where you’ll need to switch up your attack patterns. Certain enemies can only be stunned and killed by magic attacks, plus a character’s Deification form is best used against extra powerful Gods and warriors. These added mechanics do a good job of freshening up the somewhat stale battle mechanics and making each stage playthrough a fun endeavor.
Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
On the playable warriors front, a bunch of fan favorites come along for the ride. Fans will be more than pleased to get the chance to dish out awesome combos again with Nobunaga Oda, Naotora Ii, Lu Bu, and several other feudal Chinese/Japanese icons. The five Gods who make their series debut here provide a worthy addition to the game’s already massive roster. It’s pretty awesome to dish out divine judgement and rack up an insane kill count with characters such as Zeus, Ares, and Odin.
The biggest issue with Warriors Orochi 4’s offering of playable characters is its omission of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate’s franchise collaboration warriors. It may be true that they’re being saved for the “Ultimate” edition of this release, but it’s still disappointing to not be able to use Koei Tecmo’s other icons. A 170 total roster count is cool and all. Acrobat reader dc free download. But expanding that huge playable character list with inclusions from Dead or Alive, Crimson Sea, or Mystic Heroes would have been even cooler.
Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
Warriors Orochi 4 does a lot to make sure its fans are kept busy. The main campaign and extra side missions throws players into a nice array of big battles. The game’s constant sense of progression and delivery of rewards will most definitely elicit feelings of “just one more mission.” And several light RPG and strategic elements offer interesting diversions in between each battle. The local and online multiplayer modes are also commendable features of this jam-packed sequel. Visually, Warriors Orochi 4’s graphical prowess is decent at best. The cinematics look good, but the big battlefields and foes you come across don’t look all that improved from the last release. Musou games aren’t exactly known for their strong graphical presentation. But that’s still no excuse for this entry to look like a last-gen game.
Warriors Orochi 4 Takeways
Koei Tecmo, Omega Force
Omega Force has done a good job of making sure this Warriors Orochi sequel is worth getting into. The character roster is massive – the inclusion of new Greek and Norse gods is the main highlight of such a huge lineup. During battle, a host of new abilities are fun to utilize against the abundance of enemies you’ll come across. Getting to do all that alongside a local/online ally and compete in competitive Capture-the-Flag matches just adds to the fun factor of this Musou release.
However, a few nagging issues keep this sequel from reaching top-tier excellence. The lack of playable Koei Tecmo franchise icons, the passable at best visuals, and an uninteresting plotline knock it down a few notches. Warriors Orochi 4 is the type of Musou release that diehard fans will get a kick out of. As for everyone else who’s grown tired of these types of games, this sequel won’t rekindle your past appreciation for them. Ultimately, Warriors Orochi 4 is still a good time.
Our Warriors Orochi 4 Review Score: 7.75 out of 10
Koei Tecmo successfully delivered with Warrior Orochi 4 an ultimate classic Musou experience, enjoyable by longtime fans and newcomers alike.
After successful attempts over the years to change the Warrior series’ monotony by applying its formula to various licenses, like Hyrule Warriors and Dragon Quest Heroes, Koei Tecmo released Dynasty Warriors 9 on February 2018. The game brought an ambitious change in order to finally evolve the series: the open-world factor. It was a completely new concept for developing studio Omega Force, and part of the fanbase reacted negatively to the change. Sankat mochan hanuman ashtak. It’s highly possible Omega Force continues in this new direction for its next games, having learned from its beginner mistakes with open-world, bringing forward an even better experience next time. Meanwhile, here we are now in October 2018, with the release of what might be the parting gift for traditional Musou games, Warriors Orochi 4.
“Warriors Orochi 4’s story is the most surprising aspect about the game.”
If you’re unfamiliar with classic Warriors games, also called Musou games, they’re basically action games where you ride into war, defeat thousands of enemies as rock music plays, starring characters and events loosely based on historical facts. Most maps consist of defeating enemy officers one after another until reaching the map’s boss. Warriors Orochi specifically, is a crossover series between the Warring States Era based series: Dynasty Warriors, and the Sengoku Era based series: Samurai Warriors.
Warriors Orochi 4’s story is the most surprising aspect about the game. By far, it’s not a masterpiece, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Omega Force tried its best to weave a coherent and interesting tale, and yet still full of service for fans of the series. The overall quality wasn’t a surprise anymore when I checked the credits, and saw Yoshitaka Murayama as the writer. Murayama-san was the director and writer for the first three Suikoden games. It is a refreshing point compared to most crossover media, which will satisfy themselves with a minimalistic story going “the worlds have merged and our heroes try to go back to their respective worlds”. This is indeed how Warriors Orochi 4 starts as well, with Greek mythology’s Zeus merging the worlds together, but the game has its share of cool moments and revelations.
The story follows the characters as they make contact with their past allies scattered in the new world, and try to unravel the secret behind their new reunion. Dynasty Warriors’ Liu Bei acts as the leader for the good guys, while Samurai Warriors’ Naotora Ii is more or less the main character. She’s part of the initial trio of characters you start with and has a lot of focus, something justified by her fan popularity. Naotora is also the first playable character to receive a Deification form, a new power-up introduced in this episode, exclusive to the eight most popular waifus and husbandos in the game.
As usual with the Orochi series, Warriors Orochi 4 lets you bring a team of three characters into battle, among which you can switch on the fly. You can choose a specific horse and four support characters as well. As you play and clear missions, you unlock new characters, customizing options and more. 170 characters are present in total, though a good portion does not play any big part in the story. Some are also only unlocked through optional side missions.
Each stage takes around 15 minutes to complete. There are also bonus assignments to complete to get more rewards, like defeating a certain officer before a time limit, clearing the stage without any allied officer defeated, or killing a certain number of enemies using one of the different magic types. Magic is the new gameplay element introduced in Warriors Orochi 4 along with Deification. There is a dozen of Sacred Treasures shared by the cast, allowing them to use different magic attacks. The Sacred Treasure a specific character uses is related to their skills or fighting styles. For example, characters who use water-manipulating attacks, like Samurai Warriors‘ Kai, get Poseidon’s Trident.
Each Sacred Treasure has three different types of magic attacks, each using the magic gauge differently. This magic system is a great addition, as mastering the Sacred Treasures is much easier than mastering all characters, thus giving you a headstart when playing a character you’re not accustomed to. Overall, magic allows you to rack up hits very easily, chain combos and break the guard of enemy officers. Once you get the hang of it, magic is very fun and breaks the usual repetitiveness inherent to Musou games. It’s extremely satisfying to chain up your combos and the various types of magic, filling up the Unity Magic gauge to finish up with the Unity Magic attack, the Kamehameha-like attack featuring your trio of characters plus the four supporting ones. Finishing enemies with Unity Magic grants bonus currency and experience, so you will be using it a lot. It’s a bit of a shame all characters share the exact same animation when activating it.
As usual with Musou games, Warriors Orochi 4 is quite easy on Normal difficulty, and random enemy soldiers only dare to attack when playing on Hard mode or higher. The traditional rank system rating your performance on missions is present as well, though I wish it actually showed the requirements for S Rank before starting the mission. As obtaining S Rank grants you a higher multiplier for the currency and experience acquired, it was frustrating to finish a mission, only to see the results screen notifying me I was a few seconds late for S Rank. Seconds I could have easily saved if I knew beforehand I had to finish the stage before that specific time.
Technically, the game isn’t bleeding edge graphically on Nintendo Switch but still holds up well. The characters models are revamped from Dynasty Warriors 8 and Samurai Warriors 4-II. Every single mission can also be played on co-op split-screen, without too much downgrade. This co-op split-screen mode is a very welcome inclusion, as while it is a traditional element of the series, a few past Musou games did not include it.
I played the Switch version specifically for this review, and the game is nice and smooth. Handheld mode makes the environments slightly uglier, but the characters models do not suffer much from it, and there are no annoying slowdowns either. It’s overall a great game to play on the go. The game also has an online Player vs Player mode, though I did not try it, as it requires Nintendo Switch Online membership.
Gamestop
Kabhi alvida naa kehna full movie youtube. With thrilling, classic Musou gameplay, new systems, and a fun story, Warriors Orochi 4 is a really great game that both fans of the series and newcomers can enjoy. It might be the ultimate Musou game following the same traditional blueprint Omega Force stuck with for almost two decades, as future games might all pick-up the open-world formula.
The Koei branch of Koei Tecmo has been known predominantly for one thing: the Warriors games. True, they did release management simulation titles such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga’s Ambition, but when someone says Koei, the immediate response is usually: “Oh Dynasty/Samurai/Hyrule/Fire Emblem Warriors (Orochi)“. They’ve built up a reputation as one of the leaders in the hack-and-slash/beat-em-up genre. That’s why Dynasty Warriors 9, their flagship franchise’s first foray into an open-world setting got such a bad rap; it was one of the most poorly optimized PC ports in recent memory. That being said, Warriors Orochi 4 presents a new opportunity. How will its graphics fare? Will performance be better compared to the mess from previous titles? Let’s find out in our PC benchmark and technical review.
Warriors Orochi 4 – System Requirements And Specs
Minimum:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Win 7/8.1/10(64bit required)
- Processor: Core I5 2400 or over
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or over
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 11 or over
- Additional Notes: 640×480 pixel over, High Color
Recommended:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Win 7/8.1/10(64bit required)
- Processor: Core i7 3770 or over
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or over
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 11 or over
- Additional Notes: 1920×1080 pixel, True Color
Author’s:
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i7 7700 @ 4.2 GHz
- Video: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1070 Ti (MSI Gaming)
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics Preset: High/Maxed out
- Network: 20 MBPS Unlimited Fiber-optic
- Display: Sony TV 1080p @60 Hz
Graphics Settings
First things first, navigate to your Steam interface and go to Settings -> In-Game -> In-game FPS counter. Activate that just so you could see your FPS and performance in real-time while playing Warriors Orochi 4.
As for the graphics settings, here’s what you’ll see in the game’s options:
As mentioned, I’m using the “High” preset, which means everything’s enabled or maxed out. I do have the game running at a consistent 60 FPS.
Coincidentally, Warriors Orochi 4 has V-Sync enabled by default, and the only options you have are to lock it at 60 FPS or 30 FPS. This is actually good news. Ideally, you’d want uncapped framerates, but Koei’s Warriors franchise has never been known for dazzling everyone visually. And so limiting us to 60 FPS might be a better idea so as to avoid any screen tearing. Again, not ideal, especially for those with higher-end displays and rigs, but it is what it is for those looking for consistent performance.
You can tweak all of the graphics settings to find out what suits you best. Mix and match certain options to improve performance. Shadows, particles, ambient occlusion, and level of detail (LOD) tend to be the usual suspects when it comes to performance drops, so you can change those up if you need to.
Finally, if you’re still having FPS or performance issues and you have an Nvidia graphics card, go to your Nvidia Control Panel. Add Warriors Orochi 4 to the list of programs and change Power Management Mode from “Adaptive” to “Prefer Maximum Performance.” It’s the same thing we did in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 to optimize the game to run at very high framerates. Hopefully, this will allow you to get a slight boost in Warriors Orochi 4 as well.
Graphics Comparisons
Next, let’s take a look at some screenshot comparisons based on the various presets. These ones are for the High preset which I’m using:
All right, the game does look gorgeous. At a consistent 60 FPS, I haven’t experienced any stuttering or slowdowns at all after several hours of playing; no performance hits. Animations were crisp and fluid, and the cuts to show Combined Magic supers were flawless. You will, however, notice that Yukimura Sanada’s feet are passing through that bridge there. Texture overlap tends to be a problem with these games. While you won’t normally recognize them, once you do it does become glaring.
Medium preset:
For the medium preset, Warriors Orochi 4 still looks decent. It could help with your framerate if you have a lower-end machine. At the same time, no one’s going to barge in your room and ask why you’re playing an iPhone game.
Low Preset:
Ouch! While the background may look decent for low graphics settings, one look at the character and face models will tell you that something’s definitely off. Take a look at those peasant soldiers surrounding Yukimura and you’ll swear that they looked like discount mannequins. Hell, even mannequins today have a more human-like expression than those guys.
You might think this is just relegated to Mock Battles. After all, these are the cannon fodder the game throws your way in this mode. Well, prepare to meet them in actual missions as well! So yes, unless you want to have nightmares about faceless spear-wielding troopers chasing you around, better avoid using the low preset if you can help it.
Special Effects Graphics Comparisons
Of course, the main selling point of Warriors Orochi 4 is the special effects that you can spam all over the battlefield. How would they look? Well, let’s check. I’ve arranged the images from low to high presets this time around so you can see how the special effects have improved based on the settings. I used the Gullinbursti Boar as an example.
Display, Audio, Controls, And Network
One more important setting you’ll want to change is in the Display options. If you want to lessen the screen clutter, just change the health gauges option to only show the ones for officers. We don’t really need to know how much health peasant soldiers and cannon fodder have, now do we?
For audio, keep subtitles on since the game is fully voice-acted in Japanese. This is actually much better than having an English dub (something that has plagued Koei Tecmo games for a long time).
For controls, well, given that Warriors Orochi 4 is a Koei Tecmo game, don’t expect to find decent use from a mouse and keyboard setup. As always, use a controller.
Lastly, while network options aren’t available in-game, it does have to be mentioned in a technical review. I have a 20 MBPS uncapped/unlimited fiber-optic connection. I am not 100 percent certain if there’s a problem with the netcode or matchmaking of Warriors Orochi 4, but I could not join a single game in progress. This means forgoing the game’s online aspect for regular Story Mode missions and Battle Arena. The only way you could probably get it to work was making your own lobby, getting the lobby code, and letting your friends know so they could join. Thankfully, local or couch co-op is possible, so you won’t have to face enemy hordes alone.
Final Thoughts
Warriors Orochi 4 has exceeded my expectations performance-wise. Unlike Dynasty Warriors 9, which has become a laughingstock due to not being optimized for PCs — and woefully, other systems as well — it seems that Koei Tecmo has learned from past lessons when it comes to Warriors Orochi 4. The animations are fluid, and there’s barely any slowdown. Barring a few caveats, Warriors Orochi 4 runs smooth as silk at 60 FPS.
Don’t forget to check out our official review of Warriors Orochi 4 for PC later this weekend.
I’m a small business owner who’s also writing on the side, contributing in various websites under the Enthusiast Gaming umbrella — Destructoid, Flixist, Daily Esports, PlayStation Enthusiast, and PC Invasion.
My Steam library has 1,131 games at the moment so we definitely have a lot of things to talk about.